Neil Mehta covers early House results for The Wall Street Journal

Virginia closes at 7 p.m. ET; early states could signal control and margin

The Journal describes the tracker in one line: “Here are the key bellwether races we’re watching tonight, along with the latest results.” The arrangement is a list of the bellwether contests with the latest results posted beside them, and the credits on the piece identify Neil Mehta as a news associate in New York and Chiqui Esteban as a director of graphics in Washington, D.C.

The timing runs in two stages. Most of Kentucky and Indiana close at 6 p.m. ET, and results will start being released after those closes. Virginia and most of Florida close at 7 p.m. ET, an hour later.

Virginia falls into the later stage of that schedule. Its polls close at 7 p.m. ET, an hour after most of Kentucky and Indiana have closed and started releasing results. The Journal groups Indiana, Kentucky, Florida and Virginia together as the early-closing races, and says those contests could give an early signal of who will win control in the next Congress, and by how much.

What those early returns measure is a chamber fight that starts with the GOP holding a 219-214 majority with two vacancies, with Democrats and Republicans battling over the House. The margin behind control is part of what the early states could indicate, which is why the Journal pairs the bellwether list with the latest results rather than treating the first closes as a final count.

Mehta is a news associate at The Wall Street Journal in New York who first joined the Journal as an intern in summer 2024.

Before that, he interned at New York Public Radio for WNYC and Gothamist in New York City, where he covered housing and the economy in the newsroom’s economics and equity desk. He also worked at the Center for Advancing Health Policy Through Research, a health care research group at Brown University.

Mehta graduated from Brown University in 2025 with bachelor’s degrees in statistics and public health. There, he was editor in chief of the Brown Daily Herald, the school’s student-run paper.

Esteban is a director of graphics for The Wall Street Journal in Washington, D.C. He previously worked as graphics director for the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, and as deputy art, maps and graphics director for National Geographic.

For readers watching the House, the tracker’s schedule is fixed: results start being released once most of Kentucky and Indiana have closed at 6 p.m. ET, and Virginia and most of Florida close at 7 p.m. ET. What the early returns mean for control of the next Congress, and by how much, the Journal states conditionally — as an early signal from the four early-closing states.