Midterm elections 2018, live results: Democrats take House of Representatives, Republicans keep Senate

The results of the midterm elections 2018 in the United States: the Democrats win the majority of seats in the House of Representatives, whilst the Senate remains in Republican hands. Follow the results live.

Live results of the midterms elections 2018

House of Representatives: number of seats

  • Projection for the Democrats – 230 (219 confirmed)
  • Projection for the Republicans – 200 (193 confirmed)
  • 412 / 435 races called

Senate: number of seats

  • Republicans – 51
  • Democrats – 45
  • 31 / 35 races called

Update 7 November, 08:00 (GMT +1) – As well as Congress, part of the United States also voted to elect their states’ governors: precisely, 36 governors were chosen – here are all the results of the gubernatorial races. If in Florida, Georgia and Ohio the Republicans held onto the post, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, New Mexico and Michigan have passed to the Democrats.

Read more: Midterms 2018, who won in the 36 states that voted for a new governor

07:00 – The majority in the House of Representatives is now held by the Democratic Party, whilst the Senate remains Republican. According to exit polls, the Democrats are projected to obtain 230 seats compared to 193 in 2016. The Republicans, instead, could stop at 200. Democrat Beto O’Rourke failed, narrowly, to take the Senate seat from Ted Cruz in Texas (a traditionally Republican state), losing by only 3 percentage points, whilst the latest polls – already optimistic – had put this gap at 7 per cent. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has become, as predicted, the youngest congresswoman ever, at the age of 29. The first two Muslim women and two Native American women were also elected to the House of Representatives. In general, for the first time the number of congresswomen in the lower chamber is over 100.

00:30 – Two thirds of voters considered their electoral choice a “referendum” on president Donald Trump, according to an exit poll by CNN. Furthermore, the majority expressed their dissent of the White House leader.

The proportion of non-white electors is equal to 28 per cent of the total, according to an exit poll by broadcaster ABC. This is a record: the previous one had been in 2014, with 25 per cent.


According to data collected by specialist society Catalist, more than 33 million people have voted by mail all over the United States. This is a much higher number than the 22.2 million in the latest midterm elections of 2014, according to data reported by CNN.


In Georgia, some voting machines (the computers used to express one’s electoral preference) were malfunctioning due to stormy weather. Many citizens queued for hours to vote.

midterm elections 2018 texas
Voters queuing in the city of El Paso, Texas, the hometown of Democratic Senate race contender Beto O’Rourke in Texas, up against Republican Ted Cruz © Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The midterm elections 2018 are held in the United States of America to renew the Congress on the 6th of November, the first Tuesday of the month, as per tradition. The electoral campaign has been characterised by a succession of scandals and the outcome is anything but clear, even though the Democratic Party seems poised to gain control of at least one of the two chambers, currently both in the hands of a majority of Republican Party members.

Midterm elections 2018, what is being voted on

The midterm elections are held every four years, two years after the presidential elections – the last of which were held in 2016 and saw the victory of Republican candidate Donald Trump after two terms (eight years) of Democrat Barack Obama‘s presidency. US citizens are called to renew the seats of a third of the Senate – or upper chamber of Congress – made up of a total of one hundred members, and all 435 members of the House of Representatives – the lower chamber – currently presided by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, a Republican.

A vote that is very much perceived as a referendum of public consensus on the policy direction undertaken by the United States after the election of Donald Trump as its 45th president. These midterms will also decide the governors of 36 out of the 50 states that make up the country. As well as house members, senators and governors, 6,665 state officials and around a thousand at the local level. In some states, citizens are also asked to express themselves on themes such as abortion and the legalisation of marijuana, through local referendums.

Read more:

midterm 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29 years old, is the Democratic candidate vying to become congressional representative of New York’s 14th district © Mario Tama/Getty Images

Follow the results of the midterms elections 2018 live

For the occasion we decided to tell the story of two special candidates. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29 years old, is set to become the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. A Democrat, she’s vying for the position of member of the House of Representatives for New York’s 14th district, which covers parts of Queens and the Bronx. Beto O’Rourke, 46, is gaining popularity all over the country even though he’s running “only” for the seat as senator for Texas and together they’re two of the rising stars of star-spangled politics. Here you can follow the results of hers, and others’, campaigns and find out whether a “blue wave”, the Democratic Party’s colour (the Republican equivalent being red), will overtake Trump.

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