After the heavy numbers of the previous two hours of prime time, the final hour of prime time represents a slight slowing of polls closing.  Of course, that will be made up for as several of the close states will either be projected or turn into all night counts.

There are three partial closings and three full closings this hour.  On the partial closing, we have the second of two 9:00 p.m. local time closings with the eastern (Central Time Zone) part of North Dakota.  You also have all but the panhandle of Idaho closing at 8:00 p.m. local time (Mountain Time Zone).  For both of these states, the part closing represents the majority of the state.  The last partial closing is the one exception to the general trend.  Oregon is the one start in which the majority of the state is in the western part of the state.  So this post will only cover the partial closing in Idaho and North Dakota with Oregon in the next post.  The three full closings are Montana and Utah at 8:00 p.m. local time and Nevada at 7:00 p.m. local time.

Idaho, like Wyoming in the previous post, is solidly red.  If Democrats are competitive at either the presidential level or for either of the congressional seats, then it will have been a very good night for Democrats.   The one contest of interest is a ballot proposition seeking to go to a top four primary with ranked choice voting.   While Idaho is not likely to turn blue anytime soon, a top four primary with ranked choice voting might mean more moderate Republicans representing Idaho in the future.

Montana is one of two competitive Senate races in this hour.  This race could very well determine who has the majority in the Senate next year.  Even more so than Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Senator Jon Tester needs a massive crossover vote in a state that Donald Trump is likely to carry.  Right now the polls are not looking good.  As in other states, the Republicans are putting their eggs in the basket of a self-funding outsider with a history that should be disqualifying.  But to many voters, the R behind the name is everything.  Because Montana is strongly Republican, it will be difficult to win either congressional seat.  The Democrat running in the first district has done well in fundraising but is still an underdog.  The district is lean Republican (R+6) but there are reasons to vote out the current representative.  Helping Democrats in both races are the ballot propositions.  There is one proposal to establish a top-four primary, and a second companion proposition which would establish runoff elections (rather than ranked choice voting).  There is also a reproductive freedom proposal.

Nevada is the most significant state to close this hour (at 7:00 p.m.) local time.  Nevada is basically three states — Clark County (Las Vegas), Washoe County (Reno), and the rural area between them.  Clark County is solidly Democratic, rural Nevada is solidly Republican, and Washoe County is a toss-up county that often decides the election.  The result of this geographic split is that every election in Nevada is close.  The Democrats have a slight edge in Nevada (helped by the nutty flavor of Nevada Republicans) but it is not solid.  Thus, the race for President.  My personal hunch is that Kamala Harris will prevail, but the result will not be clear until Wednesday morning or later.  Likewise, I think that Senator Jacky Rosen will prevail.  At the congressional level, there are three close seats that lean Democratic — the first, third, and fourth.  All are currently held by Democrats.  Based on fundraising, it looks like the Republicans are making the most effort for the third and fourth districts.  Democrats are favored to win, but both seats could fall in a Republican wave.

There are some ballot propositions that could effect these races including one for reproductive freedom, one for a top-five primary with ranked choice voting, and one pushed by the Republicans to require photo ID to vote.

While there is a decent native population in North Dakota which has sometimes made a difference.  North Dakota has done its best to make it difficult for those living on reservations to vote and to elect members to office.   As such, it is likely that North Dakota will resemble its compatriots in the upper plains and northern Rockies with little drama on election night before the Republicans win.

In Utah, despite Donald Trump doing worse than a generic Republican, it is likely that Donald Trump will win the state.  With Mitt Romney’s retirement, a much more conservative Republican will take his place in the Senate next year.  While Romney often caved, he occasionally did the right thing.  His replacement will not even give lip service to doing the right thing.  At the Congressional level, the Republicans managed to accomplish in redistricting what their counterparts in Kansas and Nebraska failed to do.  If Salt Lake and its immediate suburbs were intact, the Democrats would be competitive in that district.  Instead, the closest seat (at R+11) is the second district.  In short, it takes a really strong Democratic and really weak Republican candidate for the Democrats to have any chance.  Activists have wisely taken a pass on these races and put the money into more competitive districts as much as many of the Republicans should not be in the House.

In short, this hour is mostly about some quick projections for Republicans outside of Nevada and the Montana Senate race.  Outside of those seven races, Democrats would love for any of the remaining races in these states to be too close to call at the end of the hours.

For the most part, this hour will be about the continuing counts in the closely contested races from early in the evening.  At this point, we should be getting a significant portion of the vote from the early (pre-8 p.m. Eastern) states.  If those states are not projected, then the race is close enough that we need almost every vote counted to be sure.  In some of the states, the issue could be absentee ballots not being counted until all of the election day results are in.  In others, it will be long lines in urban areas delaying that part of the count.    In the states that closed at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, we should have most of the election day results from rural counties and be starting to get the mid-sized urban and suburban counties.  Again, depending on how close those races are and who is leading, we might be getting projections in some of those states before the end of the hour.

The bottom line is that by the end of this hour, all of the polls will have closed in the battleground Presidential, Gubernatorial, and Senatorial races.  For those races, the rest of the night is about when we get enough of a result to be sure who has won.  As we head into the break for local news at 11:00 p.m. Eastern, the remaining states to close are primarily about congressional seats and propositions.