The Democrats must pick up 23 seats to take the House and give themselves a way to oppose Trump until 2020

The path to power in the House runs through a few dozen districts, as Democrats look to gain the 23 seats they need to win control.

The key Senate races to watch in the 2018 midterm elections Read more

After the first polls close in the eastern US, the tallies will start revealing clues to where Americans stand in 2018 on immigration, healthcare, gender equality in the #MeToo era – and who they want representing them in Washington in the next two years of Donald Trump’s presidency.

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Here is a list of key races to watch, listed in order of poll-closing times:

Kentucky

A Lexington-area battle is one of the most competitive and expensive races in the country, pitting the third-term Republican Andy Barr against Democrat Amy McGrath, a retired US marines fighter pilot. Trump won the sixth district by more than 15% in 2016 but with the help of carefully shaped campaign ads that went viral, McGrath holds the edge on campaign fundraising.

Polls close 7pm ET (12am UK)

Virginia

Dave Brat upset the House majority leader, Eric Cantor, in a 2014 Republican primary. Now it’s Brat’s turn to fight for re-election to the Richmond-area district, against Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer who is one of a record number of women running for Congress this year.

Polls close 7pm ET (12am UK)

North Carolina

North Carolina’s ninth district became a key election bellwether when the Rev Mark Harris narrowly ousted three-term representative Robert Pittenger in the Republican primary, giving Democrats a wider opening in solidly red territory. Democrats answered with Dan McCready, an Iraq war veteran, solar energy company founder and Harvard Business School graduate. Trump won the district by 12% and a Democrat has not been elected to represent it since John F Kennedy was president.

Polls close 7.30pm ET (12.30am UK)

Ohio

It’s a rematch in central Ohio’s 12th district between Republican Troy Balderson and Democrat Danny O’Connor. Balderson won short-term control of the seat in August in a special election after Pat Tiberi retired. Republicans in the district appear divided over the president, making the seat vulnerable to a Democrat who, like O’Connor, has supported some Republican ideas. He’s engaged to a Republican who calls herself a “Dannycrat”.

Polls close 7.30pm ET (12.30am UK)

Florida

National Republicans and Democrats are pouring major resources into the Miami-area 27th district, held since 1989 by the retiring Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. The Democratic nominee, Clinton administration health secretary Donna Shalala, has ramped up her Spanish-language advertising and Hillary Clinton campaigned for her. But she’s facing a stiff challenge from Maria Elvira Salazar, a Cuban-American former broadcast journalist who, unlike Shalala, speaks Spanish. Though Trump won Florida in 2016, Clinton won this congressional district by nearly 20%.

Polls close 8pm ET (1am UK)

New Jersey

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tom MacArthur faces extreme pressure over his role in Republican healthcare reform. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Along with California and Pennsylvania, suburb-filled New Jersey is a key battleground. Two seats are open, vacated by veteran Republicans Frank LoBiondo and Rodney Frelinghuysen, and could fall to the Democrats. Keep a close eye on the third district, south of Trenton, which twice voted for Barack Obama but went for Trump by about 6%. Fighting for re-election is Republican Tom MacArthur, who helped strike a deal that pushed the GOP’s Obamacare repeal bill to House passage (it failed in the Senate). His opponent is political newcomer Andy Kim, a National Security Council staffer under Obama who has worked in Afghanistan.

Polls close 8pm ET (1am UK)

Pennsylvania

Democrats have reason to believe they can flip as many as six seats in the Keystone state. A state supreme court decision in January threw out six-year-old congressional district boundaries as unconstitutionally drawn to benefit Republicans. The replacement districts approved by the court’s Democratic majority have created more competitive contests. One key race is playing out in the Philadelphia suburbs. Freshman Republican Brian Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent, has a centrist voting record and has tried to put distance between himself and Trump. He’s facing Scott Wallace, a longtime Democratic donor who was co-chairman of the Wallace Global Fund, a Washington-based organization that supports liberal social movements. He’s heavily funding his campaign and outspent Fitzpatrick nearly 5-to-1 in the July to September quarter.

Polls close 8pm ET (1am UK)

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Kansas

Trump and the House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, loom large over a race in north-eastern Kansas. Democrat Paul Davis, the former state House minority leader, and Republican Steve Watkins, an army veteran and engineer, are battling for the seat vacated by retiring Democrat Lynn Jenkins. Davis has said he will not support Pelosi for speaker if Democrats win the House. Republicans are hoping Trump’s visit to Topeka last month will boost Steve Watkins, who has faced questions over claims he made about his qualifications and background.

