The U.S. is somewhat unique among major democracies in having national elections run by state governments (which in turn mostly delegate the actual running of the election to local governments). While Congress has set a uniform election day for federal offices (including the election of presidential electors) and most states have decided to hold state and county elections at the same time, each state gets to choose the time when polls close in that state. In other countries, there is either a uniform closing time (mostly in countries with a single time zone) or polls close at the same local time (creating a gradual move from east to west with additional polls closing every hour). The result in the U.S. is that rather than a stately progression, you have something of a zig zag.
But this zig zag process creates a rolling story for election night (and creates a way for us to break down what to look for on election night. In this (and following posts), I will designate poll closing times by local and Eastern Daylight times.
Putting to the side the territories, polls start to close at 6:00 p.m. Eastern (which is also 6:00 p.m. local time) in the parts of Kentucky and Indiana in the Eastern Time zone. These two states are deep red and very gerrymandered. In other words, there should be nothing to see in these two states. Indiana has an open Senate seat as the current Senator is running for governor and one of the Republican representatives is running for the Senate seat. But this state is not on any body’s list of states likely to flip even though the candidate the Republicans nominated for lieutenant governor is extremely controversial (which could make the race for Governor/Lieutenant Governor closer than it otherwise would be). And none of the House seats in the Eastern time zone are competitive with the closest race having a PVI of R +11. The only seat worth watching in Indiana’s first district which is mostly in the central time zone. That district is only D+3, but the Republican candidate is viewed as a long shot. The early votes are in the more Republican half of the district. So the first hour or so of return may make the race look close, but, by the end of the night, the Democrat should be up by 10% or more. In Kentucky, there are no Senate races or state races and the two closest races are +9 PVIs. In other words, if anything is happening with the House seats in either state or the statewide races in Indiana, that could be a sign that polls are very off. The most significant races in these two states are two ballot questions in Kentucky. One is a “throw red meat to the base” proposal to ban voting by non-citizens (which is already illegal). The other would allow public funding for private schools (which would include religious schools).
The first wave of significant states comes with several states in the Eastern Time zone which close at 7:00 p.m. Eastern (7:00 p.m. local time) along with the western half of Kentucky and Indiana which will be closing at the same time (6:00 p.m. local time). This batch includes the eastern half of Florida (all but part of the panhandle), Georgia, South Carolina (unless something changes due to Helene), Vermont, and Virginia. This batch of states should give us our first clue about the presidential race. Vermont and maybe South Carolina should be projected quickly, but, in recent cycles, Georgia and Virginia have taken some time to get enough returns reported to make the state of the race clear. And Georgia could take all night. While we will get a good clue of if Florida is competitive, nothing will be projected until the polls close in the western part of the state.
Starting with Florida, the state seems to be a bit of a stretch at the presidential level. If Kamala Harris wins Florida, she will be winning easily nationally. This Senate race involves one of the Senators who is not even well-liked by his colleagues. And Rick Scott has said plenty of things that would cost a normal politician. It is unclear what Rick Scott sees as his future because he has once again spent a ton of his own money to try to bury his competition. Polls show Scott with a narrow lead, but the race is close enough that an upset is possible. At the House level, like many Republican-controlled states, this state has been ruthlessly gerrymandered. As a result, the Democrats currently only control eight of the twenty-eight house seats. At the present time, it only looks like two Republicans are vulnerable — Representative Anna Luna’s district (the Thirteenth) is a R+6 district and there are closer Republican districts in the state, but Representative Luna is part of the wacky caucus in the House and will do worse than a generic Republican would in that district. The other district is the Twenty-Seventh District currently represented by Maria Salazar. This district is an exactly even district (which since PVI is compared to the national vote totals in which Democrats have won the popular vote for the past several presidential elections actually means that it slightly leans Democratic). If you look at funding, the Democrats have well-funded challengers in the First District (but Matt Gaetz in probably unbeatable) and the Twentieth-Eighth District which is potentially winnable. The Republicans have a well-funded challenger in the Twentieth District. The First District is in the western panhandle and will not have results until the polls close an hour late in the central time zone.
