2022 United States elections

2022 United States elections

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Election day	November 8
Incumbent president	Joe Biden (Democratic)
Next Congress	118th
Senate elections
Overall control	Democratic hold
Seats contested	35 of 100 seats (34 seats of Class III + special elections)
Net seat change	Democratic +1
Map of the 2022 Senate races      Democratic gain      Democratic hold      Republican hold      No election Rectangular inset (Oklahoma): both seats were up for election
House elections
Overall control	Republican gain
Seats contested	All 435 voting seats +5 of 6 non-voting seats
Popular vote margin	Republican +2.8%
Net seat change	Republican +9
Map of the 2022 House races      Democratic gain      Republican gain      Democratic hold      Republican hold
Gubernatorial elections
Seats contested	39 (36 states, 3 territories)
Net seat change	Democratic +2
Map of the 2022 gubernatorial elections      Democratic gain      Republican gain      Democratic hold      Republican hold      Independent gain      No election

The 2022 United States elections were held on November 8, 2022, with the exception of absentee balloting. During this U.S. midterm election, which occurred during the term of incumbent president Joe Biden of the Democratic Party, all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate were contested to determine the 118th United States Congress. Thirty-nine state and territorial U.S. gubernatorial elections, as well as numerous state and local elections, were also contested. This was the first election affected by the 2022 U.S. redistricting that followed the 2020 U.S. census. The Republican Party ended unified Democratic control of Congress and the presidency by winning a majority in the House of Representatives^[1][2] while the Democrats expanded their Senate majority.^[3][4][5]

Midterm elections typically see the incumbent president's party lose a substantial number of seats,^[6][7] but Democrats outperformed the historical trend and a widely anticipated red wave did not materialize.^{[8][9][10][11][12]} Republicans narrowly won the House due to their overperformance in the nation's four largest states: Texas, Florida, and traditionally Democratic New York and California. The Democratic Party increased their seats in the Senate by one, as they won races in critical battleground states, where voters rejected Donald Trump-aligned Republican candidates. This was the fifth election cycle in history in which the president's party gained Senate seats and simultaneously lost House seats in a midterm, along with 1914, 1962, 1970, and 2018; it was the first midterm in which Democrats did so since 1962.^[13]

The Democratic Party's strength in state-level and senatorial elections was unexpected,^[13] as well as historic.^[14][15][16] They won a net gain of two seats in the gubernatorial elections, flipping the governorships in Arizona,^[17] Maryland, and Massachusetts;^[18] conversely, Republicans flipped Nevada's governorship.^[19] In the state legislative elections, Democrats flipped both chambers of the Michigan Legislature, the Minnesota Senate, and the Pennsylvania House of Representatives,^[20] and achieved a coalition government in the Alaska Senate. As a result of these legislative and gubernatorial results, Democrats gained government trifectas in Michigan for the first time since 1985,^[21] and in Massachusetts, Maryland, and Minnesota for the first time since 2015.^[22] 2022 is the first midterm since 1934 in which the president's party did not lose any state legislative chambers or incumbent senators. It was also the first midterm since 1986 in which either party achieved a net gain of governorships while holding the presidency,^[23][15][24] and the first since 1934 in which the Democrats did so under a Democratic president.^[25] Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida—previously considered one of the nation's most contested swing states—won reelection in a landslide. More generally, Florida was one of the only states where some evidence of the predicted 'red wave' materialized.^[26][27][28]

Six referendums to preserve or expand abortion access uniformly won,^[29][30] including in the states of Kansas,^[a] Kentucky, Michigan, and Montana,^[31] as did those increasing the minimum wage (Nebraska, Nevada, and Washington, D.C.) and expanding Medicaid coverage (South Dakota),^[32][33] while Maryland and Missouri became the latest states to legalize recreational cannabis.^[34] Voters in Nevada also approved ranked voting over first-past-the-post,^[35] while those in Illinois and Tennessee approved a state constitutional right to collective bargain and a right-to-work law, respectively.^[36][37]

Issues that favored Democrats included significant concern over extremism and threats to democracy among many Trump-endorsed Republican candidates, the unpopularity of the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision on abortion that reversed Roe v. Wade, and the weariness of a potential Trump 2024 campaign.^{[38][39][40][41]} Candidate quality played a major role, particularly in the Senate, as many Republican candidates became embroiled in scandals during the campaign that led to underperformances in key races.^[42] General turnout and turnout among voters aged 18–29, who are a strongly Democratic constituency,^[43] were the second-highest (after 2018) of any midterm since the 1970 U.S. elections.^[44][45] The elections maintained demographic trends that began in 2012, in which Republicans made gains among the working class,^[26] especially White people. Republicans continued their trend since 2016 of making gains among minorities, including Latinos. Democrats continued their trend of improved performance among White college-educated voters.^[46][47][48]

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