2022 Midterms Live Updates: Latest Election News From AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — Follow along for real-time, on-the-ground updates on the 2022 US midterm elections from The Associated Press. Live updates — all times Eastern — are produced by AP journalists around the country.

It’s a brand new day so we’re starting fresh, but you can find updates from Election Night itself at this page.

President Joe Biden completed a final round of calls to lawmakers on Tuesday’s ballot. Amid the many congratulatory and conciliatory calls to fellow Democrats, Biden also called Republican Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio.

The two have certainly had their policy differences — DeWine even ran campaign ads attacking Biden’s policies — but they have also found areas of common ground and mutual interest. Biden pushed for the CHIPS and Science Act, a $280 billion measure intended to boost the semiconductor industry and scientific research. Passage of the law was crucial to Intel Corp. agreeing to build a new $20 billion facility outside of Columbus, Ohio.

Pennsylvania Rep.-elect Summer Lee replaced Mike Doyle, a Democrat who did not seek reelection after nearly 30 years in Congress, AP’s Brooke Schultz reports. But to nab the seat, Lee had to face Mike Doyle — a completely different person and a Republican.

The identical names were the source of some puzzlement, and the Republican Doyle tried to capitalize on it by using the tagline #TheRight Mike.

In her speech to supporters Tuesday night, Lee nodded to the name conflation.

“When we were up against a wall — every single time when it looked like it was getting bleak: friends came from all over,” she said. “When we got into the name confusion and people started wondering, ‘What’s going on?’ We had friends come up.”

Despite outspoken activism by some families of the children killed at Robb Elementary School, voters in Uvalde County backed Gov. Greg Abbott over challenger Beto O’Rourke in the governor’s race.

Unofficial results show about 60% of voters in Uvalde County backed the Republican Abbott.

O’Rourke made the Uvalde attack a centerpiece of his campaign, at one point interrupting Abbott during a press conference shortly after the school shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers.

On the local level, the acting Uvalde police chief — who has been suspended — won a county commissioner’s race, prevailing over challengers that included the father of Jacklyn Cazares, who died in the school shooting.

The winner of Alaska’s US Senate contest is yet unclear, but whoever it will be, we know it will be a Republican. AP’s Mike Catalini explains how the state’s ranked choice voting will ensure either Republican incumbent Lisa Murkowski or Trump-backed Kelly Tshibaka will nab the seat.

“The reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.”

— GOP Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who won reelection Tuesday despite an array of controversies, including disciplinary action by the state bar, an FBI investigation and a long-delayed trial on securities fraud charges.

Summer Lee has made history as Pennsylvania’s first Black congresswoman with her election. AP called the race for the open seat Wednesday morning.

Lee has served as a state representative since 2019. Speaking to supporters at a watch party, she called their event a “scaled down thing, because we’ve been through it.”

“We had to go through ugly to get here,” she said. “There is a reason why there had never been a Black woman, ever, serving (in Congress) in the history of Pennsylvania. So I can assure you they’re not going to let up on us. They’re not going to relent.”

Lee defeated Republican Mike Doyle, who conceded Tuesday night.

— Doug Mastriano, Republican gubernatorial nominee in Pennsylvania

The AP called the Pennsylvania governor’s race for Democrat Josh Shapiro on Tuesday night, but Mastriano has yet to concede. He posted a photo of him on a horse with the above caption Wednesday morning and told a crowd of supporters Tuesday night that he would wait “until every vote counts,”

Meanwhile, Republican Mehmet Oz said he called John Fetterman to concede the race for Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat Wednesday morning, saying he wished him well “both personally and as our next United States Senator.” AP called the race in the early hours Wednesday.

“We are facing big problems as a country and we need everyone to put down their partisan swords and focus on getting the job done,” Oz said in a statement.

Abortion rights advocates in Kentucky saw clear vindication in that state’s rejection of an amendment that would have provided legal protections for a ban on abortions approved by the state legislature.