Florida has a mix of ballot questions. The ballot questions pushed by Republicans would change school board elections to partisan elections, protect a right to hunt and fish, and repeal public campaign financing. The two questions that might swing the statewide results in favor of the Democrats would legalize marijuana and restore reproductive freedom. It takes 60% for any of the propositions to pass so the marijuana and reproductive freedom propositions might fall short.
Georgia had to redistrict (again) because it did not have enough majority African-American districts, but Georgia Republicans “solved” that issue by replacing a multi-racial majority minority district with an African-American district. As a result, Democrats are unlikely to gain any seats in Georgia. If any seat flips, it is most likely to be the Second District held by Democrat Dan Bishop which is the closest thing to a swing district in the state, but his challenger is not that well-funded. Well Democratic activists have poured a lot of money into the Fourteenth District in an extremely long shot effort to retire Marjorie Taylor Green that district is just too Republican. Despite Trump’s effort to pre-cook the books in Georgia, the state courts have uniformly rejected the illegal rules put forth by the Trumpy state election board and have held that the state and local board are required to certify the returns of the votes as shown on election day. Any challenge will have to come after the election. Unless the results are more lopsided in Georgia than expected, the presidential race will take (at least) several hours to resolve. Neither of the senate seats are on the ballot this cycle, and the statewide officers are elected at the mid-term election. None of the initiatives seem likely to make a difference on the state-wide results.
South Carolina is another one of those states that have been gerrymandered to try to avoid any competitive house races. There is an outside chance that Democrats could upset Nancy Mace in the First District, but the best chance to replace her was in the primary. A s in Georgia, the only statewide election is the presidential race. Unlike in Georgia, South Carolina will probably be projected pretty early. South Carolina is one of those states in which Republicans have put forward a frivolous constitutional amendment to “constitutionalize” the ban on non-citizens voting. Since South Carolina is already solid Republican, having this proposition on the ballot will have almost zero impact on any race.
In Vermont, the only race worth talking about is the race for Governor. Bernie Sanders will be reelected as Senator, Rebecca Baint will be returned to the House, the Democratic state-wide officers will be reelected, and Vermont will be the first state to go Democrat for President. Given the Democratic margins in the state, the Governor should be a Democrat. But Phil Scott refuses to acknowledge that his version of the Republican Party is dead and that he needs to change parties. Phil Scott has been a popular governor and will be hard to beat.
Virginia is one of those medium-sized states that give Democrats heartburn. The Democratic parts of the state tend to report their votes later, and the early returns make the state look too close to call. But once the urban areas start reporting their votes, Vice-President Kamala Harris will carry Virginia. Likewise, Senator Tim Kaine will be reelected. The key races in Virginia are the House races. The second district is only marginally Republican (R+2) and the Democrats might be able to pick up that seat. On the other hand, the seventh District is an open seat as the current Representative (Democrat Abigail Spanberger) is running for Governor next year. This D+1 district has thus drawn a lot of attention with lots of money. Democrat Eugene Vindaman is favored to win. Both of these seats (and a somewhat safer open Democratic seat in the tenth District) should be closely watched. If the Democrats win these races, the Democrats will probably have the majority in the House. If the Republicans win two of the three (or even all three), their chances of keeping the House majority will go up. If, as expected, none of these seats flip it could be several weeks before we know who will have the majority in the House.
The next round of poll closing is at 7:30 p.m. Eastern (and local) time. North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia are three of the handful of states that close at the bottom of the hour.
North Carolina is one of the big states on the evening. In the last election, Republicans gained control of the State Supreme Court. The new Republican majority overturned their predecessor’s decision that partisan gerrymanders violate the state constitution, and the Republican legislature (the governor has no role in the process, not even the power to veto the maps) redraw district lines to change a 7-7 state into a lopsided map. The results are a baked-in three seat pickup for the Republicans. The Republicans also have an outside shot at picking up a fourth seat (the first district currently held by Donald Davis).
