Prior to Midnight, the polls will have closed in forty-eight states and the District of Columbia. All that is left to close are Hawaii and Alaska. Hawaii closes at midnight Eastern (7;00 p.m. local). Polls close at 8:00 p.m. local time in Alaska. For most of the state, that is midnight Eastern. But the Aleutian Islands are in a separate time zone and will close at 1:00 a.m. Eastern.
In Hawaii, the first big chunk of returns will be the early votes, but those are not reported until all polling places have actually closed. As such, it may be an hour or more before results are released. The release of results will be a little bit slower than Alaska.
The biggest race out of these two states is the congressional seat for Alaska, currently held by Democrat Mary Peltola. One factor that will delay a projection in this race is that Alaska uses ranked-choice voting. The Republicans in Alaska have pretty well demonstrated that they do not know how to run a race with ranked choice voting. Thus, rather than running two strong candidates and having the candidates encourage their supporters to rank the other candidate second, the Republicans have had their second candidate withdraw. Not having two candidates attacking Representative Peltola is a strategic mistake. But because the Republicans have cleared the field, it is unlikely that there will be many votes for the remaining candidates on the ballot. A good rule of thumb for ranked choice voting is that a candidate who finishes in second on first preferences is unlikely to have a net gain more than 1% for every 2% of the vote that went to the eliminated candidates. Representative Peltola received a majority of the vote in the primary, but that is now guarantee that she will get a majority of the first preference votes in the general election. It is entirely possible that we will not know the winner until after all counts are voted and preferences are applied, but the history of ranked choice voting in Australia is that, in most races, there is a clear winner with a sufficiently large margin in first preferences that the second-placed candidate can’t realistically catch-up.
The remaining races from Alaska and Hawaii are not much in doubt. Donald Trump will win Alaska’s electoral votes. Kamala Harris will win Hawaii’s electoral votes. Senator Mazie Hirono and Representatives Ed Case and Jill Tokuda will be reelected.
In Alaska, there are two big propositions — one to repeal ranked-choice voting and the other to set the minimum wage at $15.00 per hour. I can’t see the voters in Alaska like being called idiots which is essentially what the opponents of ranked-choice voting are doing. If Representative Peltola wins, the attempt to repeal ranked-choice voting is probably failing.
As noted in yesterday’s post, as midnight rolls around, the story is essentially vote counting. Other than the Alaska house race, the races here are not likely to be close and will be projected as soon as enough of the count has been released. At this point, the question is whether it looks like we are likely to get projections in the key races or if those races are so close that we are unlikely to get projections before mid-day on Wednesday.
To wrap-up the big picture, the presidential race will probably come down to Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and the individual electoral votes in Maine’s second and Nebraska’s second district. Control of the Senate will probably come down to Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. That list of ten is seven Democratic seats and three Republican seats. If either party has a net of +1 from those ten seats, they will have the majority in the next Senate. If the split stays at 7-3, then control will come down to who wins the presidential race as the new vice-president will be spending a lot of time breaking ties.
The House is more of a mixed bag. Control is probably coming down to twenty-four seats with the Democrats needing to win eleven of those seats to take back the House. These twenty-four seats are 1) Alaska at-large (currently D); 2) Arizona first (currently R); 3) Arizona sixth (currently R); 4) California thirteenth (currently R); 5) California twenty-second (currently R); 6) California twenty-seventh (currently R); 7) California forty-first (currently R); 8) California forty-fifth (currently R); 9) Colorado eighth (currently D); 10) Iowa first (currently R); 11) Iowa third (currently R); 12) Maine second (currently D); 13) Michigan seventh (currently D); 14) Michigan eighth (currently D); 15) Michigan tenth (currently R); 16) Nebraska second (currently R); 17) New Jersey seventh (currently R); 18) New York seventeenth (currently R); 19) New York nineteenth (currently R); 20) Oregon fifth (currently); 21) Pennsylvania seventh (currently D); 22) Pennsylvania eighth (currently D); 23) Virginia second (currently R); and 24) Washington (currently D). While there are some other districts that could have upsets, the fact that Democrats are only having to defend eight of the districts and only need a net three from this group reflects that Democrats are expecting to gain seat from Republicans. It appears with about forty-eight hours to go that Democrats will probably gain seats in House and the question is whether Democrats can gain enough seats to regain the majority in the House.
