Our live coverage of Tuesday’s election has moved here.
Our live coverage of Tuesday’s election has moved here.
Republican Glenn Youngkin declared victory in Virginia’s high-stakes governor’s race shortly after CNN projected he would win the state’s highest office, saying he would bring transformation to the state.
Youngkin, a Virginia businessman, then quickly moved on to the topic of education, a hot-button issue which helped propel him to victory over Democrat Terry McAuliffe.
McAuliffe has still not called Youngkin to concede the Virginia governor’s race, a campaign aide tells CNN, and said he is unlikely to do so yet tonight.
“We’re going to restore excellence in our schools,” he said. “We will invest the largest education budget in the history of the commonwealth… We’re going to introduce choice within our public school system.”
“We’re going to embrace our parents, not ignore them,” he said, referencing a comment made by McAuliffe in September in which he suggested parents ought not to tell schools what to teach.
Youngkin then moved on to the cost of living which has worried many Virginians as inflation rises, saying he would lower prices across the state and lower taxes.
“This stopped being a campaign long ago,” he continued. “This is the spirit of Virginia coming together like never before. The spirit of Washington and Jefferson and Madison and Monroe standing up and taking our commonwealth back.”
CNN’s Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting to this post.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is locked in a closer-than-expected race that remains too close to call as he tries to become the first Democratic governor in more than four decades to win reelection in the Garden State.
Like Virginia — where Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin won Tuesday night — New Jersey has trended reliably blue in federal and local contests but has a history of voting in the party out of the White House in its off-year gubernatorial races.
On top of their loss in Virginia, the close race in the Garden State – where President Joe Biden also won by double digits in 2020 — is a warning sign to Democrats looking to maintain their congressional majorities in next year’s midterms.
With 84% of the vote in, Murphy was tied with Republican Jack Ciattarelli.
Murphy’s lead over Ciattarelli in a number of late polls had appeared to be at or near double digits, giving Democrats confidence about the outcome and shifting some focus to the eventual margin – and what it could portend for next year’s midterm elections.
Murphy’s campaign acknowledges it’s been a tougher evening than they had expected, but they maintain that they will pull it out in the end, believing that the outstanding votes will break for them, a Murphy adviser said.
Read more about the New Jersey mayoral race here.
City Councilor Michelle Wu will become Boston’s next mayor after her more moderate challenger conceded, making her the first woman and person of color elected to the top post in the city’s history, CNN projects.
Wu is set to succeed acting mayor Kim Janey, Boston’s first Black and female mayor. Janey, then-City Council President, was next in line to lead the city when Boston Mayor Marty Walsh was named President Biden’s Labor secretary in January.
Wu, whose parents came from Taiwan, grew up in Chicago and attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where she was a student of then-professor Elizabeth Warren — the Massachusetts senator whom Wu calls one of her personal heroes and her biggest backers.
She was just 28 years old when she was elected to the Boston City Council in 2013, later serving as council president.
CNN’s Maeve Reston contributed reporting to this post.
The Minneapolis mayor race will head to ranked-choice tabulation after no candidate received a majority of first choice votes, CNN projects. That tabulation will take place tomorrow. Incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey has the lead among first choice votes.
CNN can project that Albuquerque, New Mexico, Mayor Tim Keller will win a second term and avoid a runoff.
CNN can also project that voters have approved Issue 24 in Cleveland, a ballot measure that will restructure police oversight.
Incumbent Mike Duggan will be reelected to a third term in Detroit, CNN projects.
In Seattle, Bruce Harrell will be the next mayor, CNN projects.
President Biden just landed in Washington, DC, from his Europe trip after a rough election night for Democrats.
CNN projected that Republican Glenn Youngkin will win Virginia’s high-stakes governors race, while incumbent Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy is facing a tight race against GOP candidate Jack Ciattarelli.
The election results come while Democrats in Congress are still working to garner enough votes in the Senate to pass Biden’s Build Back Better agenda.
The Atlanta mayoral election will go to a runoff, CNN projects.
Atlanta City Council President Felicia Moore, who currently leads the race against more than a dozen other candidates, will be a candidate for the runoff election on Nov. 30.
She will face either Kasim Reed or Andre Dickens. As of early Wednesday morning, CNN cannot project the second place winner who will face Moore.
icRepun Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin is speaking to supporters now.
CNN has projected he will be the winner of the race.
Earlier this evening before the race was called, Democratic challenger Terry McAuliffe thanked his supporters at his campaign headquarters and said “the fight continues.”
Watch the moment:
Republican Winsome Sears will be Virginia’s first Black, female lieutenant governor, CNN projects.
Moments ago, CNN projected businessman Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, will become Virginia’s next governor.
CNN’s Van Jones reflected on difficult electoral results for Democrats tonight, saying it was a “five-alarm fire” that requires the party to make rapid changes to avoid calamity in the 2022 midterm elections.
“This is a big deal,” said Jones, speaking shortly after CNN projected Republican Glenn Youngkin would win the governor’s office in Virginia, defeating Democrat Terry McAuliffe.
The governor’s race in New Jersey remains undecided but Republican Jack Ciattarelli maintains a lead over Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.
“That’s a big deal,” Jones continued. “That is a five-alarm fire.”
Jones went on to urge Democrats to “wake up tomorrow morning and figure out how to run back to regular folks” with the midterm elections around the corner.
Hear from CNN’s Van Jones:
Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who is running for governor of New Jersey against Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, told his supporters that the race has national implications.
CNN has not yet projected a winner in the race.
“Sometime real soon, when we can declare unequivocally a victory, we will begin to fix the state of New Jersey and make this state someplace where everyone feels confident they can live, work, retire, start a business, raise a family,” Ciattarelli said.
Businessman Glenn Youngkin will become Virginia’s next governor, CNN projects. He’s the first Republican to win statewide office there since 2009.
Youngkin defeated Democratic candidate and former Gov. Terry McAuliffe. The result may be a sign of trouble for Democrats heading into the midterms.
Watch the moment CNN makes the projection:
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy addressed supporters early Wednesday amid a tight gubernatorial race.
Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy is now on his way to the election night event, aides tell CNN.
This is a shift from earlier in the evening when they were not planning on him speaking before the race was called.
CNN has not yet projected a winner in the race.
The GOP candidates in the two big gubernatorial races tonight are currently leading their races. The New Jersey race is tightening.
CNN is yet to make a projection in the races, but here is where things stand now:
Virginia (with 95% of the estimated vote):
New Jersey (with 74% of the estimated vote in):
The races are being closely watched as a roadmap of what could come in the 2022 midterms.
Boston mayoral candidate and city councilor Michelle Wu spoke Tuesday night declaring her historic victory, moments after City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George conceded in the Boston mayoral race.
“From every corner of our city, Boston has spoken. We are ready to meet this moment. We are ready to become a Boston for everyone,” Wu said to a crowd of supporters Tuesday night.
While CNN has not yet projected a winner in the race, Essaibi George congratulated Wu Tuesday on becoming the first woman and the first Asian American to be mayor of Boston, which has long been led by White men.
Wu, whose parents came from Taiwan, grew up in Chicago and attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where she was a student of then-professor Elizabeth Warren — the Massachusetts senator whom Wu calls one of her personal heroes and her biggest backers. She was just 28 years old when she was elected to the Boston City Council in 2013, later serving as council president.
