Voters in Northeast states to decide key races for Congress

(The Center Square) — Voters in New York, Maine and New Hampshire go to the polls on Tuesday to decide key congressional races that will help determine the balance of power in Washington for the next two years. 

In Maine, five-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Susan Collins faces a challenge from Democrat Troy Jackson, a former Maine Senate president tapped to replace disgraced nominee Graham Platner in a marquee race that is considered a must-win contest for the Democratic Party as it pushes to retake the upper chamber, where Republicans currently have a 53-45 majority. 

Collins, a moderate, is the only Republican senator running for reelection this year in a Democratic-led state that Kamala Harris carried in the 2024 presidential election. Jackson has hammered away at the veteran lawmaker over her ties to President Trump, but Collins has defended her record on the campaign trail and says she hasn't been a sure vote for the president's agenda.

The latest polls show Jackson with a slight lead over Collins, but still within the margin of error. Election handicappers Cook Political Report and Inside Elections have both rated the Maine Senate race a "Toss Up" ahead of Tuesday's midterms.

Maine voters will also be picking a new member of Congress to replace outgoing Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, who decided not to run for reelection. State Auditor Matt Dunlap, a Democrat, and former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, will face off for the 2nd Congressional seat Tuesday.

Republicans are hoping to flip the seat in the swing congressional district, which Republican President Donald Trump has won three times. Democrats, meanwhile, are hoping to hold onto the congressional district as part of a broader strategy to win a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In neighboring New Hampshire, Democratic U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas will face Republican former Sen. John E. Sununu in the race to replace outgoing Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in Tuesday's election.

Flipping the Senate seat, held by Democrats since 2008, is a key goal for the GOP in the upcoming midterms. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has listed the seat as a toss-up race, saying internal polling suggests that Republicans have a slight edge over Democrats. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rated the Senate race as "leaning Democrat."

Further down Tuesday's ballot, Shaheen's daughter, Stefany, will face Trump-endorsed political newcomer Anthony DiLorenzo, who owns a chain of car dealerships and collision centers, in the race to replace Pappas in New Hampshire's 1st Congressional District. 

In New York, there are several contested congressional races on Tuesday that will also help determine who controls Congress for President Donald Trump's final two years in the White House. 

That includes the 17th Congressional District, where Trump-endorsed GOP Rep. Mike Lawler is fighting to keep his Hudson Valley seat in one of the swingiest congressional districts in the country amid a challenge from Democrat Cait Conley. 

Lawler was first elected to the Hudson Valley seat in 2022 after defeating Democrat Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who at the time was head of House Democrats’ campaign arm. Lawler's victory marked the first general election defeat for a campaign chair of either party in decades.

Conley, a U.S. Army veteran and former counterintelligence official, is making her first run for Congress after emerging from a crowded Democratic primary, where she edged out four other candidates to win the party's nomination to challenge Lawler in the fall. 

The swing district has gone back and forth between Republican and Democratic representatives over the years. Democrat Kamala Harris won the district in the 2024 presidential election. The Cook Political Report has rated the 17th district a toss-up.

In the 2022 midterms, New York’s battleground congressional races helped the GOP gain control of the House of Representatives as a "red wave" gave them a razor thin majority in the lower chamber for the remainder of Democratic President Joe Biden's final two years in office. But President Trump's low approval rating in the state has given Democrats optimism that they will flip several congressional seats.

Nationally, Democrats hold an 11-point lead over Republicans among registered voters asked which party they would back for Congress, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week. The nationwide survey found that 47% favored Democrats, compared with 36% for Republicans, in a "generic ballot" question.

The election handicapper Cook Political Report rates 21 House seats as "toss-up" races, with another 12 races leaning Democrat and 13 leaning Republican. In the Senate, Cook has called contests in at least seven states, including Maine, "toss-up" races.

Ahead of Tuesday, voters in New York and Maine have already cast hundreds of thousands of ballots through the mail and during early voting periods that wrapped up at the end of last week. 

In New York, early voting wrapped up Sunday with more than 1.7 million votes cast, according to the state Board of Elections. In Maine, voters cast more than 275,000 ballots during a nearly month-long early voting period. New Hampshire doesn't offer early in-person voting.