How the elections work

The US legislature, Congress, has two chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate.

How is the House of Representatives elected and how do they work?

The lower chamber, the House of Representatives, has 435 voting seats, each representing a district of roughly similar size. There are elections for each of these seats every two years.

The speaker of the House is the chamber's presiding officer, elected by the representatives. The House has several exclusive powers, such as the power to initiate revenue bills, impeach federal officials and elect the president in the case of an electoral college tie.

How is the Senate elected and how do they work?

The upper chamber, the Senate, has 100 members, who sit for six-year terms. One-third of the seats come up for election in each two-year cycle. Each state has two senators, regardless of its population; this means that Wyoming, with a population of less than 600,000, carries the same weight as California, with almost 40 million.

Most legislation needs to pass both chambers to become law, but the Senate has some important other functions, notably approving senior presidential appointments, for instance to the supreme court. The Senate also has the sole power to provide advice to the president, consent to ratify treaties and try impeachment cases for federal officials referred to it by the House.

In most states, the candidate with the most votes on election day wins the seat. However, Georgia and Louisiana require the winning candidate to garner 50% of votes cast; if no one does, they hold a runoff election between the top two candidates.

Maine and Alaska use ranked-choice voting as opposed to the first past the post voting system in congressional elections. Voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the least-supported candidate is eliminated and their ballots are transferred to each voter's next-ranked candidate. This continues until a candidate wins a majority.

In some states, an election can feature two candidates from the same party. Under top-two or "jungle" primary systems, candidates from all parties compete in the same primary and the two receiving the most votes advance, regardless of party. The congressional election candidates could both be Democrats or both be Republicans.

Florida and Ohio are having 'special elections' for the Senate because the previous holders of their seats – Marco Rubio and JD Vance – resigned to join the executive branch following the 2024 presidential election.

How are governors elected and how do they work?

Governors are elected by direct vote in their states. The candidate with the highest number of votes is declared the winner.

In every state, the executive branch is led by a governor. They serve for four years in office, with the exception of Vermont and New Hampshire where tenures are two years long.

Governors are responsible for implementing state laws, and have a range of powers available to them such as executive orders, executive budgets and legislative proposals and vetoes.

How are the results reported?

The election results on this page are reported by the Associated Press. AP will "call" the winner in a state when it determines that the trailing candidate has no path to victory. This can happen before 100% of votes in a state have been counted.

Estimates for the total vote in each state are also provided by AP. The numbers update throughout election night and in the following days, as more data on voter turnout becomes available.

Antonio Voce, Seán Clarke, Ed Gargan, Anna Leach and Ashley Kirk