Polls indicate Democrats are on course to win House from Republicans, enabling them to block much of Trump’s agenda

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Donald Trump is braced for a reckoning as Americans vote in midterm congressional elections that could shape the remainder of his presidency.

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Final opinion polls indicated Democrats were on course to win the House of Representatives from Trump’s Republicans, enabling them to block much of Trump’s agenda, bombard him with investigations and even begin impeachment proceedings.

But Republicans were predicted to keep control of the Senate, allowing Trump and his allies in Washington to continue their unprecedented overhaul of the country’s federal courts with lifetime appointments of conservative judges.

Healthcare and immigration were the top issues on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots, according to an exit poll survey conducted by the Associated Press, but 64% of those surveyed said Trump was a key factor in their voting choice.

As polls closed across the east coast, very early results appeared to show Democratic Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a 2016 presidential contender, and Tim Kaine of Virginia, Hillary Clinton’s vice-presidential nominee in 2016, on course to retake their seats.

In the race for Florida governor, early results were promising for Andrew Gillum, a Democratic mayor competing against Ron DeSantis, a rightwing former congressman close to Trump. If he wins, Gillum, who faced racist attacks, would be the first black governor of the swing state and the first Democrat in the position for 20 years.

However, a crucial Senate showdown in Indiana between incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly and Republican Mike Braun was shaping up to be a narrow race in a seat the Democrats must hold to have any hope of capturing the upper chamber.

All 435 seats in the House were being contested, while 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate were in play. Democrats had the gruelling task of defending 26 of those Senate seats, 10 in states won by Trump in 2016.

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Data from states that allowed early voting suggest high turnout and pointed to a particular surge in younger and ethnically diverse voters, which bolstered Democratic hopes for success.

Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, said Trump’s stunning upset two years ago ignited a swift call to action within the Democratic Party.

“We didn’t agonize, we organized,” she said.

Asked if she was 100% confident Democrats would retake control of the House, Pelosi was unequivocal: “Yes, yes, I am,” she said.

Other Democrats, still scarred by Trump’s shock victory in 2016, were left anxious by rainstorms in the south and east on Tuesday – and fearful of the potential effect of moves by Republican officials in several states to restrict voting rights.

Trump led a Republican campaign dominated by racial fearmongering about a large group of Hispanic migrants slowly making their way to the southern border, and false claims about his party’s record on reforming the country’s beleaguered healthcare system.

At his final rally, in Missouri on Monday night, Trump said: “We are taking back our country.” He falsely claimed Democrats “would obliterate Obamacare”, the Democratic healthcare law named after his predecessor that Trump’s party has spent eight years trying to scrap.

Trump was joined onstage by Sean Hannity, his most loyal anchorman from the Fox News television channel, which promotes Trump with an enthusiasm akin to that of an official state broadcaster. Hannity used the extraordinary appearance to accuse the travelling press corps covering the rally of being “fake news”.

Fox News said in a statement it did not condone campaign appearances by Hannity and that the issue has been addressed.

While Trump was not on the ballot, the vote is widely viewed as a referendum on his chaotic first 22 months in office. Hardcore supporters have been delighted by two new conservatives on the supreme court and a huge tax cut that ballooned the budget deficit.

But millions of Americans were eager to rein in a president who has proclaimed himself a nationalist, lied constantly and remained under the shadow of a criminal investigation relating to Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton, Trump’s former Democratic opponent, predicted the US would “vote against radicalism, bigotry and corruption”.

Joining Clinton were a handful of prominent Republicans dismayed by Trump. Michael Steele, a former Republican party chairman, condemned candidates from his party for failing to denounce the “inherent racism” in Trump’s rhetoric.

“This election is going to be a very important tell as to which direction America wants to go in,” Steele told MSNBC.

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As Gillum cast his ballot in Tallahassee, the Democratic candidate for governor said victory would “send a message to Mr Trump and Mr DeSantis as well that the politics of hatred and division come to an end”.

Beto O’Rourke, a charismatic Democratic congressman in Texas who has captivated liberals across the country, concluded his energetic campaign to unseat Senator Ted Cruz still trailing in polls, but hopeful a reshaped electorate could push him over the edge.

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In Georgia, the Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams was battling to become America’s first African American female governor. But her Republican opponent, Georgia’s secretary of state, Brian Kemp, used his position overseeing the election system to try to block voter registrations by tens of thousands of predominantly black residents.

In North Dakota, where the Democratic senator Heidi Heitkamp was fighting to save her job, Republican authorities introduced rules requiring voters to register with a physical address – causing chaos among Democratic-leaning Native American voters who live on reservations and typically use PO boxes for their mail.

Trump moved to stoke Republican conspiracy theories of voting by non-citizens, which he has blamed without evidence for his near-3 million ballot loss in the 2016 popular vote, despite numerous studies indicating that the practice is almost nonexistent.

The president claimed in a tweet that law enforcement officials had been “strongly notified” to be on the lookout for “ILLEGAL VOTING”, and threatened “Maximum Criminal Penalties” for anyone caught doing so.