Americans cast their votes in huge numbers on Tuesday in what is widely seen as a referendum on Trump

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The car park outside the Robert Guevara community centre, in Kissimmee, Florida, about 20 miles south of Orlando, was packed on Tuesday morning in balmy weather for voting.

Midterm elections 2018: Trump braces for possible Democratic reckoning as results roll in – live Read more

Most of the campaign signs outside this polling station, in the strongly Puerto Rican community, were in Spanish. After weeks of listening to Donald Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric – not to mention the president’s lackluster response to Hurricane Maria when it devastated the island and US territory of Puerto Rico in 2017 – people were excited to cast their ballots.

US congressman Darren Soto, facing a re-election battle in the district, had showed up to encourage the electorate.

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“It’s a race between love and hate, a United States and divided States,” Soto said. “It’s a race about respect for the Hispanic community, and really for all communities. Over the last two years we’ve seen the country morph into a horrible visage of itself that we don’t recognise.”

After weeks of often bitter and racially charged campaigning across the US, Americans crowded to the polls to vote in huge numbers on Tuesday, in the knife-edge midterm elections widely seen as a referendum on Donald Trump.

More than 38 million people voted ahead of election day – in some states the number of early votes surpassed the entire number of ballots cast in the last midterm election under the Obama administration in 2014.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Texas Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke walks with his family to the El Paso Community College to vote. Photograph: Paul Ratje/AFP/Getty Images

Pop star Taylor Swift, alone, was deemed largely responsible for a surge in youth voting in her home state of Tennessee, after she urged fans to vote – and vote Democrat.

The number of young people who voted early, by absentee ballot or, in some states, in person, was unprecedented. In Tennessee the number of votes by people aged 18-29 was up 663% on the 2014 midterm election, according to Target Smart, a Democratic political data firm.

In Texas, a traditionally “red” state – the adopted colour of the Republican party – the progressive Democrat Beto O’Rourke was locked in a tight battle with the 2016 Republican presidential candidate and abrasive conservative Ted Cruz. The increase in voting among 18 to 29-year-olds was 465% over 2014, a huge spike over normal levels.

O’Rourke himself voted early on Tuesday morning at the polling station close to his house in El Paso, on the Texas-Mexico border. It was a sign of the superstar status O’Rourke has acquired in a little over a year of campaigning that this unlikely Democratic candidate – Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate in 25 years – attracted more than 100 photographers, camera crews and reporters from all over the world.

“I’m so grateful for all these first-time voters,” O’Rourke said of the spike. He told the assorted journalists he had seen enough to believe he could beat Cruz.

“I don’t have a poll to point to, I don’t have a pollster,” O’Rourke said. “Just travelling all the counties in Texas, knocking on millions of doors. People are ready to be brought back together, I feel it. So yeah, it feels good today.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Voters casts their ballots in Ferguson, Missouri. Photograph: Sid Hastings/EPA

The high turnout among young people, in particular, looked to be encouraging for Democrats.

Trump, who is suffering a national approval rating of around 40%, and first lady Melania Trump voted by absentee ballot in New York, after Trump held three rallies in the midwest states of Ohio, Indiana and Missouri on Monday.

In keeping with the vicious tone the president has adopted on the campaign trail – choosing to ramp up fear of immigrants, instead of focusing on a positive economy – he told voters in Cleveland, Ohio: “The Democrat agenda is a socialist nightmare for our country.”

As Trump attempted to get out the vote among his base, Republicans and Democrats were keeping a close eye on a number of tight races across the US. A potentially historic governor’s election in Georgia could see Democrat Stacey Abrams become the first ever female, African American governor in the US, while in Florida Democrat Andrew Gillum would be the state’s first ever African American governor.

In Decatur, a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, a steady drizzle on Tuesday morning hadn’t stopped the constant flow of traffic at one polling location.

Brittany Judson, 23, was voting for the first time – because she wanted to be part of a potentially historic moment if Abrams is elected.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A line of voters wraps around Our Lady of the Lourdes Catholic church in Atlanta, Georgia. Photograph: Lawrence Bryant/Reuters

“I’m voting all Democrat,” she said, except for one Republican candidate running unopposed. Judson planned to write in her own candidate for that position, as: “Anyone who doesn’t hate the poor.”

Both Abrams and Gillum have emphasised the importance of increasing access to healthcare and increasing the minimum wage. Gillum’s opponent, Republican Ron DeSantis, has been accused of using racist “dog whistles” throughout an increasingly bitter campaign, and as Gillum cast his vote on Tuesday he said he hoped for a return to civility.

“If we win tonight I think that will send a message to Mr Trump and Mr DeSantis as well that the politics of hatred and division come to an end – at least in this election,” Gillum said outside the Good Shepherd Catholic church in Tallahassee.

Voters were more blunt. “Trump is a racist pig,” said Carmen Colon, 71.

“The president didn’t want to help. Trump just wants to make America white again. He’s stupid,” she added.

Having seen the early numbers and enthusiasm, Democratic leaders were so convinced they would win the House of Representatives that they were talking about how they would approach being in control.

“We will strive for bipartisanship because we have a responsibility to find common ground where we can, stand our ground where we can’t,” Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House minority leader, told reporters in Washington DC.

She added, audaciously: “I feel confident that we will win, it’s just a question of the size of victory.”

Democrats, especially all those who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 when she was given an 85% chance of beating Trump to the White House, were holding their breath.

With reporting from Ed Pilkington in El Paso, Texas, Jamiles Lartey in Tallahassee, Florida, Richard Luscombe in Kissimmee, Florida, Khushbu Shah in Atlanta, Georgia, and Lauren Gambino in Washington DC.