It’s Election Day!
Across the country, voters are casting their ballots—adding to the total of over 80 million that voted early over the past two months. I’ll be providing live coverage as results come out throughout the night as the country elects its next President, Senators, and Representatives.
The presidential election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is shaping up to be one of the closest of all time; pollsters and electoral models have it at a dead heat. The winner of the election is not whoever gets the most votes nationally (that will most likely be Harris), but rather who is able to get the most electoral votes, with each state getting apportioned electoral votes based on their population. The race will likely come down to seven swing states comprising 93 total electoral votes: Nevada (6), Wisconsin (10), Arizona (11), Michigan (15) North Carolina (16), Georgia (16), and most importantly, Pennsylvania (19). Harris will likely secure 226 electoral votes from states she’s probable to win, with Trump taking home 219 out of his own batch of safe states. Whichever candidate that gets to 270 electoral votes will be declared the victor.
In the Senate, Republicans are the overwhelming favorite to take back the chamber from the Democrats (who hold a 51-seat majority), with one pickup all but guaranteed in West Virginia and several other red states (Ohio, Montana) and swing states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada) having vulnerable Democratic incumbents. Democrats will be hoping to play offense in states such as Texas and Florida, as well as hoping that Independent Dan Osborn can pull off an upset in a surprisingly close race in Nebraska, to have a chance at retaining their majority.
In the House of Representatives, the 218-seat majority will likely fall to whichever party wins the Presidency — like that election, this one also remains a pure tossup.
We could be in for some electoral history if the results play out a certain way: there’s a solid chance that zero states flip (vote for a party different than the one they voted for in the previous election) in the presidential race for the first time since George Washington was re-elected in 1792. We could also see both the Senate (currently held by Democrats) and House (currently held by Republicans) flip, too, which would be the first time ever that the respective chambers both flipped to opposing parties.
Polling places in all states will close by midnight, and the votes will be counted somewhat faster than they were in 2020, but it’s more likely than not that we won’t have a winner in the presidential election tonight. Michigan, North Carolina, and Georgia should all finish counting their votes fairly quickly; if all three go to Harris, she’ll might be able to reach 270 before Wednesday morning, but in any other scenario that isn’t a landslide, we’ll be waiting on Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to finish counting a little bit later, and potentially Nevada and Arizona to finish counting a lot later. Be wary of a candidate claiming victory prematurely, as Trump did in 2020 and is likely to do again tonight, regardless of the results.
I’ll be with you into the early hours of the AM as the results come in. I recommend following along with results on CNN’s website, though there are a host of good options available. Make sure to stay tuned!