Politics

When will we know the US midterm election results?

AI SUMMARY

As the United States holds a closely contested midterm election for Congress, vote counting timelines will vary significantly by state.

All 435 seats in the US House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 Senate seats are up for election.
The first polling stations close at 6pm Eastern Standard Time in parts of Indiana and Kentucky.
Election officials release vote counts as ballots are processed, and news organisations analyse them to call races.
Alaska and Maine use ranked-choice voting, which can require extra rounds of counting if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote.
States like California, Arizona, Nevada, and Washington conduct elections primarily by mail or have mail-in ballot verification processes that can delay final results by days or weeks.
States such as Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin typically report results much faster.
There is no specific deadline for knowing all the results, and closely contested races may trigger recounts or legal challenges.