party can call the shots on the hill for the next couple of years. right now we have a split senate right counsel the middle folks, 50 democrats, 50 republicans with the vice president able to cast that deciding vote. now, bun seat here could really change everything. the biden agenda would hang in the balance. >> bret: voters have been lining up at the polls throughout the day today. georgia's polls close in the next hour and pennsylvania, the hour after that. >> martha: but not all states count and report their votes the same way. here's where it's going to get pretty tricky and we will guide you through this tonight. georgia, pennsylvania, and wisconsin are known to be historically slow counting states. they start opening the mail-in ballots at 7:00 a.m. on election day. other states like florida and texas, they start processing those ballots that come in before election day. therefore, it will happen there probably much faster. >> bret: virginia is quick, too. that's why we always warn against what's called the red or blue mirage. it may seem in the early hours of the night that one party has a cleared a vantage but it may be short-lived. we'll guide you through this as the night goes on. >> martha: so this election comes as our nation deals with crises on multiple fronts. we have got run away inflation. we have out-of-control crime. and we have a disaster that has unfolded on the southern border. tonight will be the difference between what gets prioritized and what gets put to the side. here's how the numbers break down. >> first, on the senate side of the congress, where both parties have no room for error. there are 50 republicans and 48 democrats in the senate but you have got two independents who caucus with the democrats. that makes a total of 50 for each party. but democrats have control because they have vice president harris' tiebreaking vote. republicans need to gain just one seat to take the majority. so the senate could come down to just a few key races. >> bret: now over to the house side of the capital. democrats hold a razor thin majority with 220 seats while republicans have 212. there are three vacancies with one likely to remain in republican hands after a special election. that would mean the g.o.p. needs a net gain of five seats to take control of the house. we have more than 25 reporters spread across the bottle ground states throughout the country. take a look at them there. we will get to all of them throughout the evening. but, first, let's head over to bill hemmer manning the billboard. here we go, bill. brill. >> bill: this thing is loaded and ready to go. good evening martha and breath. bret.on the senate side republis they must win and hold the five following seats in fact keeping them in the red column. first of all, pennsylvania, where dr. mehmet oz and john fetterman have been locked in a sea saw battle. in ohio, also in the buckeye state that's where j.d. vance and tim ryan right now are battling it out throughout the evening from. ohio we will move down here to the tarheel state and the state of north carolina where ted budd is hoping to hold off sherri beazley. could be a tight race in carolina as well. back in the upper midwest, however, in wisconsin, we find ron johnson trying to find a third term defending his seat against a progressive newcomer by the name of mandela barnes, a 35 lieutenant governor there in the state of wisconsin. that's four of five. the fifth one is down here in florida where marco rubio is looking to hold off val demings. that closes 8:00. and they count pretty fast, too. so, if republicans are successful in all five of those races, they still need to knock off a race somewhere else across the country. now, the most likely possibilities could be here in the state of georgia where herschel walker is trying it take down raphael warnock. we will check in there momentarily. also in the american west, stay up late for us tonight because it might be in the state of nevada where adam laxalt has been leading against catherine cortez masto. republicans think they have got a good shot at that race. we will see whether or not they are right. also in the american southwest in the state of arizona, mark kelly is trying to hold off blake masters. a battle we have been watching now for months. now, a victory in just one of those states coupled with that 5 for 5 scenario would give republicans the majority. now, if the g.o.p. is having a good night, we might see other close races pop up in othe states, maybe new hampshire in the northeast or colorado in the mountain west or even the state of washington. some people believe that could be in play tonight and therein lies the drama for this election. on the house side, however, as we enter the evening, democrats hold 220 seats to the republican 212. 218 is a simple majority. our fox news power rankings put 223 seats in the red column. 186 in the blue. and we believe in the middle there are 26 seats that are considered toss-ups. and they will determine the margin in the house and we may not know that for several days. buckle up, it's night one, perhaps, as we begin now. bret and martha, back to you. >> bret: thanks, bill. >> martha: thank you very much, bill. two of the big battle grounds in this cycle as bill was just talking about georgia and pennsylvania. we have team fox coverage aishah hasnie at herschel walker's headquarters in atlanta but let's start tonight with bryan llenas who is live from a polling location in ben salem, pennsylvania. hi, brian. >> martha, good evening polls in pennsylvania close at 8:00 p.m. except for lucerne county where a judge has ordered polling places to stay open until 10:00 p.m. after some locations ran out of the paper needed to tabulate votes in voting machines. lucerne has a lot of republican votes. president trump won that county by 14 points in 2020. this morning. polling workers began processing what could be as many as 1.4 million mail-in ballots. statewide. counting will continue