While there are some significant states that close before 8:00 p.m. Eastern, that time marks when election coverage truly kicks off. Aside from the realities of the broadcast networks that as for two basic reasons. First, as discussed last weekend, vote counting is slow. Since people in line when the polls “close” can still vote, it takes some time to actually shut down a polling place (both in getting the last people processed and out and in the procedures to secure the election materials after the polling place closes). And then the counting usually have to be transported to some central location for the local election authority. Thus, the first hour of returns tend to be the results of early voting and absentee ballots (in those states which release those separately from the election day returns) and a handful of smaller counties. It is only in the second and third hour of counting that you start getting the rest of the smaller counties and the first returns from the really big counties. Second, not every state closes at 7:00 p.m., local time, and a good chunk of the states are not in the Eastern time zone. Only two states (Indiana and Kentucky) close at 6:00 p.m. local time. While 7:00 p.m. is one of the more popular local times to close, only nineteen states close then (and only five of those are in the Eastern time zone). Four states (Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia) close at 7:30 p.m. local time. The most popular poll closing time is actually 8:00 p.m. when twenty-two jurisdictions close their polls. You have two states (Tennessee and Nebraska) which despite being split in two time zones have opted to have all the polls close at the same real time (meaning in the eastern part of the state, the polls close at 8:00 p.m. local time while in the western part of the state, the polls close at 7:00 p.m. local time). Lastly, two states (New York and North Dakota) close at 9:00 p.m. local time.
So when 8:00 p.m. Eastern time rolls around, you have polls closing in the ten jurisdictions wholly in the Eastern time zone that close at 8:00 local time. You also have the polls in the western part of Florda closing at what is 7:00 p.m. local time in that part of Florida to finish out Florida. You have the polls closing at 8:00 p.m. local time in the part of Michigan in the Eastern time zone (all but the Western part of the Upper Peninsula), You have the polls closing simultaneously at either 8:00 p.m. local time or 7:00 p.m. local time in Tennessee. You have all of the polls closing at 7:00 p.m. local time in Alabama, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, and Oklahoma. And you have polls closing at 7:00 p.m. local time in the eastern parts of Kansas, South Dakota, and Texas. Of those last three states, only South Dakota is roughly evenly divided geographically between Central and Mountain time and only tiny slivers of Kansas and Texas are in the Mountain time zone. In short, you go from approximately ten jurisdictions being closed, to the majority of almost thirty jurisdictions being closed. For all intents and purposes, election night starts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.
As the hour starts, we should have already had some expected projections from the early states. And the early news is more likely to be bad news than good news, but it is expected bad news that should not cause people to panic. Barring a miracle, by 8:00 p.m. Eastern, the networks and the AP will have projected Donald Trump the winner in Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, and West Virginia. They will also have projected the Republicans as winning two Senate seats (Indiana and West Virginia) to one for the Democrats (Vermont) for a gain of one although it is possible that the Virginia Senate seat might also be projected before 8:00 p.m. And most of the early House seats projected will be Republican with a couple of seats gained in North Carolina.
