2022 midterm election results

Voters in Texas’ Harris County, which includes Houston, waited in long lines at some polling places Tuesday morning, in part because of technical issues that either delayed some sites’ openings or reduced the number of available voting machines. 

That included lines of up to two hours at a large Houston voting center, the Metropolitan Multi-Service Center on West Gray Street, CNN affiliate KHOU reported. Twenty of the site’s 60 machines were not operating at one point, though all were working by mid-morning, according to KHOU.

“We’re getting reports that some of our judges have had a little trouble opening their polling locations this morning,” though the process was “smoothing out a little bit,” Harris County Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum told reporters late Tuesday morning.

One polling location couldn’t open on time because a supplier did not deliver a key to open the machine, he said.

Tatum urged voters to shift to a nearby polling site if the one they visited had long lines. Harris County residents can vote at any of the county’s 782 polling places.

Calls and emails to Tatum’s office for comment weren’t immediately returned.

Harris County, Texas’ most populous, has more than 2.5 million registered voters. The county had more than 750,000 voters during early voting, and Tatum said he was “hoping to see at least 500,000” voters Tuesday.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel raised concerns about “bad actors” this election season in an exclusive interview with CNN, saying the slow pace of the Justice Department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election could signal they won’t be held accountable.

Nessel noted that individuals who served as fake electors for former President Donald Trump have not been charged with any crimes. She said she referred the matter to the Justice Department because she felt it was a federal matter.

 “The problem is, if you are going to try to ensure that bad actors are held accountable, you know, you have to actually move forward with bringing charges,” she added.

Nessel acknowledged it can take time for DOJ to build a case. But she questioned: “What’s the incentive to comply with the law if nobody’s going to prosecute you when you violate it?”

Nessel is running for re-election against Matthew DePerno, a Kalamazoo attorney backed by former President Trump who has pushed his false claims of fraud in the 2020 election. 

Early indications suggest that this year’s midterm electorate may look older than the voters in the 2018 midterms, according to the preliminary national results of the exit poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research.

Only about a tenth of voters in this election were under age 30, while roughly one-third were age 65 or older. In 2018, about 13% were under 30, and about 26% were 65 or older.

The electorate this year was split roughly between those who generally identify as Democrats (about 34%) and those who generally identify as Republicans (about 35%), with the remainder consisting of political independents and members of other parties. In 2018, Democrats made up a slightly larger voting bloc, about 37%.

About 76% of voters were White, and about 24% were voters of color. White voters with college degrees look to be a slightly larger share of the electorate this year – about 40% per the preliminary data, compared with 31% four years ago. By contrast, voters of color without a college degree look to have made up a slightly smaller share of the electorate this year.

Inflation tops voters’ list of concerns in this year’s midterm elections, with abortion a close second, according to the preliminary national results of the exit poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research.

Approximately one-third called inflation the most important issue to their vote, with about 27% citing abortion. The remainder were roughly divided between picking crime, gun policy and immigration as their chief concerns.

The electorate’s views of the economy are largely gloomy. Only about one-quarter of voters felt positively about the current condition of the economy, with roughly three-quarters viewing it negatively – and about 4 in 10 saying it’s downright poor.

That’s more pessimistic than in the 2018 midterms when 68% of voters said the state of the economy was excellent or good, and the 2020 presidential election, when 49% said the same.

About 46% of voters in this election say that their family’s financial situation had worsened over the past two years, while only about 1 in 5 said it had improved.

More than three-quarters of voters in this year’s election say that inflation has caused hardship for them and their family over the past year, with about 20% saying it’s been a severe hardship. And about 6 in 10 say that gas prices, specifically, have recently been a hardship.

At least three poll workers in Tulsa County’s Precinct 77 were relieved of their duties Tuesday after authorities received reports that they were not handing out city council ballots to certain voters, Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado said in a news conference.  

The Oklahoma county sheriff said he received video with allegations that poll workers were not giving the city council ballot to Republican voters on Tuesday morning and that “they were only being given to Democrats, Independents and Libertarians.” 

