Americans are finishing voting in the midterm elections that will decide who controls Congress for the last two years of Donald Trump's presidency, and Kenyans following the count will get the first results from about 2am on Wednesday, East Africa Time, when the earliest polling stations close in the eastern United States.

What each side needs

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 Senate seats are on the ballot, along with 36 governorships.

  • House: Republicans go in with 218 seats plus an independent who usually votes with them, against 214 for the Democrats, with two vacancies, according to CBS News. Democrats need a net gain of three seats to take the majority.
  • Senate: Republicans hold 53 seats to the Democrats' 47. Because the vice president breaks a 50-50 tie, Democrats need a net gain of four.

CBS News' final Battleground Tracker estimate put Democrats on course for about 229 House seats, within a range of 215 to 237, while forecasters rate the Senate a closer contest. Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed the surveys on Tuesday, saying, "The polls are wrong." Democratic campaign chief Suzan DelBene said: "I am confident we're going to take back the majority."

The races to watch

Senate control is expected to turn on a handful of contests, several of them in states Trump won comfortably:

  • Maine: Republican Susan Collins against Democrat Troy Jackson. "The only poll that counts is the one on Election Day," Collins said.
  • Texas: Republican Ken Paxton against Democrat James Talarico, who predicted "we are going to shock the nation".
  • North Carolina: Republican Michael Whatley against former governor Roy Cooper.
  • Ohio: Republican Jon Husted against former senator Sherrod Brown.
  • Alaska: Republican Dan Sullivan against former congresswoman Mary Peltola.
  • Michigan and Iowa: Mike Rogers against Abdul El-Sayed, and Ashley Hinson against Josh Turek.

Governor races in Michigan, Georgia, Ohio and Texas are also being closely followed.

When Kenyans will know

The bulk of polls close between 7pm and 9pm US Eastern Time, which is 3am to 5am in Nairobi. California closes at 7am EAT and Alaska an hour later, meaning the full picture of the Senate may not be clear by the time Kenyans wake up.

NBC's Decision Desk said it might be able to project control of both chambers on election night but warned that individual key races could take longer, and CBS cautioned that control may not be known immediately.

Several problems on polling day could slow the count:

  • Ballot scanners failed in 44 of 45 municipalities in Westchester County, New York, which officials blamed on a programming error. They said affected ballots would still be counted, but results in the competitive 17th District could be delayed.
  • North Carolina extended voting at several precincts, pushing back statewide results by 45 minutes.
  • Two polling sites in Richmond, Virginia, received phoned-in shooting threats; voting continued.

Hamasta Media will update readers as the networks project winners.

Photos: AP via Africanews ('I Voted' stickers in Brooklyn, 3 Nov 2026); Architect of the Capitol via Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Thumbnail design: HAMASTA MEDIA.