“I want to offer a great big congratulations to Michelle Wu,” Essaibi George said to a crowd of supporters at her election night party.
CNN’s Maeve Reston contributed reporting to this post.
Justin Bibb will win the Cleveland mayoral race, CNN projects.
With the Minneapolis ballot measure to replace the police department rejected and the more moderate mayoral candidate in Boston remaining in the race, CNN’s Political Director David Chalian said that this election “we are learning a lot about where voters are in the Democratic Party right now and how Democrats are going to, in Washington, start to position themselves around this.”
Chalian said that tonight’s results are making clear of how voters believe the Democratic Party should be positioned.
“We have spent the last several months in Washington observing a battle between moderates and progressives up on Capitol Hill. Voters, I think, are making clear, again, not just tonight, which they are doing that. But in this year’s primary season, in the presidential primary of where they believe the Democratic Party should be positioned,” he said.
CNN is yet to project a winner in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races.
Watch the moment:
Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s campaign assessment right now is that the northern, heavily Democratic New Jersey counties have not yet reported, and they believe that they’ll need another hour or so for those tallies to come in, one aide says. They’ve seen heavily GOP counties come in so far.
Once those Democratic areas come in, they expect the overall numbers to move in their favor, the aide said.
Earlier in the evening, every time New Jersey numbers came on screen, there was cheering — but those cheers have not been heard in a while.
CNN has not yet made a projection in this race.
Annissa Essaibi George conceded the Boston mayoral race to Michelle Wu with a large share of the vote still waiting to be counted.
CNN has not yet projected a winner in the race.
No matter who wins, Boston will make history with the city’s voters set to elect a Democratic woman of color after a long history of leadership by White men.
Both Wu and Essaibi George have highlighted their family roots as the daughters of immigrants. Wu’s parents came from Taiwan. Essaibi George is the daughter of a Tunisian father and a Polish mother, who was born in a displaced persons’ camp in Germany.
Democratic candidate for governor Terry McAuliffe ran the wrong kind of campaign for Virginia’s current political climate, said CNN political commentator Van Jones, as Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin continued to enjoy a lead.
Specifically, Jones criticized McAuliffe’s approach to education and his suggestion at a debate in September that parents shouldn’t have the right to tell schools how to educate their children, a moment seen as a major turning point in the race.
“This guy was able to run as a champion for parents,” said Jones of Youngkin.
“You’ve got a lot of parents who just spent a year home schooling their kids and forced to do so. To tell those people ‘look, we don’t care what you think about education,’ that is a big insult,” he said.
“I think he might have been a great governor, I hope he gets a chance to be a governor, but I don’t think he ran a great campaign,” Jones concluded.
The Virginia gubernatorial race is still too early to call and CNN has not made a projection.
Watch the moment:
Aftab Pureval will win the Cincinnati mayoral race, CNN projects.
His opponent, David Mann, wrote in a tweet conceding the race, “Congratulations to Aftab on his well-deserved victory. I have spoken with him and wish him nothing but the best, and it has been the honor of my lifetime to serve this community as a councilman, mayor, and member of congress throughout my career. Thank you, Cincinnati!”
Democrat Terry McAuliffe, who is running for Virginia governor, thanked his supporters at his campaign headquarters and said “the fight continues.”
“The fight continues,” McAuliffe added. “We’ve got to make sure we’ve got to protect women’s right to choose here in the Commonwealth of Virginia. We’ve got to make sure that everybody gets quality, affordable health care here in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
CNN has not yet called the Virginia governor’s race.
Hear McAuliffe address his supporters:
Loud cheers are breaking out every few minutes in a packed ballroom of Republican Glenn Youngkin supporters.
The Virginia gubernatorial race is tight, but still too early to call. CNN is yet to make a projection.
Republicans, who have long felt the governor’s mansion was out of reach, are feeling victorious tonight even though the race has not been called by CNN.
Virginia GOP Chair Rich Anderson said, “I’ve been saying for months that it would be the great Republican clean sweep of 2021.”
“The party, as any party does in order to remain relevant, retools itself from time to time. And it brings new and fresh blood with vision on board, and the people will respond to that,” he added.
Voters decided to keep the city’s police department intact after protests against George Floyd’s killing spread across America last year, CNN projects.
The proposed amendment would have removed the Police Department from the city’s charter and replaced it with a new Department of Public Safety.
Some background: The measure — which was proposed by an advocacy group called Yes 4 Minneapolis — came more than a year after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, a Black man, in May 2020.
Floyd’s killing at the hands of a White police officer sparked national and global protests against police brutality, racism and social injustice.
Like elsewhere in the country, few issues have loomed larger for the people of New Jersey over the past two years than the Covid-19 pandemic.
Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s adviser believe that tonight’s outcome in the New Jersey gubernatorial race will have much to do with how voters view the governor’s handling of the pandemic.
“This will always kind of be the Covid election,” is how a Murphy adviser broadly handicapped the governor’s reelection bid.
The latest Monmouth poll had Murphy with a clear lead over Republican Jack Ciattarelli on the question of who people trust on the handling of Covid-19 — 45% to 26%. The pandemic is also a top issue for voters in the state, along with jobs and the economy, taxes and education.
The Murphy camp is certainly hoping that any positive headlines about the pandemic will prompt voters to credit the incumbent governor who has been out front dealing with the pandemic in New Jersey day in and day out, rather than his lesser high-profile challenger.
Buffalo’s four-time mayor Byron Brown has opened a wide lead over his opponent, self-described Democratic socialist India Walton, with about a third of the vote counted.
Brown’s lead tonight comes after he mounted an aggressive write-in campaign to keep his job after suffering a stunning primary loss to Walton in June.
Walton hopes to chart a course to become the first socialist mayor of a major American city in more than 60 years.
The race has attracted national attention as a proxy battle between progressives and moderates over the direction of the party in New York.
While some state Democratic leaders like Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Buffalo native, have stayed neutral, many big-name state Democrats have endorsed Walton, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Democrat Terry McAuliffe, who is running for Virginia governor, is on his way to his campaign headquarters, with an arrival set for about 10:10 p.m. ET, a campaign aide tells CNN.
He is expected to address his (dwindling) ballroom of supporters.
Republican Mike Carey wins Ohio’s 15th District special election after former GOP Rep. Steve Stivers’ resignation, CNN projects.
With that projection, the House balance of power will be:
While most political eyes have been on Virginia, a state with a slightly larger population, New Jersey, is also holding its gubernatorial election night.
I wrote over the weekend that the polls indicated that Gov. Phil Murphy would win re-election.
He’d do so, despite President Biden being unpopular in the state. Why? History tells us that incumbent governors tend to win or lose based on how voters feel about them, not the President.
Tonight, it looks like the result in New Jersey will probably be a bit tighter than the polls indicated. Still, Murphy looks to be holding on where he needs to be on track to win.
If the result ends up being closer than expected, it could be viewed as a sign that no one (not even a fairly popular governor) is totally safe from the GOP momentum. It’s also an indication that strongly liked incumbents can at least fight the tide.
With 33% of the estimated vote in, the New Jersey governor’s race is shaping up to be a tight race. The race is still too early to call.
This is where things stand:
Murphy is looking to become the first Democratic governor of New Jersey to be re-elected since 1977.
Democrat Eric Adams will be the next mayor of New York City, succeeding Bill de Blasio, CNN projects.
