Voting began across the United States on Tuesday in midterm elections widely seen as a verdict on Donald Trump's presidency, with his Republican Party behind in a series of key contests and fuel prices at an election-day record, The Irish Times reports.
Polls opened as federal judges issued a fresh round of rulings limiting the administration's attempts to press state election officials over alleged noncitizen voting. The Guardian, running live coverage, framed the vote as a referendum on the Trump agenda.
Why it matters
Control of Congress is at stake, and with it the president's room to legislate over the second half of his term. The Irish Times reports that polling points to heavy losses for the Republicans, while prediction markets have swung strongly behind the Democrats. Betting aggregator BetInt, cited by The Irish Times, put the Democrats at a 95 per cent implied chance of winning the House of Representatives and 76 per cent for the Senate on Monday. Around $1.48 billion (€1.32 billion) has been wagered on the contests on platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket, according to the paper.
Petrol hits an election-day record
Drivers heading to the polls faced average petrol prices above $4 a gallon on an election day for the first time on record. GasBuddy, a fuel savings app, put the national average at $4.13 a gallon as of 10am Eastern time, according to The Irish Times.
Patrick De Haan, GasBuddy's head of petroleum analysis, said that was the highest figure ever logged on a November 3rd and higher than any previous election day, including 2022, when US petrol prices reached an all-time peak. Prices remain below this year's high of more than $4.56 a gallon in May and are down from a national average close to $4.50 in late September, according to AAA.
The Irish Times attributes the sustained cost to disrupted global energy shipments and a refining crisis stemming from the US-Iran war, along with continued Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries and restrained Chinese exports. The timing is awkward for the governing party, with energy costs a central theme of the campaign.
Courts push back on election demands
In the hours before polling stations opened, federal judges issued rulings restricting the administration's efforts to pressure state officials over alleged noncitizen voting, The Irish Times reports.
In Washington, one federal judge barred the administration from demanding that California officials exclude any ballots received from people on a list of alleged noncitizens, while a second judge stopped such lists being sent to officials in any state. In San Francisco, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court order requiring the administration to stop threatening election officials with prosecution if they did not comply with its demands.
Those decisions followed the US Supreme Court's swift rejection of the administration's request to intervene in a Justice Department lawsuit that sought to order California election officials not to count mail ballots received from more than 20,000 people the department says may be noncitizens.
Separately, the Justice Department said it was sending 1,000 election monitors and observers to all 50 states, describing it as the largest monitoring effort in its history, according to The Irish Times. The department named the jurisdictions that would receive monitors and said priorities included areas with past voter access problems and competitive races at risk of intimidation. The administration has pressed states for voter registration data and argued that tighter measures are needed to shore up confidence in the vote; critics call the approach federal overreach.
Eight Senate seats in focus
While hundreds of races conclude, The Irish Times identifies eight Senate contests likely to decide the chamber's balance.
In Michigan, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed faces Trump-backed Republican Mike Rogers. In Maine, incumbent Republican Susan Collins is fighting hard to hold her seat. In Alaska, former Democratic congresswoman Mary Peltola is seeking to unseat Republican Dan Sullivan. In Ohio, Democrat Sherrod Brown is trying to return to the Senate after losing his seat in 2024, while in Texas Democrat James Talarico is attempting to defeat Republican Ken Paxton.
Kansas is closer than expected, with Democratic pastor Adam Hamilton leading Republican incumbent Roger Marshall in the polls, according to the paper. In South Carolina, Darline Graham, sister of the late senator Lindsey Graham, is running for a full term against Democratic nominee Annie Andrews in what polls suggest could be a tight race. In Iowa, Republican congresswoman Ashley Hinson is running to replace the retiring senator Joni Ernst against Democratic state lawmaker Josh Turek in a contest rated a toss-up.
What to watch
Many polls close at 6pm local time, or 11pm Irish time, and a clear picture of the results should emerge by early on Wednesday morning, The Irish Times reports.
