Voters across the country cast the last ballots of the midterm elections Tuesday, deciding which party controls the House and Senate after courts blocked most of the Trump administration's attempts to shape how states run the vote.
Democrats need to gain four Senate seats and three House seats to take over the chambers, which would give them a check on President Donald Trump's agenda in his last two years in office. Much of the fight is in places Trump won comfortably.
On Monday night, the Supreme Court rebuffed the administration's bid to make California hold back thousands of ballots during its hunt for noncitizen voters. In a separate ruling the same night, a federal judge ordered the administration to stop sending election officials lists of people it alleges are noncitizens.
Less than two months earlier, the justices had turned down Trump's effort to restrict mail voting through changes at the Postal Service.
The Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security have pursued a sweeping search for noncitizen voters, including a predawn operation in California that produced more than two dozen arrests. Yet the administration's own record of cases shows such voting is extremely rare.
At Trump's urging, the Justice Department also sued to block certification of Alaska's results if the Senate race there favored Democrats, and it planned its largest-ever monitoring of polling places. The administration has said no armed federal officers would guard the polls.
A week before Election Day, Trump gave only a qualified answer when asked whether he would accept the results.
Early vote outpaces 2022
Turnout before Election Day ran ahead of the last midterms: 59.7 million ballots had been cast early in person or by mail as of Tuesday, compared with a little over 58 million in 2022.
Scattered technical problems kept some polls open late. In Pennsylvania's Chester County, a court gave three precincts west of Philadelphia an extra 30 minutes after machine setup issues delayed openings; anyone voting there after 8 p.m. EST will use a provisional ballot.
North Carolina's elections board unanimously approved extensions at several sites, the longest a 45-minute delay in Columbus County, where computer trouble pushed workers to backup paper poll books. Board attorney Adam Steele said statewide results would wait until the last site closes at 8:15 p.m. ET.
In Georgia, some Fulton County voters reported texts about polling place changes that the county did not send. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said about 1,000 early ballots would be rescanned after two scanners failed, a step he said would not delay results.
Heavy rain and flash flooding threatened access to polls in parts of Colorado, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. The Navajo Nation moved several polling locations, and Utah's San Juan County let voters cast ballots electronically.
Iran war and prices weigh on voters
The Senate contests drawing the most attention are in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio and Texas. Democrats have campaigned on Trump's weak approval rating, discontent over the war in Iran and affordability, while Republicans have leaned on social issues.
Gasoline prices have climbed by nearly a third since Trump launched the war against Iran, and diesel, which fuels the trucks and ships that deliver goods, has nearly doubled.
He couldn't do it just because he's the president,
Juventino Sáenz, 91-year-old Korean War veteran in McAllen, Texas
Some of Trump's 2024 voters are drifting. Of 11 swing-state voters who have backed him over the past decade and were interviewed regularly this year, only two said they were happy with his second term, and three of four in Pennsylvania planned to support Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro.