Polls close 9pm ET (2am UK)

Minnesota

Four House seats could flip from one party to the other in this traditionally Democratic stronghold. For evidence of Democratic gains, look to the state’s booming suburbs. Clinton won Minnesota’s third district west of Minnesota by 9%. Republican Erik Paulsen is under heavy pressure from Democrat Dean Phillips there. Paulsen avoided Trump’s recent rally in Rochester and his rally this summer in Duluth, and he has said he wrote in Marco Rubio’s name in the 2016 election. Trump still endorsed Paulsen last month.

Polls close 9pm ET (2am UK)

New Mexico

The second district seat left open by Republican Steve Pearce, who is running for governor, offers a look at how the parties fare along the border with Mexico, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans. Pearce attracted support from Hispanics and the region’s oil and gas interests. But the race between Democrat Xochitl Torres Small and Yvette Herrell has focused on hot-button issues such as immigration and guns. Torres Small has raised more than five times the campaign cash drawn by Herrell.

Polls close 9pm ET (2am UK)

New York

This deep-blue state offers a look at how race and Trump’s clout are playing out in the president’s home state. North of New York City in the 19th district, an ad released last month by the Republican National Congressional Committee showed clips of Democrat Antonio Delgado performing songs from a 2006 rap album under his stage name, AD The Voice. Delgado, a Rhodes scholar and Harvard Law School graduate, said his opponent, John Faso, was using racial attacks to alienate him, a black first-time candidate in a district that is more than 90% white. Voters there are evenly split among Democrats, Republicans and independents, and went twice for Obama but then favored Trump.

In the 22nd district, first-term representative Claudia Tenney, an early Trump supporter, is drawing comparisons to the president by brashly suggesting some people who commit mass murders are Democrats and promoting a petition to lock up Clinton. But in a close race against Anthony Brindisi, the state assemblyman argues that Tenney’s hyper-partisan approach undermines her claim of working across the aisle. Trump beat Clinton by nearly 16% here.

Polls close 9pm ET (2am UK)

Iowa

One Iowa race offers a test of whether a Trump-style advocate for immigration limits can win. Republican Steve King is keeping a low profile in his bid for a ninth term, his success suddenly in question after he was engulfed in controversy for his support of white nationalists. But Democrats, hoping to flip two other seats among Iowa’s four-person delegation, have a tough road to success in the fourth district that voted for Trump by 27%. In an unusual move, the GOP’s campaign chief condemned King the week before the election, but it’s unclear whether the criticism will boost his opponent, JD Scholten.

Polls close 10pm ET (3am UK)

California

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Democratic congressional candidate Harley Rouda is joined by Kamala Harris at a campaign office in Costa Mesa on Saturday. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/Reuters

Democrats have targeted a string of Republican-held districts that went to Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. One such battleground is in the nation’s fruit-and-nut basket, the Central Valley, where Republican Jeff Denham is trying to keep Josh Harder from taking his job. Fallout from supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings and fights over healthcare and immigration have produced a toss-up race in which Democrats count a slender registration edge. Denham, a centrist who nonetheless voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, won re-election by 3% in 2016 while Clinton won the district with about 49% of the vote.

In another test of GOP clout in a rapidly diversifying district, Dana Rohrabacher’s re-election is in question for the first time in 30 years. A wave of new and more diverse residents and divisions over Trump and the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct have produced a strong challenge from Democrat Harley Rouda. The district went to Clinton in 2016.

Polls close 11pm ET (4am UK)

Washington state

South-west Washington’s third district offers a test of whether the Tea Party-driven Republican House takeover in 2010 survives. Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler, first elected that year and twice re-elected with more than 60% of the vote, has been out-raised in campaign funding by Democrat Carolyn Long. Herrera Beutler has broken with her party on such issues as healthcare. Long has emphasized her credentials as an outsider. The district stretching east along the Oregon border voted for Trump by 7%.

Polls close 11pm ET (4am UK)

• This article was amended on 6 November 2011 to clarify the location of New York’s 22nd district. The original article said it was a Buffalo-area district; in fact, the district includes Utica, Rome and Binghamton – but not Buffalo.