“We’ve been making the case throughout this campaign that Kentucky’s abortion laws are very extreme and are out of step with the majority of Kentuckians’ values,” said Rachel Sweet, campaign manager for Protect Kentucky Access, who also coordinated a successful fight against a similar amendment in Kansas earlier this year. “And I think that the results that we are seeing from the Amendment 2 vote are a repudiation of the policies that have been in place in Kentucky so far.”

Sweet, who spoke on a Zoom call organized by opponents on the amendment, said the fight is far from over, in Kentucky or anywhere else: “It is still an issue that we do not anticipate will be settled in any way, shape or form “

“There’s still a beating heart to American democracy.”

— US Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Wednesday morning

Maloney, who represents a New York district, acknowledged his own defeat after conceding to Republican Mike Lawler, a state assemblyman. The AP has not declared a winner in that contest.

Maloney said Nov. 8 would stand as a “signature day in American political history.”

“If we fall a little short,” Maloney said of his party, “we’re going to know that we gave it our all and we beat the spread.”

In a series of statewide ballot measures, voters affirmed abortion rights in the first major election after the overturning of Roe v. Wade earlier this year.

In Michigan, California and Vermont, voters enshrined the right to abortion in their state constitutions on Tuesday, AP’s Lindsay Whitehurst reports. And in Kentucky, a heavily Republican state, voters declared there is no state constitutional right to abortion.

“Let me say the message so it can be loud and clear — so that the radical left-wing teachers’ union can hear it, so that Joe Biden can hear it. Folks, Oklahoma won’t go woke.”

— Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s newly elected superintendent of schools who as a candidate targeted teachers over banned books

Why hasn’t the AP called control of Congress yet? Neither party has reached the thresholds required to win the House or Senate — and it’s not quite clear when that might change, explains AP’s Mike Catalini.

Here’s the difference between two phrases often bandied about during elections, from AP national political reporter Meg Kinnard’s glossary:

“Too early to call”: Races in which the vote count is active and ongoing and a winner is not yet clear are “too early to call.” That includes races in which the vote count may take several days.

“Too close to call”: Races in which the vote count has reached its primary conclusion – all outstanding ballots save provisional and late-arriving absentee ballots have been counted – without a clear winner are “too close to call.” AP formally declares a race “too close to call” via our election reporting system and in our news report.

Backers of recreational marijuana scored wins Tuesday night in Maryland and Missouri but in Arkansas, North Dakota and South Dakota legalization efforts went up in smoke.

Recreational pot use will be legal in 21 states following Tuesday’s results, AP’s Andrew DeMillo reports.

The votes come a month after President Joe Biden announced he was pardoning thousands of Americans convicted of simple possession of marijuana under federal law.

In Colorado, recreational pot has been legal for a decade. A ballot measure that would decriminalize certain psychedelic substances including so-called “magic mushrooms” remained too early to call Wednesday morning.

The AP has tallied votes and declared winners in US elections since 1848. AP’s Meg Kinnard and Mike Catalini take you through how we made the calls in 10 key races so far:

US Senate calls: John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire, Ted Budd in North Carolina, JD Vance in Ohio, Michael Bennet in Colorado

Governor calls: Tony Evers in Wisconsin, Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, Brian Kemp in Georgia, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, Greg Abbott in Texas, Ron DeSantis in Florida

The weather in the nation’s capital is cool and crisp on this Election Morning After, as control of Congress still hangs in the balance.

AP’s Brian Slodysko in Washington identifies the takeaways so far:

— Republicans hoped for a sweep that never came — but they could still wrest control of the House and Senate

— The increasing redness of Florida, a traditional battleground state, was reinforced by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio’s reelection victories

— At $16.7 billion, the midterms themselves are on track to be the most expensive ever, according to the nonpartisan OpenSecrets, nearly doubling the cost of the 2010 midterm elections

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