overnight until they are finished. initially philadelphia officials said they would be done counting by wednesday morning but now it could take several days after the board of elections voted this morning to reinstate a security procedure to catch double votes. tonight, there is focus on undated and misdated mail in and absentee ballots. a recent court decision said these ballots will not count. but just yesterday, the fetterman campaign filed a lawsuit arguing that they should counts mail-in ballots could be a mainly path to victory for john fetterman tonight. about 70% were sent to registered democrats. tonight's senate race between dr. mehmet oz and fetterman is expected to be close which could mean we won't know results for a few day, the oz campaign tells us they are feeling confident. the race is a toss-up but oz has momentum after erasing fetterman's double dignity lead over the summer by selling a bipartisan message on bringing balance to washington. the oz campaign, martha, tells us they are feeling good in places like deep red butler, franklin and york where before feel even got out of work. that armartha. >> martha: and extra hour for lucerne county. >> bret: aishah hasnie at herschel walker's campaign headquarters. >> good to see you. republican insiders are telling us tonight that they do believe that herschel walker could squeeze out a victory tonight and avoid a runoff and there are a couple of reasons why. number one, they say that herschel walker has the momentum, did have the momentum going that election day. he will was able to close the gap with raphael warnock and shore up his base in the end despite those early abortion claims which, of course, he denied. number two, he is getting a pretty big poll from incumbent governor brian kemp that successful campaign. finally this may be the biggest factor of all, bret. inflation is the top issue for voter in georgia by a mile in this election really could be a referendum on democrats and their policies. meanwhile, incumbent senator raphael warnock has already been hinting toward run off, the democrat hinted this canvassing event earlier today whether it's tonight or next month that he believes georgia will pick the right candidate. way to avoid the run off break the 50 pointed flesh hold. we were looking at 2.5 million voters already. bret? >> bret: aishah, thank you. >> martha: fox news voter analysis will explain the trends that we are seeing as the results start to roll in. shannon is going through all of that. shannon, good evening to you. what are you seeing so far? >> good to see you guys. we have been asking voters around the country more than 100,000 of them how they vote and why. first look tonight at fox news voter analysis. we have a new method to analyze their decisions and to tell you why they voted the way they did. the top concern for voters, not surprising, it is the economy. nearly half of the electorate 47% that we talked to say the economy is the most important issue facing the country. that's nearly five times as much as the next issue. abortion is a distant second at 10%. immigration at 9%. the climate at 9%. now, the highest numbers, if you dig in here, can you see there are sections of the country where these colors are most intense. so right here i would say we have a group idaho, wyoming and utah, and wyoming in the middle of the country. they say there the economy is their biggest worry. essentially it's the economy, stupid. let's check in here to see what else we can tell you about the numbers so far. inflation at 50-year high who do voter blame. 54% of them say the president and his policies. 46% say though they think it's out of his control. now, let's tease one of the hot races for you in ohio we are watching closely tonight. democrat tim ryan is distancing himself from president biden. the republican in this race, j.d. vance was endorsed by president trump. yet, roughly equal numbers of buckeye voters think that ryan supports biden too much and vance supports trump too much. we will see how that filters out. midterms often a referendum on the president a third of voter say that they are actually falling behind financially. that is twice as many who felt that way two years ago. that could signal trouble for the white house tonight. we will dig deeper into the numbers and get back to you on this soon. martha? >> martha: thank you, shannon. >> bret: let's bring in fox news senior am list brit hume and dana perino, co-host of "the five." dana, you just got off set. what are you thinking tonight? >> dana: nice night out there in new york city as fall is happening. it was very interesting to be sitting with my colleagues of "the five" as i'm sure it is for you in many ways to think about how this midterm cycle has really been going on since january 20th of 2021. the history repeats itself. midterms are usually won by the opposing party from the president. i think one of the most interesting things tonight is to watch this fox news voter analysis. washington and many of the states across the country are going to have a lot of changes when they wake up tomorrow or by the end of the week when we have final results. and a lot of what informs their decisions going forward on how to govern the country, what the people are asking for, if government is responsive to the people, it will have to really take a listen to what people are saying in that fox news voter analysis. it's very interesting tonight. >> martha: brit, great to have you with us as always. it is a measure of where the country stands, how it teams about the current president and what's been going on. it's an opportunity to weigh in on that tonight. >> brit: if you look at that right track, wrong track number and whereby the parties stand on the issues, where the president stands, you see what would normally be the setting for a huge republican sweep. the polls don't indicate that at least not in the senate, which is what we are watching so carefully because it seems so close. the