Late election results Tuesday night showed Democrats were projected to take over the House, while Republicans were expected to expand their majority in the Senate. The results didn’t offer the repudiation of President Donald Trump that the left “resistance” movement had hoped, but the results were nevertheless set to transform the House not only in partisan makeup but also in gender, age and ethnicity. Ilhan Omar in Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib in Michigan will become the first Muslim women in the House. And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 29-year-old from New York, became the youngest woman elected to Congress. [WaPost]
Happy Wednesday.
Topping the news: The race to represent Congressional District 4 was too close to call Tuesday night, but Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams, a Democrat, held a slight lead over Republican Rep. Mia Love when the polls closed. [Trib] [DNews] [Fox13] [ABC4]
-> Some 54 percent of counted votes late Tuesday night went in favor of Proposition 2, the ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana — marking strong early support in favor of the motion. [Trib] [DNews] [Fox13] [KUTV]
-> They won’t make a dent in the Republicans’ supermajority, but Democrats were poised to pick up three seats in the Utah House of Representatives and one seat in the Utah Senate, unofficial results showed. [Trib] [DNews]
Tweets of the Day: From @SportsGuyRyan: “Voting in national elections is very hard for me because with rare exception I don’t like republicans or democrats or politicians.”
-> From @byrdinator: “Excited for this ‘elections’ nonsense to be over with so we can get back to the story people are truly excited about: NAFTA 2.0.”
-> From @chrislhayes: “Is it crazy that I think everyone should go back to the old style NY voting machines that register your vote with a satisfying ‘ka-chunk’ and are also impervious to software bugs, hacking and whatnot?”
Happy Birthday: To West Valley City Mayor Ron Bigelow, State Sen. Howard Stephenson, Riverton City Councilwoman Tawnee McKay and Connor Boyack, president of the Libertas Institute.
In other news: At polling locations in Salt Lake City and West Jordan, voters said they decided to come out or return their ballots not for a particular candidate but because they wanted to weigh in on one of the ballot initiatives. [Trib]
-> Three hours after polls closed on Tuesday, Provo residents were still waiting in line to cast their ballots. Read more news, updates and live analysis from Election Day. [Trib] [Fox13] [KUTV]
-> Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mitt Romney won the race to represent Utah with a substantial lead over his opponent, Democratic Salt Lake County Councilwoman Jenny Wilson. [Trib] [DNews] [Fox13] [KUTV]
-> Utah Republican Reps. Rob Bishop, Chris Stewart and John Curtis held onto their positions in the U.S. House of Representatives, though Democratic candidate Shireen Ghorbani put up a strong fight against Stewart. [Trib]
-> The nonbinding ballot initiative Proposition 1, which proposed a gas tax increase to help fund education, was quickly defeated Tuesday night, unofficial results showed. [Trib] [DNews] [ABC4]
-> Proposition 3, which looks to expand health care coverage for 150,000 low-income Utahns, met with 55 percent voter approval at the end of Tuesday night. [Trib] [DNews]
-> And Proposition 4, an initiative seeking to end gerrymandering in Utah, held a precariously thin 1 percentage point lead, small enough that results could shift as the vote count continues in coming days. [Trib] [DNews]
-> A proposed amendment to the Utah Constitution that looked to give the Legislature the power to call itself into special session without the governor’s permission was favored to win based on unofficial election results Tuesday night. [Trib] [DNews]
-> Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera and District Attorney Sim Gill, both Democrats, were predicted to win re-election, while it appeared the County Council would maintain its slight Republican majority. [Trib] [DNews]
-> Unofficial election results in Salt Lake City showed an $87 million road reconstruction bond proposed by city leaders had earned early approval, while voters in Cottonwood Heights overwhelmingly rejected a development on the 57-acre site of the shuttered Cottonwood Mall. [Trib] [DNews]
-> It appeared there had been a historic shift to a majority American Indian commission in San Juan County on Tuesday night, following a court-ordered redistricting that created new boundaries meant to realign political influence with the county’s majority indigenous population. [Trib] [Fox13]
-> A new version of a medical cannabis bill state lawmakers are considering was released Monday night. It closely paralleled the original proposal but included changes to require criminal background checks for those prescribed the drug and to create additional protections for pharmacists and workers in charge of distributing the drug. [Trib]
-> AAA, an automotive insurance and services company, said gas prices in Utah are more likely to drop than to rise following the sanctions on Iran recently imposed by the Trump administration. [KUTV]
-> Pat Bagley illustrates Republicans “glued to the news” on election night. [Trib]
Nationally: Regardless of who won or lost in the midterm elections, 2018 was a historic year for women, who stepped up as candidates, voters and activists in ways seldom before seen in politics. [NYTimes]
-> Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is facing his first death penalty case and is expected to hold the key vote in determining the future of an inmate on death row in Missouri. [NYTimes]
-> Voters in more than half of U.S. states — including in Utah — considered ballot initiatives on divisive topics ranging from voting rights to criminal justice reform and health care. [NYTimes] [Fox] [WaPost]
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— Taylor Stevens and Cara MacDonald
https://twitter.com/tstevensmedia and Twitter.com/carammacdonald