"Ohio Voted" stickers await voters after they cast their ballots at the Meadowbook Golf Club in Clayton, Ohio Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Charles Powers sits in his car with his "I Voted" sticker on his hat after voting at his polling place, the New LIFE Worship Center Church of God in Fayetteville, Pa., Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Voters line up to cast their ballots in the midterm election at the Aspray Boat House in Warwick, R.I., Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Kash Strong, 3, peeks out from under the curtain of a voting booth as his mother Sophia Amacker casts her vote on Election Day at the Martin Luther King Elementary School in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
A woman is seen through a "vote here" sign, as she enters a polling site to vote in the midterm elections, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
A person votes on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
BA
"Ohio Voted" stickers await voters after they cast their ballots at the Meadowbook Golf Club in Clayton, Ohio Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
MC
Charles Powers sits in his car with his "I Voted" sticker on his hat after voting at his polling place, the New LIFE Worship Center Church of God in Fayetteville, Pa., Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
CK
Voters line up to cast their ballots in the midterm election at the Aspray Boat House in Warwick, R.I., Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
DG
Kash Strong, 3, peeks out from under the curtain of a voting booth as his mother Sophia Amacker casts her vote on Election Day at the Martin Luther King Elementary School in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
GH
A woman is seen through a "vote here" sign, as she enters a polling site to vote in the midterm elections, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Americans were voting Tuesday in a key election that will decide whether Republicans end the Democratic Party’s hold on Washington and take back the House and Senate.
The balloting marks the first major national elections since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June to end constitutional protection of abortion rights. All 435 seats in the narrowly held House and one-third of the evenly divided Senate are being decided.
Emotions were raw as people stood outside libraries, fitness centers, laundromats and fire stations to begin casting ballots. From Lewiston, Maine, to rainy Pacoima, California, they held infants in their arms and wore uniforms, suits and workout clothes as they waited to vote. Many said inflation, abortion, crime and the future of democracy weighed heavily on their minds.
Associated Press photographers fanned out across the U.S. to capture voting on Election Day.