The current governor, Democrat Roy Cooper, is term limited. The Republican candidate makes Donald Trump look sane. As a result, Democrat AG Josh Stein will win. But North Carolina is an evenly divided state so it will take some time before this race is projected. North Carolina is also extremely close at the presidential level. While there are scenarios in which North Carolina is the tipping point state, that is unlikely. If Kamala Harris wins North Carolina, she is probably winning the White House. But we may know other crucial states before we know North Carolina. What is unclear at this point in time is how Hurricane Helene will impact the vote, especially in the western part of the state. Given that area leans Republican, some of the wackier members of the Republican party are proposing to cancel the presidential election in North Carolina and just declare Donald Trump the winner. That they are floating that idea should tell you something about what they think is happening in North Carolina.
The one ballot issue that might impact the North Carolina vote is that ban on non-citizens voting which has made the ballot in several states. I don’t think that (despite the fear mongering on the right) that this proposition will drive the vote in the same way that the anti-gay marriage amendments impacted the 2004 election. Instead, I think that most of those who will vote for the amendment would have voted anyway, and the amendment will not change any voter’s mind on the other races.
The other big state closing at 7:30 is Ohio. President is a stretch for the Democrats. If Ohio is close then the race is probably over with Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania being stronger states for the Democrats. Ohio is one of two states in which a Democratic Senator is trying to hold on in a state that is likely to go for Donald Trump. Sherrod Brown is a good match for Ohio and Bernie Moreno is someone who should not be in the Senate. But Senator Brown is probably going to need to pick up 5-6% from voters who picked Donald Trump for President, and ticket splitting is on the way down. But if the Democrats can hold onto the Ohio Senate seat, they have a fighting chance to keep control of the Senate.
In 2022, the Democrats won several toss-up Congressional seats in Ohio. The first district leans Democratic (D +2) and incumbent Greg Landsman has significantly more money than his challenger, but, in a red wave, this seat could flip. The ninth seat was drawn to defeat Democratic incumbent Marcy Katpur. However, she is popular in her district and has outraised her opponent. Again, this seat is a must hold seat if the Democrats want to have a chance at winning the House. The thirteenth is a toss-up (R+1 district) that Democrat Emilia Sykes won in 2022. As with the two previous seats, the Republicans have simply failed to keep up in the fundraising race. In short, the Democrats should be able to hold these three closely divided districts. But the failure to do so would be an omen of a bad night in House races.
Potentially helping the Democrats is a measure to create a truly nonpartisan independent redistricting commission. Before the last redistricting cycle, Ohio voters opted to remove the legislature from the process. But they gave the redistricting power to other elected officials. Since those officials are mostly Republicans, the result was an extreme gerrymander. This time voters have the chance to fix that.
The last of the early states is West Virginia. When he was the campaign guru in the George W. Bush Administration, Karl Rove supposedly said something to the effect that the goal in a Republican primary was to nominate the most conservative candidate who could win the general election. The flip side can be applied to Democrats, nominate the most progressive candidate who could win. In West Virginia, that has been Joe Manchin as much as he annoys many Democrats. With Joe Manchin not seeking reelection, it is almost certain that current Republican Governor Jim Justice will be the next Senator from West Virginia. Given his tendency to no-show in West Virginia, the best that Democrats can hope for is that he will be a part-time Senator. Republicans are also likely to win the state-wide offices and hold onto the two house seats. As in Indiana and Kentucky, the sole question is how quickly these races will be projected. The all-but guaranteed loss in West Virginia is why the Senate majority is on a knife’s edge. Democrats need to either hold even (if JTm Walz is the next Vice-President) or pick up one in the remaining states to keep the majority. There is one ballot measure in West Virginia — to constitutionalize the current law against medically-assisted suicide. I am not sure why this is an issue in West Virginia other than somebody thinking that eventually the mood of the country will swing enough and they want to make it more difficult to change West Virginia law on this issue.
In short, these early states are such that by 7:59 p.m., the early projections will mostly be for Donald Trump, and the Republicans are likely to have picked up a couple of house seats. But Democrats hope that Florida and Georgia are up in the air for president, that the Florida Senate seat is up in the air, and that the net swing in the House are four seats or fewer. But the real story of the night begins when the broadcast networks go live at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.
