The voters who powered the Democrats’ bid to retake the House

Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for Georgia governor, addressed supporters early Wednesday morning, telling supporters to expect a runoff against Republican Brian Kemp.

“Georgia still has a decision to make,” Abrams said. “If I wasn’t your first choice, or if you didn’t vote, you’re going to have a chance to do a do-over.”

NBC News says the race is too close to call. Under Georgia law, if no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote, then the top two vote getters advance to a runoff election.

Despite President Donald Trump’s promise that tax cuts passed last year would positively affect the personal finances of Americans, only 29 percent of voters say the changes have helped them, according to the NBC News Exit Poll. Nationwide, 45 percent of voters report that the tax changes have not impacted their personal finances, while 22 percent say their finances have been hurt by the changes.

The exit poll also shows that voters in higher-income households are twice as likely as voters in lower-income households to report that tax law changes have helped their personal finances. Seventeen percent of voters with annual household incomes under $30,000 said their personal finances had benefited, compared to 34 percent of those with annual household incomes of $100,000 and higher.

Democratic candidates enjoyed strong support from LGBT voters nationwide on Tuesday, according to the NBC News Exit Poll. Roughly four out of five LGBT voters reported casting a ballot for their district’s Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives. The exit poll also found LGBT voters supporting Democratic Senate and gubernatorial candidates in strong numbers.

Since the 1990s, exit polls have found large majorities of LGBT voters supporting Democratic presidential candidates as well as the party’s candidates for Congress.

The exit poll also found LGBT voters expressing strong concerns about the direction of the country under President Donald Trump. About eight in 10 LGBT voters said things in the country were on the wrong track, and just one in 10 said they cast their House vote to express support for Trump.

A record number of women were elected to the House of Representatives on Tuesday. As of early Wednesday morning, at least 89 women had won seats, breaking the current session’s record of 84 women.

See how all the women fared here.

Republican challenger Josh Hawley is projected to pick up a Senate seat tonight in a hard-fought battle with incumbent Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill. NBC News Exit Poll results find Hawley doing particularly well with voters who say immigration is a top issue. He also captured three-quarters of the vote from white evangelicals and 62 percent of the vote from white men.

Voters from gun-owning households also sided with Hawley over McCaskill, who was given an F rating by the National Rifle Association. Among the nearly half of voters (46 percent) who oppose stricter gun measures, Hawley beat McCaskill 77 percent to 21 percent.

The Wisconsin gubernatorial race between incumbent Republican two-term Gov. Scott Walker and Democratic challenger Tony Evers is too close to call, according to NBC News.

With 93 percent of the vote in the Badger State tallied, Evers, the state schools superintendent, was leading Walker 49.1 percent to 48.9 percent.

Under a bill signed into law by Walker in 2017, any candidate in an election where more than 4,000 votes were cast can demand a recount if he or she lost by 1 percentage point or less.

California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, who has been indicted for alleged misuse of campaign funds, and New York Republican Rep. Chris Collins, who was indicted on insider trading charges, have both won their races, NBC News projects.

Hunter, won against Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar in California’s 50th House District and won his deep red district of Western New York against Democrat Nate McMurray, according to NBC News.

Except maybe it was, and on live TV, no less.

White evangelical women are not abandoning the Republican Party or President Donald Trump, the NBC News Exit Poll found. 

While both white evangelical men and white evangelical women were less likely to vote for Republicans for the House in 2018 than they were to vote for Trump in 2016, both groups remain steadfast Republican supporters and the decline is actually steeper for white evangelical men. In fact, the 11-point gender gap that existed among white evangelicals in 2016 shrunk to six points in 2018.

Why are evangelical women continuing to support Republican candidates in 2018? While slightly more than a quarter of white evangelical women either somewhat or strongly disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president, the remaining three-quarters approve of Trump’s job performance. These numbers are similar for white evangelical men. 

Three-term Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, trailing Republican challenger Rick Scott by more than 55,000 votes as of 12:50 a.m. ET, will make a “full statement tomorrow,” a campaign spokesperson said early Wednesday.

“This is obviously not the result Senator Nelson’s campaign has worked hard for,” the spokesperson said. “The senator will be making a full statement tomorrow to thank all those who rallied for his cause.”

Moments earlier, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that President Donald Trump had made congratulatory calls to winning Republican Senate candidates, including Scott.

The race is too close to call, according to an NBC News projection. 

With 99 percent of the vote tallied, Scott, the outgoing GOP governor, had 50.3 percent of the vote, while Nelson had 49.7 percent. However, Florida has a mandatory recount rule if candidates are within 0.5 percent of each other. 

If Scott wins, it would add to the GOP’s growing cushion in the Senate. Republicans had, as of 12:30 a.m. ET, successfully held several seats they were defending (including in Tennessee and Texas) and picked up two other seats held by Democrats in Indiana and Missouri.