We all want to know who won the election, but getting the result could take a while – so here’s what you should be looking for in the meantime, those all-important clues that might point to a winner.
We all want to know who won the election, but getting the result could take a while – so here’s what you should be looking for in the meantime, those all-important clues that might point to a winner.
Voting ends in the US today, the 5th of November. The first polls close at 18:00 EST, so 11pm in the UK, and the last one at 01:00 EST, so 6am UK time on the 6th.
Most states, like Texas or California, are comfortably red or blue – Republican or Democrat.
But others could go either way, and the results could be incredibly narrow when they do. It is in those swing states – just seven of them – that the election will be won.
Among the first places to start bringing you results will be Florida, with early results coming about an hour after polls close, so about 8pm local time. That’s because there they begin processing early in-person votes and mail ballots before election day, unlike some others states.
Florida has been a swing state in the past, but the Donald Trump effect has turned it a rich Republican red. But the result there, if he’s way ahead on 2020 numbers, could be an indicator.
What we need to look for at the same time as Florida is what’s going on in Georgia and North Carolina.
The polls close in Georgia at the same time as Florida, and the Harris campaign expects nearly complete results on election night. If she’s doing well in that state, that’s again a big indicator of whether she can win or whether Trump is closing her path to victory.
North Carolina polls close 30 minutes after Georgia. We again expect almost complete results in the evening. This has not gone Democrat since 2008, but was narrowly won by Trump last time. So again, an indicator – we may know how this race is going, close or not so close.
Then at 8pm local time polls close in the all important Pennsylvania, right in the so-called Rust Belt.
In 2020, when Pennsylvania was called four days after the election, for Joe Biden, it was game over for Donald Trump.
But this is a particularly fraught race. The margins in the polls are even tighter than in 2020. And Pennsylvania can’t start processing mail ballots until election day, so counting here will go well into the night and next day.
That’s similar to Michigan. Polls close there an hour after Pennsylvania. Michigan’s secretary of state has estimated that unofficial results can be expected by midday tomorrow – that’s late Wednesday afternoon in the UK. If this swing state goes Republican, that could spell bad news for Kamala Harris.
And of course, there are the other Sun Belt states, Arizona and Nevada. Both those states took days to count votes back in 2020 – and again we expect a wait.
But because overall there are fewer mail-in ballots this election across America than last time – because so many voted by mail because of Covid then – the assumption is that we should still get some sense of a winner earlier than last time, when Joe Biden was declared president elect on Saturday.
How do you know when there’s a winner? In the US it technically ain’t over until the winner is certified by Congress on January 6th – you might remember how that went last time…
But in reality, you can tell long before then. The best way to know is to follow a trusted news source and see when they call the states.
It’s a lot to watch out for in the coming days but we’ll be here all the way through the count.