Adams, a retired New York Police Department captain, will be the second Black mayor in New York’s history.
Adams, a Brooklyn native who currently serves as its borough president, embraced a public safety message during his campaign and won a chaotic Democratic primary this summer on a promise to both beef up and reform the NYPD amid worries over a rise in violent crime.
Adams defeated Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.
CNN’s Gregory Krieg contributed reporting to this post.
Glenn Youngkin, the Republican nominee in Virginia’s governor’s race, is outperforming past Republican candidates, especially in red counties, says CNN’s John King, with the race still undecided.
Youngkin “is exceeding his metrics just about everywhere on the map, including the red you see in the Republican counties in Virginia,” King said.
“Glenn Youngkin is exceeding his metrics, exceeding the performance of the Republican candidate four years ago, and turning out Trump voters in Trump country,” he said.
King noted, however, that despite Youngkin’s lead, the race is far from finished with the majority of votes still uncounted.
“We know there are still hundreds of thousands of votes to be counted,” said King. “…Conceivably you could catch up in an area that has been blue before, but can you catch up?… How much do you cut into the lead?”
Watch John King’s analysis:
As the Terry McAuliffe campaign headquarters at the Hilton Hotel in McLean is filling with supporters tonight, with a line to the cash bar and music playing on the speakers, a grim reality is setting in among top supporters who believe Glenn Youngkin’s strength will be too much to overcome.
“This isn’t going Terry’s way,” one longtime donor and supporter said diplomatically. “That’s clear tonight.”
The race is still too early to call and CNN has yet to project a winner.
To reporters in the room, campaign aides had all but stopped spinning scenarios of places they can turn to for optimism tonight. For hours, they have pointed to higher turnout in suburban areas, but now it’s unclear which candidate that benefitted.
The official added: “Unofficially, it’s rough.”
Another top party official used an expletive to describe to CNN the situation facing Democrats tonight in Virginia — even as so many votes remain uncounted.
McAuliffe remains at his home nearby, but one Democrat close to him says he understands the predicament he is in tonight — that explains his note to supporters earlier.
Several hundred people remain — and the mood is upbeat, but the sound on the TVs is down.
Ed Gainey will be Pittsburgh’s first Black mayor, CNN projects.
Gainey, a Democrat, bested Republican Tony Moreno, a retired Pittsburgh police officer.
During the campaign, Gainey said he wanted to make Pittsburgh the country’s most “safe, affordable and diverse” city and touted police reform and affordable housing. He has represented Pittsburgh in the state legislature since 2013 and previously worked for Pittsburgh Mayors Luke Ravenstahl and Tom Murphy.
During an exchange over mayoral efforts to tackle violence in a recent debate, Gainey emphasized using a public health blueprint.
In comparison to the last Virginia governor’s race, Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe is falling short in rural counties, while Republican candidate Glen Youngkin is making gains, said CNN’s John King.
“Just one example, I just want to pop down here,” King said while pointing to rural counties like Wythe County, Virginia. “You look at these smaller counties and think this doesn’t matter. Every vote matters in a close race,” he said, highlighting that Youngkin is performing stronger than the previous GOP candidate who ran for governor.
King added that while those gains wouldn’t offset giant counties like Fairfax, Youngkin is outperforming McAuliffe in Chesterfield County, which was blue in previous elections.
“If you look down here, this is the race four years ago. It’s all blue,” King continues, while pointing to the the Virginia Beach area.
“This is the presidential race in 2020. You got to click another button to get to presidential, it’s all blue. So Glenn Youngkin has to flip some counties to change the map. There’s no guarantee they will end up this way. We’re still counting votes in some of these places,” he explained.
Mayor Francis Suarez will remain mayor of Miami, CNN projects.
The Republican mayor won re-election, clinching his second term.
Suarez was expected to win on Tuesday and defeated a field of four other candidates.
During his first term in office, Suarez sought to bring a new era of technology, innovation and entrepreneurship to Miami and welcomed up-and-coming industries such as cryptocurrency in the city.
The GOP mayor has been critical of former President Trump and at odds with Florida’s GOP governor Ron DeSantis, especially when it comes to Covid-19 policies. Suarez in August said he wouldn’t oppose mask mandates in schools amid rising Covid-19 cases, despite DeSantis’ attempts to block mask mandates in the state.
In his speech Tuesday night, Suarez said “we’re not decreasing funding for our police, we’re increasing funding for our police,” “eliminating homelessness,” “taking care of our cultural facilities,” “giving every child an opportunity to succeed no matter where they’re born,” and “creating city charter schools.”
He also talked about his vision to create a transit system, focus on climate and emphasized maintaining low taxes.
“We are going to do this by being united, not divided,” Suarez said. “We’re gonna do this by being humble. We’re gonna do this by working hard. We’re gonna do this by not caring who gets the credit and by ignoring the haters.”
With about 71% of the estimated vote in, Republican Glenn Youngkin is widening his lead over Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor’s race.
Here is where things stand:
The race remains too early to call. The contest in a state that has trended blue could offer clues about Democrats’ uphill battle to maintain control of the US House and Senate in next year’s midterm elections.
Polls are closing in the New York City mayoral race. Eric Adams, who won the narrowest of contests to become the New York City Democrats’ mayoral nominee, is seen as the lead contender.
Adams, a former police captain, has sought to portray himself as a working class candidate. While he has been dismissive, and sometimes confrontational, with the party’s left-wing activists, Adams has also — on issues like public safety, the centerpiece of his campaign — adopted some progressive ideas about prevention and early intervention.
CNN’s Eric Bradner, Gregory Krieg, Dan Merica and Maeve Reston contributed reporting to this post.
Virginia Department of Elections Commissioner Christopher Piper described Election Day turnout as “heavy” and said a number of precincts experienced ballot shortages today.
When asked about turnout today, Piper – who is bald – quipped: “I stopped making predictions. I lost my hair as a result of it.”
He added: “We’ve seen heavy turnout.”
Piper said ballot shortages were among the “hiccups” that election officials encountered.
Some precincts in Appomattox, Floyd, Powhatan, Madison, Albemarle and Chesterfield counties required additional ballots.
There were also unconfirmed reports of people being turned away or told to wait because they weren’t wearing masks. Piper said the department reiterated their standing guidance that no voter could be turned away from voting for not wearing a mask.
Ultimately, Piper described a “particularly smooth day” of voting.
“You can trust the process,” Piper said. “There are so many procedures and policies in place that ensure the security of the vote is paramount,” he explained.
The Virginia governor’s race is still too early to call as votes continue to come in.
With 56% of estimated votes in, here’s where things stand:
Why this race matters: The face-off is seen as a litmus test for what could come in the 2022 midterms. A win for McAuliffe would be a validation for President Biden and his agenda, while a win for Youngkin, who has tried to walk a fine line on handling support from former President Trump, would provide a jolt of momentum for Republicans and could provide Republicans running in competitive states with a roadmap for handling Trump.
As votes in the Virginia governor’s race come in, CNN’s David Chalian said the percentage of early and absentee votes will grow before the end of election night and may favor the Democratic candidate.
“We think at the end of the day, when every vote is counted, 37% of the electorate will have voted early, that means 63% of the electorate will have voted on Election Day,” Chalian said.