The Tulsa County Election Board received a report about the incident at roughly 7:45 a.m. local time, contacted poll workers to instruct them they were supposed to give city council ballots along with the state ballots to voters and “they began handing out the city council ballots ... at 8 a.m.,” said Gwen Freeman, the election board secretary. The poll workers were relieved of their duties and new poll workers were assigned, Freeman said. A total of about 30 to 40 people who voted in the morning were impacted, Freeman said.

Detectives interviewed the poll workers at the precinct and confirmed the city council ballots were only being handed out to Democrat and Independent voters Tuesday morning, the sheriff said. The voters who were denied a city council ballot include 19 Republicans, seven Democrats, four Independents and one Libertarian, Freeman said. Poll workers cannot determine a voter's party affiliation unless they ask, "which is the irregularity and where the problem exists. And that is what happened," the sheriff said.

The poll workers relieved of their duties included one Republican and two Democrats, among them the polling judge who was in charge of giving other poll workers instructions, Regalado added. 

One of the poll workers said they were aware of the mistake but said they were following the orders of the polling judge who also confirmed the mistake, the sheriff said. But poll workers all receive training and are required to sign paperwork confirming they understand the rules of the voting process, Regalado said. 

“The information that we have received does indicate that there [were] voter irregularities, we … are in the process of putting together this investigation to hand to the district attorney’s office for consideration of charges,” the sheriff said. Those charges could potentially be impeding the voting process and/or intentionally impeding the voting process by fraudulent measures, he said. “That will be up to the district attorney to decide which charges are going to be filed, if any at all.” 

Voters are casting ballots across the country today to determine control of the House and Senate and 36 governor races.

Take a look at some of the more unique polling places where voters went on Tuesday.

Today’s the day when voters will make their voices heard – and the composition of the next Congress is expected to be determined in states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin. 

CNN Political Director David Chalian spoke to CNN’s Jessica Dean, Jeff Zeleny, Kyung Lah and Omar Jimenez who have all been following the key gubernatorial and Senate races in those four states for months. 

Listen to this special edition of the CNN Political Briefing podcast to hear how the campaigns spent the final days, and what issues matter most to voters. 

Maricopa County elections officials said that every vote would be counted, despite earlier tabulation issues that arose from a printer problem at about 60 vote centers.

Gates said that people whose votes couldn’t be run through the tabulator were still given a ballot. They then had two options: Either dropping that in a box labeled “Box No. 3,” which he said will later be run through the county’s central tabulation system or having the option of going to another voting center in the county.

The problem impacted about 60 of the county’s 223 voting centers, Gates said. It was a printer issue rather than a tabulator issue, he said. 

As of Tuesday afternoon, Arizona time, about 40 centers were still experiencing problems but were being fixed by technicians, Gates added.

Maricopa county’s elections chief, recorder Stephen Richer, tweeted a statement in which he apologized for the issues.

“Every legal vote will be tabulated. I promise,” Richer said in his statement. 

Voters in this year’s midterms are broadly unhappy with the state of the nation and hold largely negative views of President Joe Biden, according to the preliminary national results of the exit poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research. 

More than 7 in 10 said they were less than satisfied with the way things are going in the country, with about one-third saying they were not just dissatisfied but angry with the state of the nation.

Biden’s approval rating stands at about 45% among voters in this year’s election – nearly identical to then-Donald Trump’s 45% approval rating four years ago among 2018 midterm voters. And voters in this election were more than twice as likely to strongly disapprove of Biden as they were to strongly approve of him.

Just shy of half of the voters said that Biden’s policies are mostly hurting the country, with about 36% saying his policies are mostly helping, and the rest that they’re making no difference.

Many voters didn’t see their congressional vote as a referendum on the president – close to half said that Biden was not a factor in their vote, while about 18% said their vote was to express support for Biden, and about one-third that it was to express opposition to him.

To read more, click here.

CNN's David Chalian breaks down Biden's approval rating here: