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).
