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

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves is projected to win reelection in Mississippi.

Nov. 7, 2023, was Election Day in at least 37 states, and Americans cast their votes on everything from governorships to local referenda. When the dust settled, it was a solid night for Democrats and their allies: According to ABC News projections, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear won reelection in Kentucky, and Ohio voters passed Issue 1 to codify abortion rights in the state constitution. The AP also projected that Democrats won both chambers of the Virginia legislature and an open seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. However, there were a few bright spots for Republicans: ABC News projected that Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves beat back a strong challenge from Democrat Brandon Presley.

As results came in, 538 analysts were breaking them down in real time with live updates, analysis and commentary. Read our full live blog below.


0

What are our takeaways from today's results?

The Mississippi governor's race is our last expected major projection of the evening! And with that, we'll close as usual by asking for folks' final thoughts on today's results. What are everyone's takeaways here from a relatively strong showing for Democrats?

Tia Yang, 538


Reeves projected to win reelection in Mississippi's gubernatorial race

ABC News projects that Republican Gov. Tate Reeves will win reelection, defeating Democrat Brandon Presley. With some votes left to count, Reeves may end up winning by a smaller margin that he did in 2019, but it was enough to win. As a result, Mississippi's state government will remain fully in Republican hands.

Geoffrey Skelley, 538


Democrats pad their majority on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Per the AP, Democrat Dan McCaffery will defeat Republican Carolyn Carluccio in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court race, winning around 53 percent to 47 percent of the vote. The outcome of this race won’t change party control of the seven-member court, but Democrats will pad their current 4-2 majority by filling a vacant seat.

McCaffery ended the evening with margins similar to the last top-of-ballot candidate in the state, Sen. John Fetterman, in most areas, but it looks like his slightly bigger margin of victory came from the eastern part of the state, including the pivotal Bucks County in the Philly suburbs. That county saw big turnout efforts from both sides this cycle, particularly with regard to controversial school board races, which Democrats also swept tonight.

—Tia Yang, 538


Democrats capture Virginia's legislature

Democrats have clinched both chambers of Virginia's General Assembly, perhaps nixing any lingering dreams that Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin had about using a strong GOP performance as a springboard to a late entry into the 2024 presidential race. But it does look like Democrats will have the thinnest of majorities. In the state Senate, Democrats have won 21 seats to the GOP's 18, with one extremely tight race looking more likely than not to also go for the Republicans. In the House of Delegates, Democrats have won 51 seats to the GOP's 46, but Republicans could sweep the three extremely close contests that have not yet been projected. This is all per Virginia Public Access Project's projections.

Geoffrey Skelley, 538


Are state-level politics still leading the way?

Elections in 2022 yielded very different political outcomes across different states. Just take a look at of voting patterns in last year’s Senate contests compared to the 2020 presidential race, and you’ll see that it looked like a blue wave in some states and a red wave in others. There weren’t even regional trends, let alone national trends! For example, Democrats overperformed in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky, while Republicans overperformed in Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin. That’s particularly striking given the relatively high degree of nationalization in American politics today.

There are a couple of explanations for those discordant results, and one obvious one was candidate quality. In places where Republicans , they lost, even while more mainstream Republican candidates were winning elsewhere on the ballot. Another likely factor is that state-level policy concerns were indeed influencing voters. For example, in places where a midterm vote served as a proxy for abortion rights like Michigan, Democrats tended to do better. In places where the issue appeared settled like New York Democrats did worse.

Tonight I’m curious if we’ll see a continuation of this trend. Beyond the issue of abortion, blue and red states are heading in different policy directions on everything from guns, to taxes, to LGBTQ issues. So will voters living in different policy worlds vote differently? Might voters in blue states react to perceived excesses in Democratic governance by swinging to the right, and vice versa? Or will national politics trump everything, leading to uniform swings? We shall see.

—Galen Druke, 538