Midterm elections: Americans vote, more than 59 million early ballots cast, first results at 7 p.m.

Americans are voting on Tuesday, November 3, in the midterm elections, which will decide control of Congress for the last two years of Donald Trump's term. As of 4 p.m. New York time, polls are open in all 50 states. The first polls close at 7 p.m. in six states, and the first results will come in then, according to CBS News. More than 59 million Americans had already voted early, according to the University of Florida Voting Lab, cited by CBS News.

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 35 Senate seats and 36 governorships are on the ballot. In the Senate, Republicans hold 53 seats to the Democrats' 47. In the House, they hold 218, plus an independent who usually votes with them, to the Democrats' 214, with two vacancies, according to CBS News. Democrats need a net gain of three seats to retake the majority, Suzan DelBene, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said, according to NBC News.

The races to watch

CBS News counts eleven competitive Senate races: eight Republican-held seats (Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas) and three Democratic-held seats (Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire). Among the closely watched contests: Susan Collins against Troy Jackson in Maine, Ken Paxton against James Talarico in Texas, Jon Husted against Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Roy Cooper against Michael Whatley in North Carolina, Jon Ossoff against Mike Collins in Georgia and Mike Rogers against Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. CBS News also counts 47 battleground House districts. In the governor's races, Vivek Ramaswamy faces Amy Acton in Ohio and Greg Abbott faces Gina Hinojosa in Texas, according to NBC News.

Problems in several states

In Westchester County, New York, ballot scanners failed in 44 of the county's 45 municipalities, according to NBC News. The state board of elections blamed an update made to the machines after testing. Voters are using emergency paper ballots, which will be counted later, and the result in the 17th District could be delayed. In Florida, flooding forced at least 18 polling places to move across seven counties, according to NBC News. In Fulton County, Georgia, about 1,000 early ballots must be rescanned, with no delay expected, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. In Toledo, Ohio, a school used as a polling site was evacuated after a bomb threat. The Justice Department deployed about 1,000 monitors to all 50 states, a first, according to CBS News.

What both sides are saying

Donald Trump said Republicans had given these elections "a very strong shot," while acknowledging that the sitting president often loses the midterms, CBS News reports. He will follow the results from the White House. House Speaker Mike Johnson said "the polls are wrong." The latest CBS News projection, on October 25, gave Democrats 229 House seats, within a range of 215 to 237. Gas prices are also weighing on the vote: an average of 4.14 dollars a gallon, a record for an Election Day, according to AAA, cited by NBC News.

NAGO News will update this article tonight with the first results.