fact that in the house the republicans picked up 14 seats two years ago, so a lot of their best possibilities have already been exhausted. people -- republicans already in those seats. so it looks close. and closer than you might imagine with these conditions and with the public feeling the way it does about the economy and about the direction of the country. so, you know, this is interesting. and control is on the line. it isn't always in these midterms. usually it tilts one way or the other. it's very much on the line tonight. >> bret: there's some shifts that we are seeing in these numbers in different demographics, hispanics, blacks. >> brit: hispanics and blacks moving more twaws toward. not many republican also win the hispanic or black vote but more from the past what we can del from early analysis. that bodes well -- that's another thing that bodes well for republicans tonight. >> bret: all right. we have a lot of analysis coming. >> martha: yeah. we are just on the cusp of all of this. we will have numbers rolling in 45 manipulates from now. we will wait for those results. also, take some look at some really interesting governor's races all across the country. could lee zeldin turn new york city, where we are tonight red and will kari lake pro prevail n arizona? >> bret: karl rove and kellyanne join us as we count down to the 7:00 p.m. poll closing in a number of states six actually including the all important state of georgia. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ my father didn't know his dad. she knew that i always want to know more about my family history. with ancestry i dug and dug until i found some information. i was able to find out more than just a name. and then you add it to the tree. i found ship manifests. birth certificate. wow. look at your dad. i love it so much to know where my father work, where he grew up? it's like you discover a new family member. it's the 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and bret. the race between republican kari lake and democrat katie hobbs can arguably one of the most watched in the country. lake and her opponent not only dramatically differ in policy but tenure and tone. hobbs, the sitting secretary of state established herself in the spotlight during the 2020 election by not only certifying president joe biden's win in 2020 but becoming a staunch defender of arizona's election integrity. she is promising to cut sales taxes and centralized her message on defending democracy. at one rally warning, quote: this could be the last election of our lifetime lake, a former local tv news anchor endorsed by former president trump has found traction in not only attacking her opponent but the media. lake has garnered national attention with her unabashed statements questioning the legitimacy of biden's win and promising to declare an invasion at the arizona-mexico border on day one. both have heavily courted maricopa county voters. no candidate wins a statewide race here without it. as the second largest voting jurisdiction in the country, maricopa makes up two thirds of the entire arizona electorate. heading into today, 80% of voters cast their ballots with thousands more expected today. this afternoon maricopa elections said they resolved a technical problem that hit 27% of voting locations earlier today. for a number of hours, this morning affected tabulation machines would not count the ballots at the voting sites; however bret and martha, maricopa county elections officials now assuring folks here every ballot will be counted. back to you. >> martha: thanks alicia. >> bret: in new york republican lee zeldin has made the surprisingly strong showing against democratic incumbent governor kathy hochul. alexis mcadams is live at a polling location in new york city. alexis? >> yeah, bret. all eyes are on this governor's race here in deep blue, new york. as you mentioned pretty surprising how close it is. and shocker according to experts that say that governor hochul's campaign did not think it would be this close this late in the game. republican congressman lee zeldin says it's all a numbers game at this point. if ask you him he says he gets more than 30% of the vote in new york city, he will be the next governor of new york, which will be historic for him. so as we know that gap has really been shrinking in this race. in recent weeks as the gap closes voters say they are energized by this race because they don't want to see where this is going. they don't like where this is heading in new york. zeldin would be the first republican elected in 20 years to statewide office. incumbent democrat kathy hochul took over for disdisgraced governor last year and looking to make history as first governor elected governor of new york. zeldin focused his campaign around crime. slamming kathy hochul for having what he said are soft on crime policies trying to convince as many independent voters as possible that he is their guy. governor hochul shifted her focus do crime in recent weeks here, launching a new subway safety initiative which has been here. back out here live we can tell you talking to voters all day looking forward to seeing who is elected tonight and it could be close, bret? >> bret: alexis, thank you. >> martha: let's bring in a few more members of our panel karl rove is with us, former white house deputy chief of staff to president george w. bush and kellyanne pollster and former senior counselor to president trump. >> bret: also with us juan williams, trey gowdy former congressman of south carolina and host of "sunday night in america." josh kraushaar senior correspondent for axios. all right, karl, what are you looking at right now. you see some of the results from fox news voter analysis and you have all the knowledge you have. >> i'm not -- [laughter] >> what's interesting to me is this is like a campaign with two different agendas being talked about. normally fight over big things, 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