Americans in battleground states on why they’re voting: ‘I fear I won’t have rights’

As Americans head to the polls, we sent photographers out to three key battleground states to spotlight voters, who spoke about their hopes and fears in the midterm elections. They met people voting out of concern for the economy, women's rights and threats to democracy. They also found people driven by optimism for greater unity and hope that their vote would make a difference. Meet some of the voters who are deciding the fate of politics in their home states.

One of the highest-profile key races of the election, which could decide which party controls the Senate, is in Georgia where the Democratic senator Raphael Warnock is up against the Republican former football star Herschel Walker, a Trump acolyte.

A vocal anti-abortion advocate, Walker's campaign was rocked by reports that he paid for former girlfriends to have abortions in the past. If neither candidate gets 50% of the vote, the race will go to a runoff in early December.

Meanwhile, in the state's gubernatorial election, Democrat Stacey Abrams is taking on the Republican incumbent, Brian Kemp, in a rerun of their 2018 contest which she narrowly lost. Kemp is leading in the polls in this year's contest.

Photographs and interviews by Morgan Hornsby in Ringgold, Georgia

Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, the first Latina to serve in the Senate, is defending her seat against the state attorney general, Adam Laxalt, a Republican who spearheaded his party's efforts to overturn Joe Biden's victory there in the 2020 election.

Cortez Masto has emphasized abortion rights, while Laxalt has sought to harness voter concerns about rising prices - a pattern playing out in other states as well. The race has remained extremely close.

Photographs and interviews by Saeed Rahbaran in Las Vegas, Nevada

Trump-endorsed JD Vance, author of the bestseller Hillbilly Elegy, should hold the advantage against the Democratic US representative Tim Ryan in the Senate race for a state that has trended Republican over the past decade.

Ryan has emphasized his blue-collar background, supporting domestic jobs and a $15 minimum wage as his key policy planks, and distanced himself from his party's liberal wing. But non-partisan analysts say Vance - who Republican groups have spent heavily on to shore up his prospects - is still is more likely to win.

Photographs and interviews by Rich-Joseph Facun in Athens, Ohio