Some analysts say Gen Z and millennial voters are a threat to the Republican Party. / Global News
Michael Gregoire marched along a downtown footpath in the tense days before the Midterm elections, waving a hand-painted sign at passing traffic: "DEFEAT REPUBLICANS 2018."
"The survival of the country is going to depend on this election," he said in Louisville, Kentucky, as another man stopped for a moment to argue. The strangers faced each other from opposite edges of the great American divide, Democrat versus Republican, both convinced the election is among the most consequential in their lifetimes and that they must save the nation from the other side.
Michael Gregoire took his message to the streets of Louisville. Photo / AP
"I'm voting for Donald Trump," Stuart Kanter said. "He's not on the ticket. But, in a way, actually he is."
President Donald Trump looms large over today's election, which was expected to draw historic numbers to the polls and will determine which party controls Congress.
For Gregoire and Kanter - and for voters across the country - the election represents something far greater than whatever Senate and House races appear on their ballots. It is a competition for the soul of America - a referendum on Trump and the venomous political culture that many blame for gridlock in Congress and a spate of hate crimes and politically motivated attacks.
Less than two weeks ago in Louisville, a white man gunned down two African-American shoppers at a grocery store in what police described as a racially motivated attack. Days later, an avid Trump supporter was arrested for mailing pipe bombs to prominent critics of the President, all of whom Trump routinely derides as "evil" and "un-American". The next day, another gunman opened fire in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, massacring 11 worshippers and telling police "all these Jews need to die".
Don Albrecht, a 75-year-old accountant and Republican who voted for Trump in 2016, lives blocks away from the Louisville grocery store where the two people died. He'd pulled into the parking lot minutes after the gunfire erupted, saw the police cars and shaken employees, and felt like the country's poisonous political climate had landed in his backyard. He wishes he could take back his vote for Trump.
President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally. Photo / AP
"He has diarrhoea of the mouth and diarrhoea of the brain. He's just so irresponsible," said Albrecht, who worries Trump's embrace of the far-right is remaking his party. "I don't think the American public is going to put up with it. I think there's going to be a big backlash against Republicans because of this divisiveness."
He was undecided going into Election Day. He can't remember ever voting for a Democrat but said he might this time in protest.
Other Trump voters remain staunchly behind him, and plan to choose Republican candidates to help him make good on his pledges, including vows to implement more hardline immigration policies.
"I want to see the wall go up," said Joe Spirko, 57, as he peddled Trump flags outside of one of the President's rallies in Florida last week. "Since Trump came along, I feel a lot better."
Trump has stepped up his rhetoric on immigration ahead of the elections, focusing on a caravan of Central American migrants heading toward the US. Trump and his backers have called it "an invasion" - though the group of a few thousand people, including mothers and children, remains hundreds of kilometres away - and suggested without proof that there are criminals and terrorists in the crowd of those fleeing violence and poverty. In a White House speech, the President said he would sign an order preventing border-crossers from claiming asylum, a legally questionable proposition, and said he'd told military troops he's mobilising to the border to respond to thrown rocks like they were "rifles".
Julie Hoeppner, a 67-year-old psychologist in Indiana, voted early for Republican candidates, also citing illegal immigration as a primary concern.
A friend recently sent Hoeppner a photo of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island with a note that said: "For our ancestors, this is their caravan." Hoeppner didn't respond but thought to herself that her ancestors arrived legally. "Which is a big difference," she said. "They didn't come trying to storm the border."
Pedro Panelo says immigration is more complex than Democrats and Republicans make it out to be. Photo / AP
Pedro Panelo, the 21-year-old president of the College Republicans at Wheaton College in Illinois, is frustrated immigration became a last-minute political football, because the issue is more complex than what either Democrats or Republicans make it out to be. Panelo, the son of a Mexican immigrant, said migrants shouldn't be demonised, but he stopped short of criticising the President, and planned to vote for Republican candidates who could help push Trump's agenda.
"When it comes to his actions, I'm not a huge fan of his tweets," Panelo said. "But what I say is look what he's done for the country and not always what he's said on Twitter."