“If indeed Terry McAuliffe is significantly outperforming Glenn Youngkin in early vote, as Democrats hope, that he was banking on that vote, that growth from the current 23% of the estimated 37%, is an opportunity for McAuliffe to try to make up and dig into some of this Youngkin lead,” Chalian said.
It’s still too early to call a winner.
Watch Chalian’s report:
President Biden called New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy yesterday, according to a source familiar with the phone call.
The two men’s conversation — which took place in the middle of Biden’s foreign trip — is a sign of the President monitoring events back home closely.
Republican Jack Ciattarelli is taking on incumbent Democratic Gov. Murphy in the state’s gubernatorial race.
Democrat Shontel Brown wins Ohio’s 11th District special election to succeed Marcia Fudge, who resigned the seat to become Biden’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development, CNN projects.
Brown’s victory is not expected to impact the balance of power for the US House of Representatives, where Democrats hold a slim 3-seat majority.
That’s because Ohio is having another special election in the 15th congressional district to fill the seat of GOP Rep. Steve Stivers, who resigned earlier this year. That district is considered safely Republican, and GOP Rep. Mike Carey is expected to win Tuesday.
With Brown’s projected win, the House balance of power will be:
CNN’s Chandelis Duster contributed reporting to this post.
Polls are closing in New Jersey. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy is facing off against GOP challenger Jack Ciattarelli.
If victorious, Murphy would become the first Democratic governor of New Jersey to be re-elected in more than 40 years.
Votes continue to come in the high-stakes and tight Virginia governor’s race. It’s too early to call a winner.
With just about 26% estimated vote in, this is where things stand:
Why this race matters: The face-off is seen as a litmus test for what could come in the 2022 midterms. A win for McAuliffe would be a validation for President Biden and his agenda, while a win for Youngkin, who has tried to walk a fine line on handling support from former President Trump, would provide a jolt of momentum for Republicans and could provide Republicans running in competitive states with a roadmap for handling Trump.
In a note to supporters tonight, Democrat Terry McAuliffe strikes an interesting tone, saying “win or lose” his campaign did everything it could.
A few lines from this note, which does not thunder with McAuliffe’s signature booming enthusiasm.
Democrats will likely need to “run it up and run it up big” in Fairfax County in northern Virginia in order to win tonight, says CNN chief national correspondent John King, with the state’s governor race still too early to call.
King explained that the western and more rural part of the map is often dominated by Republicans, sometimes requiring Democrats to compensate in the large cities and suburbs.
“You know Republicans are going to fill in this map,” he said pointing to the western part of the map. “These are smaller less populous counties.”
Watch CNN’s John King report:
Supporters have gathered at Glenn Youngkin’s campaign headquarters in Virginia. They include advocates for children with disabilities and people in the faith community.
They say they were inspired by Youngkin‘s message on parental rights and were drawn to the campaign in the last few weeks. Richmond pastor Valerie Coley said she’s traditionally supported Democrats but is supporting Youngkin now especially in light of Terry McAuliffe‘s comments at a debate in September when he was discussing parents.
“When Terry said that, it was over,” said Coley, who has advocated in Richmond for Youngkin among Black voters there.
The room is slowly starting to fill up, and dinner is being served here. On the menu: Cheeseburger sliders, Virginia ham and biscuits.
Volunteers are poised to collect and count in-person early votes and the first batch of mail-in ballots, reports CNN congressional correspondent Ryan Nobles, who is situated outside a counting room in Fairfax, Virginia.
After counting the votes, the volunteers will then take in tabulations from precincts around the county and process them. The first batch of results will be significant and then slow throughout the night.
“The room where the count takes place is not connected to the internet in any way,” he adds.
The Terry McAuliffe campaign is urging voters still waiting in line at polling places to remain until they cast ballots – even after 7 p.m. ET, the official poll closing time.
Long lines were reported in several suburban areas across Northern Virginia and beyond – places that have been Democratic strongholds – which is among the signs of hope McAuliffe aides are pointing to tonight.
In Fairfax and Falls Church, for example, Democratic officials said turnout exceeded their projections. Yet one aide conceded that Republican Glenn Youngkin could also benefit from a surge in Election Day voting.
As for McAuliffe himself, he is now waiting at home tonight in McLean, Virginia, watching the election results with his wife, kids, extended family and dogs. A friend who spoke to McAuliffe said the former governor knows that his rival closed in a position of strength. But McAuliffe is still remaining optimistic for high turnout – and early vote – to deliver him to a narrow victory tonight.
Polls are closing in the unexpectedly tight Virginia governor’s race as Democrat Terry McAuliffe seeks a second nonconsecutive term in a contest that could offer clues about his party’s uphill battle to maintain control of the US House and Senate in next year’s midterm elections as President Biden’s approval ratings slide.
For months, McAuliffe has tried to energize Democratic voters by painting his opponent, Republican Glenn Youngkin, as a Donald Trump “wannabee,” who would reverse progressive gains in a state that the former President lost by 10 points last year.
Youngkin has accepted Trump’s endorsement but skillfully kept his distance while centering his campaign on local issues like education and trying to portray himself as an advocate for parents.
In the final days on the campaign trail, McAuliffe referred to Youngkin as “Glenn Trumpkin” and argued that a Youngkin win in Virginia would embolden Trump ahead of possible 2024 White House bid. Youngkin has tapped into some of Trump’s rhetoric to appeal to the GOP base — talking about “election integrity” early in the race, for example — but steered clear of a tele-rally that Trump held Monday night for the Republican ticket.
Read more about this race here.
Republican Glenn Youngkin, who is running for Virginia governor, is already on hand at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, where he plans to speak later tonight, a campaign aide said.
His campaign has two war rooms set up – one with about 15 strategists and data gurus who will be closely watching returns, and a second break-off room, the aide said.
The data point the aide said the campaign will be tracking is whether Youngkin runs five percentage points ahead of former President Donald Trump in counties like Loudoun and Chesterfield, the home of Richmond.
Then, in rural areas that are much more favorable ground for Republicans, it’s more of a question of whether turnout keeps pace.
Youngkin’s aides don’t have guidance yet on how they would handle a too-close-to-call scenario or when he would speak.
Two voters in Ashburn, Virginia, told CNN’s Brian Todd they moved from southwestern Virginia and switched parties ahead of this election.
Neither wanted to share their names, but they discussed the reasons why they voted.
A female voter said women’s rights, the pandemic and education are the main reason why she wanted to cast her ballot:
A male voter said that divisive politics and a need to make sure a majority of Virginians are heard are the reasons he voted:
Watch Brian Todd’s interview with voters:
Polls are closing in Virginia at 7 p.m. ET. The gubernatorial contest between Democratic former Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Republican businessman Glenn Youngkin will be the most closely watched race of the night, serving as a key bellwether for national sentiment headed into the 2022 midterms and beyond.
A win for McAuliffe would be a validation for President Joe Biden and his agenda, while a win for Youngkin, who has tried to walk a fine line on handling support from former President Donald Trump, would provide a jolt of momentum for Republicans and could provide Republicans running in competitive states with a roadmap for handling Trump.
A Glenn Youngkin campaign aide tells CNN that they are seeing good turnout in Chesterfield and the Republican areas of Fairfax and Loudoun.
The Republican candidate ended his campaign in Loudoun County emphasizing his movement for parental rights that has resulted in a burst of enthusiasm for him in the final weeks of this tight race.
