Even though it could take many days or weeks to go through the results of the election, today is the day when decisions are made in the United States’ fight for control of Congress and the White House.
Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina are the four Sun Belt battlegrounds, and Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are engaged in a battle over seven swing states. These states include Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which are the three Great Lakes states that make up the “blue wall” that Trump broke through in 2016, but President Joe Biden carried in 2020.
She would be the first woman, the first Asian American, and the first Black woman to win the president if Harris were to win. She would also be the first woman to win the presidency. In addition, a victory for Trump would be historic since he would join Grover Cleveland as the only presidents to serve periods of time that were not consecutive. After being the only president to ever be impeached twice and the only former president to ever be convicted of criminal offenses, he would go on to do this in the future.
There is a great deal more that will be determined on Tuesday, including the fact that five states, namely Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota, will vote on whether or not to reverse their abortion prohibitions through constitutional amendment-related measures.
Democrats are defending seats in the red-leaning states of Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia, and Republicans are keeping their fingers crossed that they will be able to take advantage of a favorable Senate map. It is from the coast of Maine, through the Hudson Valley in New York, through the rolling hills of Virginia’s Piedmont, through a “blue dot” in Nebraska, and into Orange County in California, where the political ebbs and flows of the Trump era have been on vivid display, that the party hopes to maintain its slim majority in the House of Representatives.
It’s possible that the preliminary results that come in a few hours after the polls shut won’t be decisive. The sequence in which states count early, mail-in, and Election Day votes varies throughout the map, as does the speed with which specific cities, counties, and regions publish their results. This is because the election processes are decided by the states themselves.
On the day of the election, here are some things to keep an eye to.
The most likely paths to 270 – and the presidency
The United States of America has become accustomed to the fact that presidential elections are frequently quite close. It was a matter of tens of thousands of votes that determined the outcome in the years 2000, 2016, and 2020. If the polling is accurate, then it is anticipated that this contest will conform to that pattern.
Simply put, this indicates that there are seven states to keep an eye on on Tuesday night, and it’s possible that there are even more states to watch.
In 2020, Arizona and Georgia, both of which had been consistently Republican for a decade, voted for Vice President Joe Biden. Four years ago, Democrats also won the state of Nevada, despite the fact that their margins of victory there have been decreasing. Biden won all three of the states that make up the “blue wall” in the year 2020: Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. That is exactly what Trump did in 2016. North Carolina was the sole battlefield that Trump won in the most recent election, which took place in 2024. Once again, it is anticipated that the race will be quite tight.
What are some ways that armchair analysts should be playing the game? With the usual disclaimer that anything may occur, and in recent years, it has on several occasions, the following are some of the possible courses of action that Harris and Trump could take, respectively:
In many respects, the map is easier to understand for Harris. In the event that she continues to sweep the “blue wall” like Biden did, she will very certainly end up in the Oval Office. This takes into consideration the likelihood that she will win an electoral vote in Nebraska but lose another in Maine, two states that award electoral votes to the winner of the statewide election as well as the winner of the congressional district election.
If the so-called “blue wall” breaks down and Pennsylvania declares its support for Trump, her future will become more uncertain. Twenty-nine electoral votes are held by the Commonwealth. It would be necessary for Harris to win either Georgia or North Carolina, both of which have 16 votes, in order to make up for that amount. Assuming she is able to separate the two, Nevada and Arizona could end up being the deciding factors.
In the same way as Harris’ map does, Trump’s map emphasises Pennsylvania. In the event that he is successful in that region while maintaining his hold on North Carolina, the former president would just require Georgia to return to him in order to reach 270. In Trump’s view, a victory without Pennsylvania would most likely indicate that the “blue wall” would break down in another location.
If that were to occur, it is quite probable that Trump would need to win the state of Michigan or Wisconsin, and in addition to that, he would need to maintain a dominant performance throughout the Sun Belt, which extends from Georgia on the East Coast to Arizona and Nevada in the west.
