Welcome back to WTOP’s election update. As the races head to the wire, our reporters will let you know about the latest developments every Friday.
Local elections | Nick Iannelli
Maryland launches in-person voting
Early in-person voting centers opened Thursday across Maryland ahead of the midterm elections, and there’s a lot going on across the state.
There are no incumbents in the statewide races. Marylanders will pick between Democrat Wes Moore and Republican Dan Cox for their next governor.
Democrat Anthony Brown is facing Republican Michael Peroutka in the race for attorney general, while the race for state comptroller features Republican Barry Glassman and Democrat Brooke Lierman.
All eight Maryland U.S. House seats are on the ballot, the most competitive being the seat in the 6th Congressional District, in Frederick and Montgomery counties, between Democratic incumbent Rep. David Trone and Republican Neil Parrott.
Voters are making decisions on five statewide constitutional amendments, including the legalization of recreational marijuana.
All seats in the state legislature are on the ballot, and there are hotly contested county executive races in Howard, Anne Arundel and Frederick counties.
Early in-person voting has been ongoing in Virginia for about a month already. It starts Oct. 31 in D.C.
Virginia races tighten up
It couldn’t be any closer in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, in the Virginia Beach area, where the latest polling from Christopher Newport University found the candidates tied.
According to the poll, Democratic incumbent Rep. Elaine Luria has 45% support from likely voters; her Republican challenger, Jen Kiggans, also has 45%.
Just 8% are undecided, the poll found.
Voters said economic concerns were driving their choices in the election, with 39% considering it the most important issue, followed by abortion (17%) and threats to democracy (14%).
Another U.S. House race that’s heating up is in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, which includes a portion of Prince William County along with Stafford, Spotsylvania and Culpeper counties.
Incumbent Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger is facing Republican challenger Yesli Vega, and the nonpartisan Cook Political Report just moved the race from “leans Democrat” to “tossup.”
Wrong ballots sent out in DC
The D.C. Board of Elections says 574 voters were sent mail-in ballots that have the wrong Advisory Neighborhood Commission races.
Nick Jacobs, a spokesman with the board, said the problem happened after redistricting in D.C.
“We have since been reaching out to those voters directly to let them know about the error, and we’ve invalidated their ballots, and new ballots are on their way to them,” Jacobs said.
Those affected are being told to vote using the new ballots, even if they already submitted the original ballot they were sent, because the original ballot will not be counted, Jacobs said.
Ballots that contained the errors were not for one particular ward of the District, and instead were “scattered” throughout D.C., he said.
Photo of the week
From Capitol Hill | Mitchell Miller
Millions of Americans have already voted
Early voting for the midterm elections is proceeding at a record pace in several states, and close to 15 million Americans have already cast their ballots.
Two weeks ahead of Election Day, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced that more than a million people in his state had already voted. By comparison, at the same point in 2018, 590,000 had voted, he said.
More Democrats are tending to vote early than Republicans, continuing the trend from 2020, while GOP voters tend to turn out in higher numbers on Election Day.
But it wasn’t always that way. In 2018, national figures show that slightly more Republicans voted early than Democrats.
Although election deniers baselessly argue that early voting and mail-in voting are more subject to fraud and could hurt Republicans at the polls, the GOP in 2018 won 213 House seats, 20 of 33 U.S. Senate seats and eight of 11 governor races.
But former president Donald Trump has continued to argue against early voting and mail-in voting. He has urged Republicans not to vote by mail, though he has voted absentee himself.
The former president lives in Florida, where more people have already voted by mail than any other state — more than 1.6 million as of Wednesday, CBS News reported.
The states that will decide the Senate
Several races could help determine which party controls the U.S. Senate, but right now it appears to come down to Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada. And all of the races remain extremely close.
In Pennsylvania, the political cognoscenti are trying to determine how much of an impact this week’s debate between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz will have on voters.
Even Fetterman’s most staunch supporters acknowledge his halting performance, coming as he recovers from a stroke, was at times tough to watch.
But his campaign reported that it raised more than $2 million after the debate and it immediately began airing an ad featuring a comment Oz made about abortion, in which he said women, doctors and “local political leaders” should be involved in decisions involving a woman’s choice.
Oz’s campaign, meanwhile, feels like it has momentum, and a CBS Battleground Tracker poll before the debate suggested the race is in a dead heat.
Oz is also getting an infusion of $6 million from national Republicans to help pay for ads in the final weeks of the campaign, Politico reported.
If Fetterman is unable to defeat Oz, Democrats can’t afford to lose in either Nevada or Georgia.
In Nevada, Democratic U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is locked in a tight race with Republican Adam Laxalt.
And in Georgia, Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock remains in a close race with Republican Herschel Walker. A second woman this week said that Walker, an opponent of abortion rights, pressured her to get an abortion when they were together in the 1990s.
Walker, as he has with the first woman’s claims, has said the woman is lying.
Outlook for House
Congressional Republicans are showing the strongest signs yet that they will retake the U.S. House.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball, at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, this week said for the first time that it has 218 House seats — the number needed for the majority — at least leaning Republican.
They consider 187 seats “safe Republican,” while only 156 are considered “safe Democratic.”
The Crystal Ball also changed four congressional races from toss-ups to “leans Republican.” A safe Democratic seat — Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y. — was shifted to “likely Democratic.”
Also, while Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., is still considered to be in a district leaning Democratic, the Crystal Ball says there are signs in that race and others “where Republicans may very well be closing in.”
Republicans would really like to knock off Maloney, since he’s the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is responsible for trying to win as many seats as possible for Democrats.
The Crystal Ball says Republicans will likely win the majority of the 22 races considered tossups.
“Overall, we’re thinking the likeliest House outcome is a GOP gain of somewhere in the high teens or low 20s,” said the Crystal Ball’s Kyle Kondik.
Republicans only need a net gain of five seats to retake the House.
Worth your time
From Nick Iannelli
- Local leaders demand to know why voters were directed to wrong polling places. (WJLA)
- Massive spending in Virginia’s most competitive U.S. House race. (13NewsNow)
- Obama gets involved in Maryland’s race for governor. (CBS Baltimore)
From Mitchell Miller
- Legal battles are already getting underway ahead of Election Day. (AP)
- Which way will most Latinos vote? (The Washington Post)
- Early signs of the blame game among Democrats. (Politico)
Dates to remember
- Oct. 28: The last day to request a mail-in or absentee ballot by mail in Virginia.
- Oct. 31: In-person early voting starts in D.C.
- Nov. 3: Early voting ends in Maryland.
