The highly anticipated 2018 midterm elections have already broken records for high levels of early voter turnout and fundraising.
In the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats took back control of the House of Representatives, ending a two-year streak in which Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress.
Meanwhile, Republicans maintained control of the Senate in a highly anticipated referendum on the leadership of President Donald Trump.
These elections have already broken records fpr:
- Early-voter turnout in a non presidential election
- Fundraising for congressional elections
- The number of candidates running
- The number of female candidates running
- The number of LGBT candidates running
- The number of female candidates elected
And they could still break records on:
- The number of women of color elected
- The number of LGBT candidates elected
- The number of military veterans elected
LIVE UPDATES: Follow our live coverage of the 2018 midterm elections here.
Here are all the records this year's midterm elections have already broken or could break:
Early-voter turnout
Voter turnout is typically quite low in non presidential elections, but this year saw record levels of early voter turnout, with 36 million Americans estimated to have voted early by Tuesday morning.
Over 40 million Americans are expected to have voted between absentee in the 2018 midterm elections when all ballots are counted, a stunning 32% increase over the 27.2 million who voted in 2014, according to Michael McDonald, Director of the Florida Elections Project.
Multiple states have shattered their previous records for early-voter turnout, leading experts to project that this year's midterm elections could have the highest turnout in a non presidential year in at least 52 years. Just 36% of eligible voters voted in 2014.
“This is not a normal election,” McDonald told Politico in an interview. “The best guess is that we’re looking at some sort of hybrid midterm/presidential election” in terms of turnout.
In 27 states, the total number of early ballots cast was greater the total number cast in the 2014 midterms, with the biggest leaps in turnout rates occurring in Florida, Texas, and Georgia–which set a historical record for the highest-ever early voter turnout in a midterm election.
Voter turnout especially spiked among young voters under 30, a historically unreliable voting bloc. 2018 youth voter turnout exceeds 2014 levels in at least 12 states,with those rates doubling in Texas, Nevada, New Jersey, and Georgia.
Total voter turnout:
When all is said and done, the 2018 midterm elections could set a new record high for total voter turnout in a midterm election as well as early turnout.
McDonald said that when the ratios of early vs. total turnout from 2014 were applied to 2018 early numbers, it projected a total voter turnout rate of 51.4% based on the record-high early voter turnout turnout numbers, which would be the highest total turnout rate in a midterm since 1914.
He cautioned, however, that several states have expanded early voting since 2014, making early vote a possibly less reliable predictor of total turnout than in previous years.
McDonald factored in early-to-total voter turnout ratios from 2016 to his 2018 estimates, leading him to a more modest prediction of 45% total voter turnout for 2018. For comparison, voter turnout was 60% in 2016, a Presidential election year.
McDonald told Politico in an interview he believes there's a possibility that every single state could surpass their 2014 early voter turnout, but it won't be certain until all the numbers come in.
Fundraising
This year's midterms are the most expensive congressional elections in US history, with the Center for Responsive Politics projecting that a total of $5.2 billion will be spent when all is said and done, far outdoing the previous record of $4.4 billion set in 2016.
Beto O'Rourke, the Democratic Senate candidate who ultimately lost to Ted Cruz in Texas, broke an all-time quarterly fundraising record in the 3rd quarter of 2018, raking in $38 million from individual donors.
In the House, the July 2017 special election in Georgia's 6th congressional district set a record for the most expensive House race in history with $56 million spent.
Other wealthy House and Senate candidates such as Gil Cisneros in California, Scott Wallace in Pennsylvania, and Rick Scott in Florida poured tens of millions of dollars into their own campaigns.
Read more: Here are the candidates who have raised and spent the most money since Trump's election
Female candidates
An all-time record number of women ran for — and won — Congressional races in 2018, breaking the record for the number of women serving in the the US Congress.
On Election Night, a record-breaking 103 women won election to Congress. Those 103 women. combined with 10 female Senators not up for re-election, make for a total of 113 women in Congress, beating the previous record of 107 women in Congress before the midterms.
Women won their primaries to become their respective parties' nominees in 235, or 45%, of House races, breaking the 2016 record of 167.
And women were the major party nominees in 22, or 63%, of Senate races, beating the previous high of 18 set in 2012.
Female candidates out-preformed previous records at the state level, too.
Sixteen women were their parties' gubernatorial nominees this year, breaking the previous record of 10 women in 1994. Another record 3,379 women were their parties' nominees for state legislative seats.
Women of color candidates
This year's midterms do not only have a record number of women, but women of other marginalized identities. This year has seen is a 75% increase in women of color running for Congress since 2012, with several of those candidates poised to make history this fall.
Democrats Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan were elected as the first-ever female Muslim members of Congress, Deb Haaland of New Mexico and Sharice Davids of Kansas became the first Native American congresswomen, and Republican Young Kim from California could be the first Korean-American woman in Congress (as of 4 a.m. on November 7 she was leading the vote count in her district).
Some scholars have compared the surge of women stepping up to run for office this year to "The Year of the Woman" in 1992, when record numbers of women ran for, and won, seats in the House of Representatives and US Senate following Anita Hill's testimony against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for allegedly sexually harassing her.
"This year certainly has the potential to be another year of the woman," Laurel Harbridge-Yong, a political scientist at Northwestern University, told Business Insider in September, adding that displeasure with Trump and the fallout from Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation "could mobilize white suburban women, a really key segment of the electorate, to vote for Democratic congressional candidates."
Read more: These are the 25 most competitive Congressional races to watch
LGBT candidates
A record-high of at least 244 candidates who identify as LGBT ran for office at the state and federal level between the primaries and general election. All of them are Democrats.
Some of the House candidates who could increase LGBT representation in Congress include Gina-Ortiz Jones in Texas, Sharice Davids in Kansas, and Chris Pappas in New Hampshire, just to name a few.
At the state level, Jared Polis, who won the Governor's race in Colorado, will be America's first-ever openly gay governor.
Military or intelligence veteran candidates
Public servants are running for Congress in droves, too. At least 400 veterans ran in congressional primaries, with 200 advancing to the general, according to Super PAC With Honor, which was created to support military veterans running for office.
To name a few, Amy McGrath in Kentucky, the first woman to fly an F-18 in combat in the Marine Corps, and Air Force pilot MJ Heger in Texas both went viral with campaign ads about the barriers they overcame as women in the armed forces.
And Republican candidate John James, an Army veteran and West Point graduate, has sparked attention for his long-shot challenge to Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.
Over the weekend, Texas congressional candidate Dan Crenshaw, who lost an eye during a tour of duty in Afghanistan, caught national attention after Pete Davidson mocked him on "Saturday Night Live."
There was bipartisan backlash calling on Davidson to apologize, but Crenshaw said he wanted "to get away from this culture where we demand apologies every time someone misspeaks."
He also tweeted: "Good rule in life: I try hard not to offend; I try harder not to be offended. That being said, I hope @nbcsnl recognizes that vets don't deserve to see their wounds used as punchlines for bad jokes."