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.


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More chaos in the Bridgeport mayor’s race

For much of the night, Democrat-turned-independent John Gomes was leading incumbent Democrat Joe Ganim in the race for mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut. But according to Christopher Keating of the Hartford Courant, late-counted absentee ballots put Ganim in the lead by just 173 votes, and Gomes is conceding the election. That’s probably not going to go over well considering what happened in the primary, which Ganim narrowly won amid allegations of absentee-voter fraud. In fact, a judge ordered a redo of the Democratic primary between Ganim and Gomes after video surfaced of a city employee dropping absentee ballots in a dropbox, in apparent violation of Connecticut’s ban on ballot harvesting. As a result, Ganim’s win could be moot — unless he wins the redone Democratic primary, in which case this general-election result would stand.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538


Reeves looks probable to win in Mississippi, albeit narrowly

With 83 percent of the expected vote reporting, Reeves leads Presley 52.6 percent to 46.0 percent in Mississippi's gubernatorial race. The margin will get closer, as only about 60 percent of the votes in heavily Democratic Hinds County have been tallied. Yet the trends in the race favor Reeves slightly: In the counties where 90 percent or more of the expected vote has reported (45 of the state's 90), Reeves is performing about 1 point worse in margin than he did in his 5-point victory in 2019. But he's still running ahead of where he needs to be to win tonight, so barring some very unfavorable results for him in the yet-to-be-counted ballots, Reeves will win, Reeves will win.

Geoffrey Skelley, 538


Republicans win the Suffolk County executive race

In 2021 and 2022, Republicans made serious inroads on Long Island, New York, winning the Nassau County executive race and putting up strong margins in the gubernatorial race. Tonight, according to the AP, they went a step further and won the Suffolk County executive race. Republican Edward Romaine defeated Democrat David Calone to win this open seat for the GOP for the first time in 20 years.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538


Texas voters reject the gerontocracy

It flew under the radar, but today Texas voters weighed in on Proposition 13, which would have raised the mandatory retirement age for state judges from 75 to 79 — effectively allowing for older elected officials. Voters rejected the proposal, 62 percent to 38 percent. It was a strong statement against the so-called “gerontocracy” at a time when there is widespread concern about the age of major politicians, like Biden, Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538


Voting access is at stake in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court contest

Pennsylvania has a slew of state and local races to keep an eye on this evening, headlined by a multimillion-dollar state Supreme Court contest between Republican Carolyn Carluccio, president judge of the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, and Democrat Daniel McCaffery, a Superior Court judge.

The outcome here won’t change party control of the seven-member court, where Democrats have held a 4-2 majority (with one vacancy) since the death of Democratic Chief Justice Max Baer in October 2022. Rather, Democrats are looking to shore up their majority amid continued legal battles over voting access in the battleground state, and ahead of the next judicial elections in 2025, when three of their four existing seats will be up for retention.

There isn’t much polling on this race, but a September survey by the Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative think tank, showed McCaffery in the lead 42 percent to 36 percent. However, a mid-October survey by Franklin & Marshall College found that, for each candidate, over 70 percent of registered voters weren’t familiar enough to have an opinion of them. Voters, then, are more likely to be influenced in this race by partisan preference and issue-related messaging — of which there’s been plenty.

As we’ve seen repeatedly in the post-Dobbs era, Pennsylvania Democrats have made abortion central to their turnout efforts and attacks against Carluccio. But tonight’s outcome will likely have more immediate ramifications on another key issue: voting access. Pennsylvania’s Act 77, a bipartisan measure that widely expanded access to mail-in voting in 2019, has been repeatedly challenged by Republicans in the wake of Trump’s baseless claims of voting fraud in the 2020 election. The state Supreme Court deadlocked 3-3 on one such challenge right before the 2022 election and is likely to hear additional challenges heading into, and perhaps in relation to, the 2024 election.

—Tia Yang, 538