US midterms: what happened while Asia slept, and when to expect results

Polls began closing across the United States on Tuesday evening in midterm elections that will decide whether US President Donald Trump’s Republicans keep control of Congress, after a day of voting disrupted by floods and machine glitches but largely free of the problems many had feared.

The first polls closed at 6pm Eastern Time (7am Hong Kong time), with most states following over the next several hours. The last state to close polls will be Alaska, at 1am Eastern Time (2pm Hong Kong time). Some results could come within hours, but others may take days.

Here is what happened while Asia slept.

1. Democrats go in as favourites

Democrats need a net gain of three seats to take the House of Representatives and four to take the Senate. They entered election day with a nine-point lead in the generic congressional ballot, according to CNN’s poll of polls.

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Prediction markets on Tuesday afternoon implied a 94 per cent chance that Democrats would take the House and a 74 per cent chance they would win the Senate, according to analytics firm BetInt. Senate races to watch include Maine, Texas, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Iowa.

2. Floods and glitches, but few serious problems

Voting went relatively smoothly, according to the Associated Press. Flooding in Florida forced officials to move at least 19 polling stations, while heavy rain hampered voters in four southwestern states.

In New York’s Westchester County, ballot scanners stopped working after a software update, though voting continued.

At a polling station in Rockville, Maryland, home to a major Chinese community in the Washington area, Gary Wang, a Taiwanese immigrant and retired nuclear power plant worker, said he broadly supported the Democrats because of the party’s support for minorities.

“I’ve been in the US for a long time, and white supremacy does exist,” Wang told the South China Morning Post in Mandarin.

His wife, who grew up in Beijing and declined to give her full name, chose not to vote. “I used to vote for the Democrats, but now I find both parties have their problems,” she told the South China Morning Post.

3. A crackdown on illegal voting and pushback from the courts

As voters went to the polls, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted a warning on X that anyone who voted illegally would be found, arrested and prosecuted, adding: “There will be no escape.” Research and state investigations have found that non-citizen voting is extremely rare, the AP reported.

The US Justice Department deployed about 1,000 election monitors across all 50 states. Nearly two-thirds of the jurisdictions chosen have consistently voted Democratic, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

Courts have largely pushed back against the administration’s efforts to intervene in elections. The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Justice Department’s bid to force California to set aside mail ballots from more than 20,000 people it said might be non-citizens, Reuters reported.

4. Trump stays out of sight and hedges on the result

Trump spent election day out of public view and was due to host an election-night reception at the White House, according to his official schedule.

He has not committed to accepting the results. Asked a week before the election whether he would, he said: “I will if they are honest.”

5. Results could take days, and here’s why

The US Constitution gives the 50 states primary authority over the “times, places and manner” of elections, so rules on identification, postal voting and deadlines vary. Election security experts say this patchwork makes large-scale fraud very difficult.

It also slows the count. Postal ballots take longer because officials must check each signature against the one on file, and some states wait up to seven days for mail-in votes to arrive.

Florida usually counts within hours, while California and Alaska can take days or longer.

Still, a strong showing by either party could make control of Congress clear within hours.