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Election Night Preview — Part Three — Prime Time Hour Two (9:00 To 9:59 P.M. Eastern)

As the major networks into the second hour of coverage, the focus begins to move from exit polls to actual returns.  Counting the split states in their main time zone, polls have now closed in the overwhelming majority of states.  For the first group of states (the ten that closed before 8:00 p.m. Eastern), you now have a good chunk of the returns from rural counties and you will have most of them by the end of this hour).  For the second group of states (the twenty that closed between 8:00 p.m. and 8:59 p.m. Eastern), those returns are just starting to come in.  In both cases, the people doing the math are comparing those returns to the results from 2016 and 2020 to see what, if anything has changed (percentages, margins, turnout).  And while you tend to have good exit polls for the statewide races, many congressional districts need these early returns to confirm the anticipated results.

This hour will see the remaining polls close in Michigan, Kansas, South Dakota, and Texas.  We will also see the polls close in Nebraska, which like Tennessee in the previous hour, opts to close all polls at the same time even though the state has two time zones (so the eastern part of the state closes at 8:00 p.m. local time and the western part of the state closes at 9:00 p.m. local time).  You have the last of the Eastern Time Zone states, New York, close its polls at 9:00 p.m. local time.  You have four Central Time Zone states — Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, and most significantly Wisconsin — close at 8:00 p.m. local time along with the eastern half of North Dakota.  Finally, polls close at 7:00 p.m. local time in four states located in the Mountain Time Zone of which the most significant is Arizona but also includes Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming.  At the end of this hour, we will only be waiting on polls to close in ten states.

Arizona is one of the two big states closing this hour.  While the easiest way for Kamala Harris to win the election is by sweeping the northern blue belt states (Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), winning in Arizona would allow Vice-President Harris to win if she loses Wisconsin.  At the Senate level, the unpredictable Kyrsten Sinema read the writing on the wall and decided to call it at one term.  Representative Ruben Gallego is favored to keep the Senate seat in Democratic hands but chief election denier Kari Lake will make it closer than it should be and will fight in court for the next three years if she does not win.  The Democrats are favored to keep the three seats that they currently hold in the House, but have fighting chances in three of the six seats held by Republicans.  The first district is a toss-up district (R+1) in which the Democrats have a well-funded challenger.  But we have seen this story before and Representative David Schweikert always seems to find a way to survive.  The second district is a little more of a longshot as it is a lean Republican district (R+6).   While the Democratic candidate has enough funding to run a strong campaign, unlike the first district, Republican Eli Crane has more money than his opponent.  The second is only likely to fall in a Democratic wave.  The last close district in Arizona in the sixth district.  Representative Juan Ciscomani narrowly won in 2022 and is facing a rematch this year.  The fundraising total for both candidates is approximately even. Continue Reading...

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Election Night Preview — Part I — Pre-Prime Time

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). Continue Reading...

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