Voters across the country headed to the polls Tuesday to weigh in on a slew of statewide and local elections that could serve as a bellwether for next year’s congressional and White House races.
Virginia Democrats have gained full control of the state’s General Assembly, dealing a major blow to Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s agenda in a race seen as an indicator of Democrats’ strength heading into 2024.
In Kentucky, voters reelected Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat in a solidly red state.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) also won reelection, following a competitive race against Democrat Brandon Presley.
In Ohio, abortion protections will be enshrined in the state constitution, as voters approved ballot measure Issue 1.
Read below for a recap of how the night shook out.
Democrat Daniel McCaffery is projected to win the vacant seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, according to Decision Desk HQ, giving Democrats a 5-2 majority on the state’s high court.
McCaffery, a Superior Court judge, won the election for the state Supreme Court seat against Republican Carolyn Carluccio, the president judge on the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas. The two were vying for an open seat that was vacated after Chief Justice Max Baer, a Democrat, died last year.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) was projected to win reelection over Democrat Brandon Presley to secure a second term, according to Decision Desk HQ.
Reeves was expected to have the edge in Tuesday’s election, although Presley put up what many observers considered a surprisingly competitive fight to try and flip the governor’s seat in the ruby-red state.
Reeves won with the backing of former President Trump in a conservative stronghold state that hasn’t elected a Democratic governor in 20 years.
– Julia Mueller
Virginia Democrats are projected to win control of both of the state’s legislature bodies, according to Decision Desk HQ, dealing a major blow to Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s agenda for the remainder of his term.
Democrats won control of the House of Delegates and maintained their grip on the state Senate. Tuesday’s election results mark a reversal from two years ago, when Youngkin was elected governor and Republicans won control of the House of Delegates.
Read the full story here.
President Biden touted the passage of an abortion ballot measure that passed in Ohio, which enshrines protections for the medical procedure in the state Constitution.
“Ohioans and voters across the country rejected attempts by MAGA Republican elected officials to impose extreme abortion bans that put the health and lives of women in jeopardy, force women to travel hundreds of miles for care, and threaten to criminalize doctors and nurses for providing the health care that their patients need and that they are trained to provide,” Biden said in a statement.
“Tonight, Americans once again voted to protect their fundamental freedoms – and democracy won,” he said.
-Caroline Vakil
Democrats maintained control of Virginia’s Senate on Tuesday, according to results from Decision Desk HQ, fending off challenges from Republicans throughout the commonwealth.
Going into Tuesday’s elections, Democrats held a narrow 22-17 majority in the state’s Senate.
– Julia Manchester
Democrats have successfully flipped a seat in New Jersey’s General Assembly in a a deep-red district that has not elected a Democratic legislator in three decades.
Decision Desk HQ projects that Democrat Avi Schnall has won a seat in the assembly, unseating incumbent Republican Assemblyman Ned Thomson. Voters in each New Jersey legislative district choose two assembly members to represent them, so the contest was a four-way race featuring two Democrats and two Republicans.
Schnall was elected alongside incumbent Republican Assemblyman Sean Kean in the 30th district.
– Jared Gans
New Jersey Democrat Luanne Peterpaul was projected to win her state House bid on Tuesday, according to Decision Desk HQ, becoming the first openly LGBTQ woman elected to the state legislature.
Peterpaul, a former county prosecutor and chair of the New Jersey LGBTQ rights organization Garden State Equality, secured about 28 percent of the vote Tuesday. Together with Democrat Margie Donlon, a physician and deputy mayor of Ocean Township, Peterpaul unseated Republicans Kim Eulner and Marilyn Piperno.
– Brooke Migdon
Votes are still being counted in Mississippi, and the state’s governors race is too close to call between Republican incumbent Tate Reeves and Democratic challenger Brandon Presley.
Independent candidate Gwendolyn Grey is trailing far behind the two contenders.
Polls closed at 7 p.m. CT.
Follow for more live results here.
The anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America lashed out after voters in Ohio passed a proposed constitutional amendment that enshrines abortion protections into the state Constitution.
“Issue 1 passed because abortion activists and outside Democrat donors ran a campaign of fear to Ohio voters: vote for this ballot measure or women will die,” SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement.
“Their pervasive lie that women will die without Issue 1 was propped up by massive ad spending, funded by George Soros and a left-wing media machine which operated like Planned Parenthood’s PR department,” she continued.
Dannenfelser argued that heading into 2024, “pro-life, pro-woman coalitions will need to devote more resources to compassionate pro-life messages for women and their children, combatting the campaign of fear from the other side.”
-Caroline Vakil
Gov. Andy Beshear thanked voters Tuesday night, telling a crowd that his reelection win against Republican Daniel Cameron, who had the backing of former President Trump, “sends a loud, clear message.”
“It was a victory that sends a loud, clear message, a message that candidates should run for something and not against someone,” he said.
“Tonight Kentucky made a choice, a choice not to move to the right or to the left, but to move forward for every single family,” he said.
Virginia Democrat Danica Roem was projected to win her election Tuesday, according to Decision Desk HQ, becoming the commonwealth’s first openly transgender state senator and the first out transgender person elected to a state Senate anywhere in the South.
Roem, 39, defeated former Fairfax County police detective Bill Woolf, a conservative Republican endorsed by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), who vowed to bar transgender athletes from competing on school sports teams if elected.
“I’m grateful the people of Virginia’s 30th Senate district elected me to continue representing my lifelong home of western Prince William County and greater Manassas,” Roem said Tuesday in a statement. “The voters have shown they want a leader who will prioritize fixing roads, feeding kids, and protecting our land instead of stigmatizing trans kids or taking away your civil rights.”
– Brooke Midgon
The five most recent Kentucky gubernatorial elections before this year’s race have seemingly been bellwethers for the presidential election the following year.
The party that has won the Kentucky governor’s race has also won the presidential contest the next year since 2003, when Ernie Fletcher was elected governor a year before George W. Bush was reelected president.
That trend continued most recently with Andy Beshear’s first election in 2019 before President Biden was elected in 2020.
-Jared Gans
President Biden spoke with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) on Tuesday to congratulate him on his reelection win, according to the White House pool report.
Beshear won reelection in a state that voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. An Emerson College poll from October found Biden with just a 22 percent approval rating among Kentucky voters.
— Julia Mueller
Former White House aide Gabe Amo (D) is projected to win the special election to fill the remainder of former Rep. David Cicilline’s (D-R.I.) seat in Rhode Island, according to Decision Desk HQ, making him the state’s first Black representative to Congress.
Amo beat out Marine veteran Gerry Leonard (R) to fill Cicilline’s vacancy in Rhode Island’s 1st Congressional District.
The seat went for Biden handily in 2020 and had been held by Cicilline since 2011, making Amo the heavy favorite to win the race.
-Caroline Vakil
Ohio voters have voted to legalize recreational marijuana, making it the 24th state to do so, Decision Desk HQ projects.
The measure, known as Issue 2, will allow adults aged 21 and older to possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana and grow up to six marijuana plants at home. It will also establish a 10-percent tax on marijuana sales. This comes after the state legalized medical marijuana years prior in 2016.
Nearly half of all states, and Washington, D.C., have now legalized recreational marijuana, and a handful more have at least legalized medical marijuana or decriminalized recreational use.
– Jared Gans