Youngkin and his campaign are counting on parents to deliver him a big victory. The power of him leaning into the cultural battle over “parents rights” has been key to Youngkin’s surge, with their energy and enthusiasm clear at every rally.
While Virginia may be trending blue, the power of those cultural battles will be tested tonight and could provide a playbook for Republicans in competitive races nationwide.
More people voted early in this year’s Minneapolis election than any other municipal election over the past 45 years. It is the first electoral test for the city since the murder of George Floyd. For example, compared to the last municipal election here in 2017, early voting is up 143%.
It’s up 488% compared to the same election in 2013. The Minneapolis city clerk told CNN today election turnout is driven by competitive races and contentious ballot questions and this election has both.
By the first five hours of Election Day, about 30% of the entire registered voting population in Minneapolis had cast their vote either early, by mail or in person.
These are numbers that have no doubt increased significantly with less than three hours to go in Election Day, and as part of an election that’s shaping up to be one of the most enthusiastic in a long time for the city.
Terry McAuliffe’s campaign is optimistically watching high turnout in northern Virginia, specifically Fairfax County and Prince William County, a source close to the campaign tells CNN.
Turnout in both vote rich, Democratic strongholds is already more than 100% of their 2017 levels.
They are also monitoring a situation in Albemarle, the county surrounding Charlottesville, where there was such high turnout that some precincts ran out of ballots. It’s a good sign for McAuliffe, the source said, but could delay counting.
Democrats believe that a high turnout election will benefit the McAuliffe campaign. But this source offers a word of caution: “It’s high everywhere, so…”
Candidates from both parties urged voters to take advantage of the commonwealth’s early voting opportunities this year — and it appears the voters listened.
Nearly 1.2 million voters — about 20% of registered voters in the commonwealth — cast their ballots early this year. That’s six times size of the early vote in 2017. Officials are hoping that new measures put in place will make for smoother counting this time.
For the past week, election officials across the state have been scanning in early votes – checking envelopes for any issues, removing ballots from those envelopes – to get them ready for counting.
The Virginia elections commissioner says most localities plan to start tabulating the results of their early votes as soon at the polls close at 7 p.m. ET, which officials hope will help expedite tonight’s returns.
About one-third of Virginia voters call the economy the most important issue facing the state, placing it ahead of other topics that have dominated headlines in the closing days of the gubernatorial race.
Just under one-quarter said education is most important, about 16% chose taxes, about 13% chose the coronavirus pandemic and just about one-tenth chose abortion.
Terry McAuliffe voters call the economy their top issue, followed by the coronavirus and education. Among Glenn Youngkin voters, the economy is the top issue, followed by education and taxes. Most voters take a positive view of Virginia’s economy, with about 55% rating it either excellent or good.
Although the pandemic isn’t at the top of voters’ concerns, nearly all are vaccinated and a smaller majority are supportive of workplace vaccine mandates. The vast majority of Virginia voters, close to 9 in 10, say they’ve gotten at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, and just over half say they favor employers requiring their employees to get vaccinated.
Virginia voters in this year’s elections hold negatives of both President Biden and former president Donald Trump.
Biden, who won comfortably in Virginia last year, now faces approval ratings significantly underwater in the state, with roughly 43% approving and the rest disapproving – likely a consequence both of his declining ratings since taking office, and the composition of the electorate that turned out to vote this year. Only about one-fifth of voters say they view their vote as a way to express support for Biden, with nearly 3 in 10 saying it’s a way to express opposition, and the remaining half of the electorate saying Biden wasn’t a factor. Trump isn’t any more popular in the state: only about 4 in 10 view him favorably.
A narrow majority of voters say the Democratic Party is too liberal overall, while fewer call the Republican Party too conservative. About two-thirds of Democratic voters say their own party’s ideology is about right, while about two-thirds of Republicans say the same of the GOP. Independents are less satisfied with either party, with only about one-fifth saying the Democratic Party is generally about right, and only about one-third saying that of the GOP.
More than 80% of voters say they’re at least somewhat confident that votes in the state will be counted accurately, but slightly below half call themselves very confident. Democrats are roughly four times as likely as Republicans to say they’re very confident about election accuracy.
Note: The Virginia CNN Exit Poll is a combination of in-person interviews with Election Day voters and telephone and online polls measuring the views of absentee by-mail and early voters. It was conducted by Edison Research on behalf of the National Election Pool. In-person interviews on Election Day were conducted at a random sample of 35 Virginia polling locations among 1,211 Election Day voters. The results also include 2,068 interviews with early and absentee voters conducted by phone, online or by text. Results for the full sample have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.
CNN’s David Chalian reports on the exit polls:
With one hour before polls close in the Commonwealth, Terry McAuliffe’s campaign is still knocking on doors and texting voters – particularly in the Northern Virginia, Richmond and Charlottesville areas – trying to maximize what they already believe has been higher-than-expected Election Day turnout.
A campaign aide says the doors of 160,000 voters have already been knocked on today, focusing on Virginians who helped elect Joe Biden last year, but have yet to cast ballots this year. Tonight, that remains an urgent challenge for McAuliffe: Trying to get those remaining Biden voters to the polls for McAuliffe.
Virginia isn’t the only governor’s race tonight. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Tuesday is trying to become the first Democratic governor in more than four decades to win reelection in the Garden State, which has trended reliably blue in federal and local contests but has a history — like Virginia — of voting in the party out of the White House in its off-year gubernatorial races.
Murphy’s lead over Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli in a number of late polls appears to be at or near double digits, giving Democrats confidence about the outcome and shifting some focus to the eventual margin — and what it could portend for next year’s midterm elections.
In 2020, President Biden defeated Donald Trump by nearly 16 points in the state. Polling in the gubernatorial race suggests the results could be closer, but likely not as close as in Virginia, the country’s only other gubernatorial race on Tuesday.
Like Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial nominee, Glenn Youngkin, Ciattarelli — a businessman and former state lawmaker — has kept Trump at arm’s length, instead hammering Murphy over taxes and what he argues are the effects of the Democrat’s pandemic response on businesses. The race could also be a bellwether over the public’s attitudes toward mask and vaccine mandates, which Murphy has championed in a state that has suffered about 28,000 Covid-19 deaths.
The final Monmouth University survey of the race showed Murphy with leads ranging from 8 to 14 points, depending on different models of who comes out to vote. Those figures represent a modest narrowing of the race, in which taxes — an issue that Ciattarelli leads on — were listed as the top issue. But Murphy’s advantage on the question of who voters trust more to handle the pandemic is significantly higher, 45% to 26%, a gap that has stayed mostly consistent since the summer. The Democrat also enjoys a sizable lead on a question that has roiled the Virginia race — education and schools — leading Ciattarelli by 15 points.
Read more about the New Jersey governor’s race here.
Virginia’s electorate in the governor’s race between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin doesn’t look the same as it has in recent elections, according to the preliminary results of CNN’s Virginia exit poll.
Roughly 73% of the electorate is white, compared with about two-thirds in the 2017 governor’s election and the 2020 presidential election, when President Biden won the state by 10 percentage points.
The electorate is also older than it was a year ago — only about 9% are under the age of 30, compared to 20% in 2020.
The 2021 electorate is slightly more female than it is male, about 53% to 47%.
