- Polls have closed in some states, but it’s unclear when we’ll know the results of the 2024 election.
- Some states’ election laws allow for some votes to be counted before polls close; others do not.
- Here’s where things stand — and what to watch for on election night.
After nearly two years of campaigning, two assassination attempts, and an unprecedented decision by the sitting president to drop out of the race, the 2024 US presidential election is coming to an end.
Polls have closed in some places, and results will begin rolling in soon.
The final week of the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump was all about outrage, with each candidate trying to amplify controversial comments from the other’s camp to try to shake up a race in which polls remained incredibly tight to the end.
The election is expected to come down to just seven states that polling has indicated either candidate could win: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Each state has different election laws, and some are expected to take longer than others to count the vote. If the race is as tight as polling suggests, there’s a very good chance we won’t know who won the election until sometime after Tuesday night.
Here’s the latest — and what to watch for.
Early exit polls give Trump and Harris confidence — and reasons to fret
Early exit polls hint at how voters felt when they cast their ballots, and they give each candidate reasons to feel good — or concerned.
Harris’ focus on democracy in the race’s closing days may have paid off. Thirty-five percent of voters said democracy matters most to their vote, an NBC News exit poll found.
If that holds, it would be a striking moment, since national polling has shown for months that the economy is by far the most important issue in the race. NBC’s exit poll also found that roughly three in four voters said “democracy in the U.S. today is threatened.”
Trump focused on tying Harris to President Joe Biden, betting that the president’s unpopularity could drag her numbers down. A CNN exit poll found that only 7% of voters were “enthusiastic” about the nation’s direction. More voters, 29%, were “angry” about the country’s direction, the most pessimistic option available. Overall, only 26% of voters said they were “satisfied” with the nation’s direction. In contrast, 72% of voters said they were “dissatisfied.”
The vast majority of voters made up their minds long before November, according to CNN’s exit poll, which found that eight in 10 voters made their decision about the presidential election before September.
That suggests Trump could survive the damage brought on by his controversial Madison Square Garden rally. It could also mean that Harris’ strong debate performance on September 10 may have come too late.
When we’ll know the results in each state
In some states, we may know the results pretty quickly. In others, counting may take days. Poll closing times listed below are in Eastern Time.
7 p.m. — Polls have now closed in most of Georgia, though a handful of polling places are remaining open late due to bomb threats. A winner could be declared in the Peach State by late Tuesday night. Though the state took days to process mail-in ballots in 2020, a new law allowed election officials to begin tabulating those votes Tuesday morning, likely speeding up the process.
7:30 p.m. — Polls have now closed in North Carolina, which has historically counted votes quickly. A winner could be declared Tuesday night.
8 p.m. — Polls close in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Michigan is expected to count ballots relatively quickly and could announce a result Tuesday night or early Wednesday.
But the Pennsylvania count is expected to take days. That’s because the election is expected to be so close in the Keystone State and because a big chunk of the electorate votes by mail, and officials can’t begin to count those votes until polls close.
In 2020, most news outlets didn’t call Pennsylvania until Saturday — at which point Joe Biden became president-elect.
9 p.m. — Polls close in Wisconsin and Arizona. We may not know the results in Wisconsin until Wednesday, a state election official told CNN in September, in part because of the amount of time it takes to count absentee ballots in the heavily Democratic city of Milwaukee.
Like Pennsylvania, Arizona’s vote count is expected to take days, given that most of the electorate is expected to vote by mail. Initial results probably won’t be available until 10 p.m.
10 p.m. — Polls close in Nevada, which could also take days to count, given that most of the state is expected to vote by mail.
How to read the Electoral College math
The US uses the Electoral College to elect a president. Each state gets a set number of votes that correlates with its population — if a state has two US senators and three House members, it has five electoral votes.
The winner must get at least 270 electoral votes — a majority of the 538 total. In the vast majority of states, either Harris or Trump is widely expected to win, leaving the campaigns to fight over the 93 electoral votes up for grabs in the seven battleground states.
If Harris wins Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan on Tuesday night or early Wednesday, she will have a projected 273 electoral votes — enough to make her the winner.
If Trump sweeps those states, he’ll have a projected 266 electoral votes — not enough to be declared the winner, but it would put him in a very strong position to win.
Harris’ easiest path to victory would be to win the traditional “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin — a result that should put her at 270 electoral votes. She has generally polled better in these states than the Sun Belt states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina.
For Trump, one path to victory would involve holding on to all or most of the Sun Belt states while also winning Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin.
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