He said he's felt an extraordinary level of enthusiasm for this election among his fellow students.
Young people, who historically sit out of Midterm elections, and women were both expected to be pivotal forces today.
In Georgia, Democratic campaign volunteer Adrienne White said she struggled to recruit volunteers ahead of the 2016 presidential election but that it's been easy this year, especially among women.
In Pittsburgh, where residents just finished burying those gunned down at the Tree of Life synagogue, some voters saw their Election Day decisions as a way to send a message that the country is headed down a dark and dangerous path.
"This is probably the most important election in the past 100 years. This will turn the tables," said Barbara Villa, 71, who with her husband planted a crop of "Vote Blue" signs outside their home.
Rose Cathleen Bagin, 77, lives in the same neighbourhood as the synagogue. She lashed a sign to her front porch reading "VOTE FOR GUN CONTROL", and she is stunned every time she sees the crowd at Trump rallies on television cheering for his divisive language.
"I can't stand the terrible things he says and the terrible things he's doing," said Bagin, who planned to vote Democratic today. "I'm terrified. We're going to a place I just don't understand."
What to watch
Illustration / Rod Emmerson
The timeline
Polls start closing at midday NZT in Kentucky. But things will really get rolling at 1pm, when polls close in Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina and Virginia. Another wave of numbers will begin coming in after 1.30pm from North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia. A big chunk of data will come after 2pm and 3pm when states such as Texas, New York, Michigan and Pennsylvania begin reporting. The 5pm batch of states includes California, home to several competitive congressional races. Alaska, where polls close at 7pm, will end the day.
Much of America had already voted before today. Based on reports from 49 states through to yesterday, at least 36.4 million people voted in the Midterms before Election Day. And in a sign of the growing influence of early voting, 30 states reported exceeding their total number of mail and in-person votes cast ahead of the 2014 midterm elections.
A big question: Does it mean a higher turnout?
Turnout in Midterm elections is typically near 40 per cent, much lower than presidential elections, where turnout has hit around 60 per cent in recent cycles. University of Florida professor Michael McDonald, who studies voting patterns, estimated recently that about 45 per cent of eligible voters could cast ballots this year, a turnout level that hasn't been seen in nearly a half century.
Early tea leaves
For an early read on how things are going, keep an eye on two congressional races in Virginia: A district in the Washington suburbs represented by Republican Representative Barbara Comstock and another in the Richmond area held by Republican Representative Dave Brat.
Trump has struggled with college-educated women in the suburbs and Comstock's district could be among the first casualties as she faces Democrat Jennifer Wexton. Brat, meanwhile, won his seat by upsetting then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the 2014 GOP primary. But this time he is facing a serious threat from Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer.
Another district to watch is in Kentucky - the Lexington-area battle pitting third-term Republican Representative Andy Barr against Democrat Amy McGrath, a retired Marine fighter pilot. Trump won the 6th District by more than 15 percentage points in 2016. But McGrath has pushed Barr to the edge with the help of sharp campaign ads that went viral.
Republicans have had control of the House since the tea party helped sweep them into power in the 2010 Midterms. Nearly a decade later, the GOP is trying to avoid a "blue wave" that returns Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats to the majority.
Control of the House is expected to be determined by a few dozen districts, many of them in the nation's suburbs. Democrats need a net increase of 23 seats to win back control - a number that many GOP officials concede is a very possible outcome.
Senate stakes
Republicans hold a narrow Senate majority, 51-49, but have a huge advantage in these contests because the battle for control runs mostly through states that Trump won in 2016.
To put it simply: Democrats are on defence. Of the 35 Senate races, 10 involve Democratic incumbents seeking re-election in states won by Trump, often by large margins. Democrats' hopes of recapturing the Senate hinge on all their incumbents winning - a difficult task - and on flipping seats in Nevada, won by Hillary Clinton in 2016, and a few states that lean Republican, most notably Arizona, Tennessee and Texas.
Another epic clash to watch: A race involving Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Trump's one-time GOP presidential rival, against Democratic Representative Beto O'Rourke.