Note: The Virginia CNN Exit Poll is a combination of in-person interviews with Election Day voters and telephone and online polls measuring the views of absentee by-mail and early voters. It was conducted by Edison Research on behalf of the National Election Pool. In-person interviews on Election Day were conducted at a random sample of 35 Virginia polling locations among 1,211 Election Day voters. The results also include 2,068 interviews with early and absentee voters conducted by phone, online or by text. Results for the full sample have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.
Tuesday’s elections in states and cities across the country are set to serve as an early gauge of Joe Biden’s presidency and the political environment headed into next year’s midterm elections.
The Virginia governor’s race will be the most closely watched contest of the night, with both Republicans and Democrats viewing the neck-and-neck contest as a key bellwether for national sentiment headed into the 2022 midterms and beyond.
On the Democrat side: Terry McAuliffe, who served as governor from 2014 to 2018, is seeking a historic second stint in a commonwealth that bars governors from serving successive terms. McAuliffe has leaned heavily on the state’s leftward tilt during his campaign, hoping to energize the same voters who helped Biden win Virginia by 10 percentage points in 2020. And he has done so by spending millions on television ads that link his opponent, businessman-turned-politician Glenn Youngkin, to former President Donald Trump, a political figure who remains deeply unpopular in some of Virginia’s most vote-rich areas.
On the Republican side: Youngkin has tried to walk a fine line with Trump: Although he has kept him at arm’s length in the close of the campaign, he has focused on many of the same issues that animated his base in 2020. Youngkin’s campaign has sought to localize the race, hoping to animate a series of grievances aimed at Democratic leadership in Richmond and Washington, from what is taught in Virginia schools to how strict the commonwealth should be in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Why it matters: Every four years, the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races — one year after the presidential election and one year before the midterms — are seen as a test of the national political environment. Usually, but not always, the pendulum swings against the president in the commonwealth. In fact, the only recent governor’s race to buck that trend came in 2013, when McAuliffe claimed victory the year after then-President Barack Obama was reelected.
Would a Youngkin win simply reflect the typical ebb and flow of American politics — or would it indicate Democrats’ narrow congressional majorities are in grave danger in next year’s midterms? It’s impossible to know, and the electoral landscape could look very different by the fall of 2022.
But a strong performance by Youngkin would send a clear message that with Trump out of office, the dynamics have shifted, and Democrats cannot rely on their Trump-era gains in the suburbs — which turned Virginia increasingly blue – to be permanent in a post-Trump environment.
Boston will make history regardless of who wins on Tuesday, with the city’s voters set to elect a Democratic woman of color after a long history of leadership by White men. Polls have shown Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu, a champion of progressive policies, opening a commanding lead over her more moderate rival Annissa Essaibi George, who also serves as a Boston city councilor-at-large.
Both women have highlighted their family roots as the daughters of immigrants. Wu’s parents came from Taiwan. Essaibi George is the daughter of a Tunisian father and a Polish mother, who was born in a displaced persons’ camp in Germany.
Essaibi George, who has joked about her thick Boston accent, has tried to make her experience as a lifelong Bostonian a key credential, pitching herself as a small business owner who attended and later taught in Boston schools, coaching softball on the side.
Wu grew up in Chicago and attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where she was a student of then-professor Elizabeth Warren — the Massachusetts senator whom Wu calls one of her personal heroes and her biggest backers. Wu has written extensively about how she was forced to put her career plans on hold in her early twenties to deal with her mother’s mental illness, becoming a caregiver for her mother and younger sisters at the age of 23. She was just 28 years old when she was elected to the Boston City Council in 2013, later serving as council president, and made it a point to tend to some of her duties with one of her young sons on her hip.
Essaibi George has criticized some of Wu’s ideas as too unrealistic and expensive, particularly her fare-free transit proposal, which Wu calls “Free the T.” She opposes rent stabilization, stating in a recent debate that rent control would unfairly impact “our mothers, our fathers, our grandparents — those who have built some legacy wealth for their families” and predicted it would create greater gentrification while driving families farther out of the city. Wu countered that the policy would give struggling renters predictability and a chance to stay in their communities. “I’m not willing to sit back and say this is something that is impossible and we’re not going to fight for what we need,” Wu said during the recent NBC10 Boston, Telemundo Boston and NECN debate.
Essaibi George has opposed reallocating funding from the Boston Police Department’s budget toward programs to address root causes of crime and said the city needs about 300 more officers. Wu’s public safety plan includes diverting non-violent 911 calls to alternative response teams and “civilianizing” traffic enforcement by having trained, unarmed civilian personnel handle routine infractions like broken tail lights or rolling stops — a change that she says could reduce the risks of armed confrontations.
Wu finished ahead of Essaibi George in September’s preliminary municipal election, but both women dispatched other candidates including Acting Mayor Kim Janey, who replaced Marty Walsh when he became President Joe Biden’s Labor Secretary in March.
Essaibi George’s decision to stake out a position in the center of the electorate helped her stay in the game in the first round by winning over more conservative and moderate White voters, said Tufts University political science professor Jeffrey Berry. But that positioning has presented challenges in her one-on-one race with Wu in a city where most of the electorate is to the left of center.
Voters across the country are heading to the polls Tuesday to decide a series of races that will test the national political landscape and the direction of the Democratic Party a year into Biden’s presidency.
Here are the key races to watch today:
Read about other key races here.
President Biden said he thinks Democrats will win in Virginia and New Jersey’s gubernatorial races tonight when asked about the impact his agenda could have on the states’ elections.
“I think that this is going to be what we all knew from the beginning; it’s going to be a tight race, and it is tight. And it’s going to get down to turnout,” Biden said about the Virginia race after making remarks at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland.
Biden was asked if the close race in Virgina between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glen Youngkin is a rebuke of his presidency.
He added that he hopes every eligible voter in Virginia and New Jersey shows up to cast their ballots today.
Voters in Chesapeake, Virginia, said they were voting in the state’s gubernatorial election based on their concern about issues such as education, increasing taxes on gas and veterans’ health care.
In the 2020 presidential election, 52% of voters in Chesapeake voted for Biden, while 46% cast ballots for Trump.
One in 11 Virginia residents is a veteran. Vicky Harley-Mapp, a retired health care worker who now takes care of her veteran husband, said she voted for Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe because of his focus on military community issues.
“I’ve always been a believer in helping people,” Harley-Mapp told CNN. “I’m in the medical field, and I see a lot of the stuff that he’s done for the community, and I know more about him than the other.”
Another voter, William Halley, said he chose to vote for McAuliffe because of his support for unions. Unions have publicly endorsed and contributed to his campaign. McAuliffe has also pledged to repeal the state’s right to work law, which prohibits unions from forcing workers to pay union dues.
Antoinette Person, a teacher, said she decided to vote for McAuliffe because he supports educators. Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin has made education his top issue, promising to increase the number of charter schools in the state. But Person said she was motivated by McAuliffe’s past support of education in the state.
Joseph and Patricia Beach said they chose to vote for Youngkin because they traditionally vote Republican, and they believe Republicans “have got a better way” of getting the US “out of the slump we’re in,” citing high gas prices.
Youngkin has proposed eliminating Virginia’s grocery tax. The couple also expressed support for Youngkin’s opposition to increasing gas prices.
When asked by CNN about the lack of final action on an infrastructure bill and what that means for his state’s gubernatorial race, Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said:
Republicans, meanwhile, say they hope even a close race will put pressure on House and Senate Democratic moderates to defect and help sink Biden’s agenda.
