Election 2023 results and analysis: Democrats excel in Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia

They’re not the sexiest things on the ballot, but one congressional and seven state-legislative special elections are also taking place today. The highest-profile one is the special election between Democrat Gabe Amo and Republican Gerry Leonard Jr. to fill former Rep. David Cicilline’s seat in the U.S. House. There isn’t much suspense about who will win, though: That seat — Rhode Island’s 1st District — is safely Democratic. As a result, Amo, who is Black, will almost certainly become the first person of color to represent Rhode Island in Congress.

However, it’ll still be worth paying attention to the final margin in that race and the other special elections. As we’ve written in the past, when one party consistently outperforms its usual margins in special elections, it has historically boded well for the party in the subsequent general election. And so far in 2023, Democrats have been winning special elections by significantly more than the partisan baselines of those districts would predict. I’ll be watching to see if that pattern continues tonight.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538

Check out my video on the Kentucky governor’s race, explaining who the candidates are and who’s favored to win tonight.

1:37

2023 elections to watch: Kentucky governor

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear is popular, but Kentucky is a red state.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538

Three Southern states hold gubernatorial elections the year before a presidential election: Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi. But despite the strong Republican lean of these states, Democrats held the governorships of Kentucky and Louisiana coming into this election. The GOP began the year with a real shot of winning all three, and entering today, they’re already one step of the way there: On Oct. 14, Republican state Attorney General Jeff Landry won Louisiana’s governorship outright, avoiding a November runoff. This was an open-seat pickup for Republicans since Democratic incumbent Gov. John Bel Edwards was term-limited. Now, all eyes are on Kentucky and Mississippi, where each incumbent governor is slightly favored to win reelection in a competitive contest, based on limited polling and race ratings from Inside Elections, Sabato’s Crystal Ball and The Cook Political Report.

In Kentucky, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear faces Republican state Attorney General Daniel Cameron. Beshear won in 2019 by less than 1 percentage point against an unpopular GOP governor, but has maintained a high approval rating despite his party identification. He’s painted Cameron as an extreme Republican because of Cameron’s support for Kentucky’s near-total ban on abortion. That message might work: Although Kentucky is conservative, voters last year rejected a constitutional amendment that would have formally stated there is no right to abortion under the state constitution. In his campaign, Cameron has tried to tie Beshear to the unpopular Biden while criticizing the incumbent for his vetoes (later overridden) of anti-transgender legislation. We have very little polling here, but in mid-October competing partisan polls from Hart Research and from co/efficient each found Beshear ahead by differing margins. However, a poll from Emerson College released on Friday showed the two candidates running just about even.

On the flipside, Mississippi is more likely to remain in Republican hands. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves faces Democratic Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, one of just two Democrats in Mississippi’s executive branch (and, yes, a second cousin of Elvis). Reeves has played to the GOP base by highlighting his opposition to transgender women playing women’s sports, while Presley has tried to ding Reeves by connecting him to an ongoing scandal involving the misuse of federal welfare funds by the Mississippi Department of Human Services. We have even less polling to go on here than in Kentucky, however. A late October Public Policy Polling survey on behalf of the Democratic Governors Association gave Reeves only a tiny edge, but that’s maybe the rosiest picture for Presley. The next most recent poll from the Mason-Dixon/Magnolia Tribune put Reeves up 8 points.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538

While Americans are casting their votes today on hundreds of races across the nation, most of the key races we’re tracking this evening are in the eastern half of the country, where polls will largely close and results start flowing in after 7 p.m. Eastern.

One of the earliest calls tonight may be in the Kentucky governor’s race. Polls close at 6 p.m. local time, and absentee ballots must be received by then to be counted. Since Kentucky straddles the Eastern and Central time zones, results from the western half of the state will come in a bit later.

Polls close at 7 p.m. Eastern for Virginia statehouse races, and at 8 p.m. Eastern for New Jersey statehouse races, at which point we are likely to start to see results coming in. As early vote totals come in, it’s important to remember the potential for blue or red shifts: Early votes and absentee votes tend to be disproportionately Democratic, while Election Day votes tend to be more Republican, meaning that vote totals can shift depending on when those types of votes are counted and released. In Virginia and New Jersey, absentee ballots will be counted on Election Day, meaning they may be underrepresented in early results.

Polls will close at 8 p.m. Eastern in Mississippi, where both governor and state legislative races are on the ballot. Absentee ballots here can be received up to 5 days after Election Day, though delayed results are unlikely to make a huge difference unless races are unexpectedly close. Incumbent Gov. Reeves seems comfortably ahead in polls, making that top-of-ballot contest unlikely to be a nailbiter.

We’re also watching the Ohio abortion referendum, where polls will close at 7:30 p.m. Eastern. And at 8 p.m. Eastern, polls will close for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court election, and for the only federal race today — a special election in Rhode Island’s 1st Congressional District, the seat left vacant after Democrat David Cicilline resigned in May.

—Monica Potts, 538