The red and blue ‘mirages’ to expect
Four years ago, when Trump was weakening the trust of many Republican voters in the use of mail-in votes, the early hours after polls closed indicated a “red mirage” in many important swing states. The initial returns seemed to be more favorable for Trump than the final results would reflect hours or days later.
A “mirage” in election results is typically the result of a number of factors, including geography (small, rural counties that tend to favor Republicans have fewer votes to count and report their results faster) and the types of ballots that are being counted. This is a reality that should be taken into consideration if the early results from Michigan do not include Detroit, and if those from Nevada do not include Las Vegas.
Additionally, it is common for states and counties to only tally and report one form of voting at a time, which includes early votes, votes cast on Election Day, and mail-in ballots. When one party has a tendency to do better with a particular technique, such as the Democrats did with mail-in voting in 2020, the results might alter when election officials go from counting one sort of vote to another.
In addition, the manner in which mail-in ballots are handled is another aspect that contributes to the rapidity with which a state of Florida’s size releases its results.
When it comes to opening mail-in votes, each state has its own set of protocols to follow. States that are considered to be part of the “blue wall” include Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. These states do not allow local election officials to begin processing votes until Election Day. This causes the counting process to be slower in these states compared to areas like Florida, where ballots are opened in advance.
In the early morning hours of the year 2020, in the state of Wisconsin, deep-blue Milwaukee reported a large batch of mail-in ballots that went strongly in favor of the Democrat. This was a result of the state rules that led to a significant increase in the number of votes cast for Biden.
Alterations have been done in other swing states since the year 2020. As a result of a new election legislation in Georgia, there will most likely be fewer votes sent through the mail and more ballots cast early, which might result in faster results. In the state of North Carolina, after the day of the election, mail-in ballots are no longer allowed. This omission might prove to be a significant distinction in the event that the outcome is extremely close. It is possible that the state of North Carolina may experience a “blue mirage” due to the fact that the majority of the early and mail-in ballots will be counted first there.
In the state of Arizona, which is a state that votes by mail the majority of the time, the ballots are tallied in the order that they are received. Before late-arriving mail-in ballots and votes cast on Election Day (both of which backed Trump in 2020) are tabulated, this indicates that Harris may have a sizeable early lead.
Early indicators from the early reporting states
In the fight for the presidency, it is possible that a conclusive result may not be announced on Tuesday night, or even on Wednesday for that matter. Furthermore, the preliminary tallies from states that are still in the race may be difficult to interpret. However, there will be some insights that may be gained from lesser elections, the most notable of which being House races in states that are either strongly blue or red.
New York, despite being a Democratic stronghold statewide, has been targeted by massive spending from both parties focused on a series of swing-y suburban House contests. Virginia, which has gone blue in presidential elections since Barack Obama’s first run, is typically one of the first states to report. New York has also been targeted by massive spending from both parties.
In the year 2016, Virginia provided the initial indication that Hillary Clinton was facing difficulties.
Clinton was just eking out a victory throughout the most of the night, despite the fact that the Commonwealth had become a solidly Democratic state in presidential elections at that point. If she were to win, it would be by a margin of around five points (Biden would win by more than ten points in 2020). The reelection of Barbara Comstock, who was serving as a representative at the time, in that year, in a seat that many Democrats had high hopes of switching, also portended unfavorable outcomes for Clinton and her party.
Can Republicans flip the Senate?
It is anticipated that the battle for control of the Senate will be far less dramatic than the presidential election and the control of the House of Representatives, which appeared to be a coin flip leading up to Election Day.
At this moment, the Democrats have a slender majority, with 51 senators, four of whom are independents, convening under the leadership of New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who serves as the Majority Leader. In order for the party to win the White House, fifty votes would be sufficient to establish a majority (due to the fact that the vice president has the ability to break a tie in the voting process), but Republicans are on the offensive this year because of a more favorable map.
The state of West Virginia, in particular, appears to be a perfect candidate for the Republican party. The Republican nominee, Tim Sheehy, is making it difficult for Democratic Senator Jon Tester to win the election in Montana. Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania are all in agreement with this statement. In addition, the retirement of Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow has turned the state of Michigan into a battlefield for the Senate.
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