“I think it’s going to get harder to get their agenda right now,” said Senate GOP Whip John Thune. “If [McAullife] wins, he’s going to win narrowly. It’s still going to represent a huge collapse from the margin of last time.”
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio voted for his successor at the Park Slope Library in Brooklyn on Tuesday afternoon.
De Blasio greeted poll workers before putting in his ballot.
Polls close at 9 p.m. ET in New York.
“Please vote on the five ballot items on the back of the ballot, really important. I’m urging a yes vote on all of them,” he said.
When asked if and when he’ll announce his potential run for governor, de Blasio said, “I want to continue public service.”
“Everyone’s got to make their own decisions in their own time,” he said.
Fourteen candidates are vying to replace Democratic Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who’s not running for reelection. The contest is happening amid alarm about the spike in violent crime, as well as controversy over an effort by the residents of the wealthy community of Buckhead to break off from the capital and create their own city.
Bottoms announced in May that she would not seek another term after a trying year dealing with vandalism that followed demonstrations over George Floyd’s death, the GOP-controlled legislature restricting voting rights and the rise in violent crime, which she framed — to criticism — as a “Covid crime wave.” Tuesday’s election will be the first since the changes to the state’s election laws, which may offer a window into how those restrictions could impact turnout in 2022 and 2024.
Polls suggest that a large swath of the electorate is still undecided, but the leading candidates — including former Mayor Kasim Reed, City Council President Felicia Moore and Councilman Andre Dickens — have put Atlanta’s crime rate at the forefront of their campaigns. Shooting incidents have increased dramatically from 406 at this point in 2019 to 629 this year, according to Atlanta Police Department’s Oct. 23 report.
Crime is motivating some of the Buckhead leaders who are championing the split from Atlanta. Foes say the proposal to break off the wealthy, 25-square-mile area in northern Atlanta would be a devastating blow to the city’s revenues, while proponents say crime has simply become unmanageable and that they are not seeing a high enough return for their tax dollars.
There are also concerns about low morale at the Atlanta Police Department and the number of officers who have departed the force. Tensions were high after Bottoms called for the firing of the officer who shot Rayshard Brooks in the parking lot of a Wendy’s in June of 2020. (The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Brooks scuffled with officers and ran away with one of their stun guns). In June, CNN reported that more than 200 officers had resigned or left the force over the previous year, and only about 60 were hired during that period, according to the department.
Dickens’ public safety plan calls for increasing the police force by 250 officers during his first year in office while requiring new training for every police department employee on de-escalation techniques and racial sensitivity. Moore has proposed police reform measures like requiring the release of body camera footage within 72 hours of every police shooting and requiring officers to intervene when they see excessive force. But she has also spoken at length about the need to address low morale in the department — by promising incentives for retired police officers if they return to their jobs for one to two years, for example.
Reed, who served two terms as mayor from 2010 to 2018, has pointed to the lower crime rates during his tenure. His public safety plan includes hiring and training 750 new police officers, ramping up implicit bias and de-escalation training and tripling the city’s network of traffic cameras and license plate readers.
Moore and some community activists have raised concerns about the federal corruption investigation that led to indictments of some of Reed’s former aides, which has been exhaustively chronicled by The Atlanta Journal Constitution. In a statement provided to CNN by Reed’s campaign, his attorneys said that during an Aug. 2021 call, two assistant US Attorneys informed the candidate’s lawyers that the federal inquiry was completed and had been closed. The US Attorney’s office did not respond to CNN’s request to confirm those details.
The controversy drew fresh scrutiny recently when Richard Rose, president of the NAACP’s Atlanta branch, issued a public rebuke of Reed on the group’s letterhead — stating that voters deserved better. Reed responded by posting a statement on Instagram that said his campaign was “being attacked because we sought and received the support of the women and men of the Atlanta Police Department at a time when crime and violence is devastating our city.” The general counsel of the NAACP subsequently sent a cease-and-desist letter to Rose noting that the bylaws for units of the NAACP prohibit officers from endorsing candidates for office.
A key note about this race: If no candidate receives at least 50% plus one, Atlanta will hold a run-off election on Nov. 30 to decide the winner.
Americans are heading to the polls today to decide a series of races that could hold clues of what is to come in the 2022 midterms.
Voters are casting ballots for governor in Virginia and New Jersey, lieutenant governor in Virginia, and mayor in several major American cities, including New York, Boston, Atlanta, Buffalo and Minneapolis, among other races. And while the balance of power isn’t expected to shift in Congress, there are also two special elections for the US House in Ohio, plus a special election primary for a House seat in Florida, happening on Tuesday.
Here’s everything you need to know about how to watch CNN’s special coverage.
What time does CNN’s coverage start?
“Election Night in America” will stream live for subscribers via CNNgo (CNN.com/go and via CNNgo apps for Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, Chromecast, Samsung Smart TV and Android TV) and on the CNN mobile apps for iOS and Android. “Election Night in America” will be available on demand via cable/satellite systems, CNNgo platforms and CNN mobile apps.
Special TV coverage on CNN begins at 6 p.m. ET.
Jake Tapper will anchor coverage in Washington from 6 p.m.-12 a.m. ET with analysis from Dana Bash and Nia-Malika Henderson. John King will also be live in the Election Center from the CNN Magic Wall, as well as David Chalian, who will cover exit polls, and Pamela Brown at the Voting Desk. Anderson Cooper, Van Jones, David Axelrod, Gloria Borger and Scott Jennings will provide additional coverage from New York City and Don Lemon will anchor the network’s late-night coverage from 12 a.m.-2 a.m. ET.
Election resources
Before the polls close, CNN Politics has several Election Day resources available to readers:
What time do polls close?
Virginia is primed to elect a woman of color as its next lieutenant governor at a time when the commonwealth is facing a series of challenges that directly affect its Black and brown communities.
Regardless of whether it will be Democrat Hala Ayala or Republican Winsome Sears, they’ll draw from their personal experiences as the next administration tackles challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic, crime, education and racial justice, even if they don’t agree on the political remedies.
She will also face the aftermath of a racial reckoning that has brought the commonwealth into a national spotlight. The killing of George Floyd last year ignited emotional debates about policing and the lingering presence of Confederate imagery. The pandemic has hit Black and brown communities especially hard, and a contentious debate over the teaching of race in the state’s public schools has emerged as a major issue in the gubernatorial campaign’s final weeks.
Politically, Virginia has gone from a slave trading mecca that once held the capital of the Confederacy to a state that has trended blue in recent elections.
Two women of color are now running for its second-highest office, nearly two years after the state’s General Assembly elected its first female speaker of the House in its 400-year legislative history.
All of this makes Ayala and Sears’ candidacies “critical” for this moment in the commonwealth’s history, Kimberly Peeler-Allen, a co-founder of Higher Heights, a national organization that seeks to help Black women get elected to political office, told CNN.
Read more about Virginia’s lieutenant governor’s race here.
More than a million voters have already cast their ballots as of this morning, according to Christopher Piper, commissioner for the Virginia Department of Elections.
“The Virginia General Assembly and the governor have worked together to expand access to the ballot, with early voting no-excuse, and other initiatives that have made voting easier here in Virginia,” he said.
Piper said it’s been a “pretty quiet” Election Day so far, with very minor issues at some polling locations, including a delayed 10-minute start at a middle school in Henrico County due to a medical situation. There were also reports of some scanner machines being jammed in the county, and “election officials are following the proper protocols” while waiting for technicians.
