Typically, in the Eastern and Central Time Zones, 11:00 p.m. EDT is when the local affiliates of the “big three” broadcast networks have their local newscasts. Election night is a little bit different. Most of the networks give their affiliate a five minute or so slot at the top and/or bottom of the hour to give an update on the local races. At 11:00 p.m., after doing a quick run down along with any quick projections that can be made, the networks will give an extended break for a short (fifteen minute or so local newscast).
During this hour, we have three states in which the remaining polls close and two states in which the polls close entirely. But, in talking about the West Coast states, there is a heavy reliance on mail-in vote. So vote counting in these states takes days. The partial closings are 8:00 p.m. local (Pacific) time in the majority of Oregon and the northwest part of Idaho and 9:00 p.m. local (Mountain) time in North Dakota. North Dakota and Idaho are covered in yesterday’s post, but Oregon is covered below. The two full closings are in California and Washington.
The result in the presidential race is not in doubt in any of the three states closing this hour. Kamala Harris should sweep all three states. Given how many electoral votes are available in California, it is almost impossible for Vice-President Harris to be projected as the national winner before 11:00 p.m. Similarly, if Adam Schiff is not the new Senator from California and Senator Maria Cantwell is not reelected in Washington, we are looking at a red wave that could get Republicans a filibuster proof majority. In other words, these five contests should be projected for Democrats during the hour. The races to follow in these states are the House races.
The big state among the three is California. With its large size comes the largest number of potentially close congressional races. Seats that could flip include the third, ninth, thirteenth, twenty-second, twenty-seventh, fortieth, forty-first, forty-fifth, forty-seventh, and forty-ninth. Of those seats, the ninth, forty-seventh, and forty-ninth are currently held by Democrats and the third, thirteenth, twenty-second, twenty-seventh, fortieth, forty-first, forty-fifth, and forty-seventh are currently held by Republicans. Of these seats, the Republicans have the cash advantage in seats — the third, fortieth, and forty-fifth. In short, it is possible that Democrats could gain four seats just from carrying all the seats in which they have a cash advantage. That by itself would offset the losses from redistricting in North Carolina. A sweep of all seven, when combined with the almost certain gains from redistricting in Alabama and Louisiana, would put the Democrats on the verge of regaining the majority. If these races are close, it is likely that it may take several days to determine a winner since California usually receives a significant percentage of mail-in ballots on or in the days after the election and it can take some time to process all of them. Based on the current numbers out of California, only gaining two seats would be a disappointment and gaining three or four seems most likely.
While California has several propositions on the ballot, the one most likely to have an impact on the election is one that would raise the minimum wage to $18,00 per hour.
In 2022, both Oregon and Washington had an incumbent lose a primary to a less centrist candidate. In both cases, for the Democrats in Oregon and the Republicans in Washington, the result was that they lost the seat in the general election. The question in 2024 is whether they can keep the seat. In Oregon, the seat is the D+2 fifth District, and the Democrats have found a new candidate who is somewhere between the former congressman and the losing candidate in 2022. In Washington, the seat is the R+5 third district, and the Republicans are running the same Trumpy candidate. In both districts, the challengers are slightly favored, but the Democrats have a better chance of holding onto the third district in Washington than Republicans do of holding onto the fifth district in Oregon.
The other districts to watch in Oregon are two lean Democratic districts — the fourth and the sixth. While the Republicans could pull off upsets in these two districts, the challengers probably do not have enough money to win barring a Republican wave. There is a proposition on the ballot to establish ranked-choice voting.
In Washington, the other district to watch is the eighth district a toss-up (D+1 district) that slightly favors the Democrats in the west central part of Washington east of Seattle. Even more than was the case in Oregon, the Republican challenger is not well-funded, and it would take a significant Republican wave to really put this district at risk. The ballot propositions in Washington seem more favorable to the Republicans than the Democrats.
As the hour nears its end, and election night turns into the morning after the election on the east coast, where do we expect things to stand? A lot will depend on how close the races are, and how changes to ballot processing impacts things.
The two earliest states (Indiana and Kentucky should definitely be done by now with vote totals over 90% of the likely final vote total.
Among the 7:00 p.m. Eastern states, all of the states should be close to or well past having 90% of the vote counted. If Georgia is really close or some of the congressional races in Virginia are really close, those races may still be up in the air. In Georgia, processing late arriving absentee votes must be counted by the end of business on Wednesday, and the issue may be how many ballots still remain to be counted.
Likewise, the election-day votes from the 7:30 states should be mostly counted. If the races in North Carolina and Ohio are close, what will be outstanding will be late arriving absentee ballots and provisional ballots. It may take several days to get those ballots counted.
Turning to the 8:00 p.m. Eastern states, there will probably be more outstanding ballots in these states. In these states, most of the election day vote will have been counted (unless there are really long lines in urban areas). What will be outstanding will be absentee ballots, especially late arriving absentee ballots. Massachusetts is the big exception to this rule is they are very slow at counting ballots and reporting results, and some of the states have a very large percentage of mail-in ballots that remain to be processed. Of special note is Pennsylvania which does not start processing mail-in ballots until election day. In these states, close races could go into Wednesday (or later) as absentee ballots are slowly processed and counted. The key rule of thumb in these states is that, if Democrats are in the lead at midnight, they have almost certainly won. If Republicans are in the lead, the question will be by how much and how many ballots are estimated to be processed in the urban areas.
For the 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. states, we will probably have some votes reported — a mix of early votes and rural counties. In some states and races, these results will be conclusive enough to project a winner. But in the close states, we will still be needing to see the late-arriving mail-in and absentee votes and the election-day urban vote to know who has won, and these could take several more hours. When the result has been clear enough, we have gotten a projection in the presidential race by midnight. But in close races (2000, 2016, and 2020), it has gone into Wednesday morning or later to get a winner. Particularly given the geography of this year’s battle for control of the Senate and House, it is unlikely that there will be a projection of enough races prior to midnight for it to be clear who has control, especially for the House which may come down to a handful of races in Alaska, Arizona, California, Oregon, and Washington which may be decided by late-counted absentee ballots.