A power outage was reported at a polling location in Chesterfield County, and Piper said crews are on the scene. In Loudoun County, government office phones were offline this morning but now are back up, he added.
He encouraged voters to get out and cast their ballots today.
Results will become official on Nov. 15 when they are certified by the state board of elections.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams is all but certain to become New York City’s next mayor, replacing Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio after vanquishing more progressive rivals in the primary. He’s poised to be the city’s second Black mayor, following the late David Dinkins who lost reelection in 1993.
Adams has largely shrugged off attacks from Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, a founder of the volunteer neighborhood safety group known as the Guardian Angels and a media personality, who’s tried to cast him as a career politician. They have disagreed over issues like the vaccine mandate for city workers, which Adams mostly supports and Sliwa does not.
Adams, a retired captain in the New York Police Department, often returns to the message that helped him win the June primary — that he is uniquely positioned to address the rise in crime in the city and lure back New Yorkers who left during the pandemic, as well as the tourists who are so critical to the city’s economic success.
Adams won that primary by promising to step up policing throughout the city, but he also struck a careful balance: vowing to deal with police misconduct and highlighting his efforts to call out racism within the NYPD, as well as his testimony in the court case that ended the unlawful use of “stop and frisk” policies. (Adams says the tactic should be used, but under lawful guidelines.) He has argued that the current debate over policing has presented a false choice — a with-them or against-them mentality that he says undermines the community’s need for police.
Adams built his primary victory in part on the strength of his base in the city’s working-class outer boroughs, including places like the predominantly Black neighborhoods of Southeast Queens, rather than the most liberal enclaves of Manhattan and Brooklyn. But he has hustled since the primary to try to unify the city’s voters behind him in the hopes of entering office with a strong mandate.
Under overcast skies and a chilly drizzle, Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin arrived on Election Day to a quiet Rocky Run Middle School in Chantilly.
“We feel pretty darn good, I have to say,” Youngkin said. “I’ve just felt this great surge of momentum for the last six to eight weeks.”
Youngkin has run a strong race in a Democratic-trending state — which, if that translates into victory, would match Virginia’s longstanding pattern of rewarding the party that lost the White House the year before. A Youngkin victory would be no surprise, though polls generally show a close race with Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe.
Youngkin said the takeaway from his campaign is that local issues are top of mind for voters.
After a brief press gaggle, with all but one voter nearby, Youngkin asked for a basketball and walked to the back of the school to shoot hoops. He sunk his first shot from the free throw line and missed a number of other shots from the paint before his staff told him he had to run. His campaign bus continues to idle in front of the school.
The political world eagerly awaits results from Tuesday’s Virginia gubernatorial race, but they won’t yield much new information about 2022 and beyond.
Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin has run a strong race in a Democratic-trending state — which, if that translates into victory, would match Virginia’s longstanding pattern of rewarding the party that lost the White House the year before. A Youngkin victory would be no surprise, though polls generally show a close race with Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe.
Republicans nationally are poised for gains in next year’s midterm elections – reflecting the nation’s longstanding pattern of rewarding the party that lost the White House two years before. So long as Americans remain uneasy about the pandemic, the economy, and President Biden’s leadership, Democrats stand to lose control of Congress whether or not McAuliffe manages to keep the Virginia governor’s mansion in his party’s hands.
“If McAuliffe wins by one or loses by one, is the message going to be any different?” asked Larry Sabato, who directs the University of Virginia Center on Politics. “No – it’s going to be a tough midterm.”
The prospect of 2021 and 2022 elections following established trendlines says little in particular about Youngkin, McAuliffe, Virginia, congressional Democrats, or Biden. They simply represent new cast members in a familiar political play.
Read the full analysis here.
If Terry McAuliffe wins, Democrats will take the victory as validation that a state that has trended blue over the last decade still stands behind President Biden’s agenda and against Republicans, even if former President Trump is not on the ballot.
History is not on Democrats’ side: Since the 1970s, the winner of Virginia’s off-year gubernatorial election has nearly always come from the party in opposition to the White House. The only exception was in 2013, when McAuliffe won his first gubernatorial term a year after then-President Barack Obama won reelection.
But even if McAuliffe wins a tight race, the result could spell warning signs for Democrats in Washington, given Biden’s 10-point victory there just last year and the fact that the party in power often loses seats in the subsequent midterms.
Democrats had hoped McAuliffe would be able to run on a successfully passed infrastructure package from the Biden administration, but continual delays on Capitol Hill and Democratic infighting made the prospect of a deal before Nov. 2 unlikely, something that McAuliffe has used to lambast Congress.
And while he has publicly argued the bill is more important for the people of Virginia than for his political fortunes, his aides and advisers have privately worried that dysfunction in Washington could spill into their race, especially in the vote-rich Northern Virginia suburbs.
For Glenn Youngkin, a win would reverberate far beyond Virginia — where a Republican has not won statewide in 12 years — and deliver the GOP a jolt of momentum heading into 2022. And while each campaign is different and Youngkin, who came into the race as largely a blank slate with unlimited money, is a unique figure, a possible win would validate his strategy of lauding Trump at times while also keeping him at arm’s length.
While there are some doubts among Republicans that the strategy could work in federal races, Heye says that because “all politics are national now,” issues that were once hyper-local “will be talked about up and down the ballot.”
The 2021 races are also the first time that voters have the opportunity to cast their ballots early without an excuse for having to do so after the Democratic-led state changed election laws. According to the Virginia Department of Elections, more than 734,000 Virginians have cast ballots already.
Conversations with McAuliffe and Youngkin supporters have shown a similarity in how each is approaching the race: Both are worried that wins by their opponents would turn Virginia into a vastly different kind of place. Democrats have told CNN repeatedly that a Youngkin win would turn Virginia into a Republican-dominated state like Georgia, Texas or Florida, while Republicans have openly worried that a McAuliffe win would turn the commonwealth into California.
If McAuliffe wins, “we are going to head down the path we are already going down with Biden,” said Wanda Schweiger, a 61-year-old Youngkin supporter. “And it is a sinking ship.”
Stacey Abrams, a former gubernatorial candidate in Georgia and a voting rights activist, made that case directly to voters over the weekend.
Minneapolis voters are heading to the polls today to vote on whether the city’s police department should be replaced with a public safety department.
Passage of the measure, requiring 51% of those voting on the question to answer “Yes,” would lead to the creation of a “Department of Public Safety.” If the city continued to employ police officers, they would be organized under that department. It would also remove a requirement to employ a minimum number of officers and would split authority for the new department between the mayor and city council.
Some background: The measure — which was proposed by an advocacy group called Yes 4 Minneapolis — comes more than a year after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, a Black man, in May 2020.
Floyd’s killing at the hands of a White police officer sparked national and global protests against police brutality, racism and social injustice.
Reporting from CNN’s Maeve Reston and Emma Tucker contributed to this post.
Voters will decide Tuesday on key ballot measures related to issues including policing, election reform and some proposals authored in response to Covid-19 restrictions.
While there are typically fewer ballot questions in an off-election year, there are 24 statewide ballot measures for consideration in six states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Voters in some major cities, in addition to choosing their next mayor, will also have the opportunity to weigh in on an important issue that has been heavily debated in their communities.
Read about the measures below: