When will the 2024 presidential elections be announced? What to Expect on Election Day and After

Americans have two big questions heading into another election with a deeply divided electorate: It’s not just a question of who will win the presidency, but a question of when we will know who will win the presidency.

In 2020, Election Week replaced Election Night, with Joe Biden only being declared the winner on Saturday. This year things may go differently. It could take as long as a week for NBC News’ decision desk to predict a presidential winner, or it could happen as early as Wednesday, even by Wednesday morning.

The truth is that Decision Services cannot know until Election Night which scenario will unfold, no matter how carefully we analyze polls, early voting and other election-related data. The answer depends not only on how states count their votes, but also on an unknown factor: how close the differences will be.

One thing is clear: the days of predicting a winner on election night are almost certainly over.

Stay tuned for real-time updates on the 2024 elections.

Projecting the winner of the presidential election as soon as Wednesday will require key battleground states, especially Pennsylvania, not to be substantially tied together. To determine the winner, the difference between first and second place must be large enough.

Races that are nearly tied, such as the 2020 presidential race in Georgia and Arizona (Joe Biden’s margins in those states were 11,779 and 10,457 votes, respectively), require substantially all votes to be counted before NBC’s decision service News will be able to predict the winner. This may take several days.

But let’s take a look at the battleground states where calls on Wednesday are at least possible.

How critical blue wall states count their votes—and how it’s different from 2020

Any path to winning the White House will likely pass through the blue wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. In 2020, Pennsylvania became a key Electoral College state for the president, and there’s a good chance it will play that role again. But in 2020, it took NBC News’ decision-making team four days after Election Day to declare a winner.

It is possible that this will happen much earlier this year. That’s because 98% to 99% of the votes in Pennsylvania will be counted by Wednesday morning.

The way Pennsylvania counts its votes has changed little since 2020, but the process is set to become more efficient this year. Key counties such as Allegheny (Pittsburgh) and Philadelphia have invested heavily in new voting machines and increased staff to process ballots. Also remember that this election is not being held amid a global pandemic, which requires strict social distancing between election officials, slowing down the counting of votes.

We expect several Pennsylvania counties to release large early voting data shortly after polls close, followed by in-person voting on Election Day. As a result, early votes received on Election Day, as well as provisional ballots, will still be counted on Wednesday.

If 99% of the total votes are counted quickly, Wednesday’s forecast in Pennsylvania is entirely possible unless the race is very tight. Pennsylvania had about 90% of the votes counted in 2022 when the NBC News Decision Desk projected Democrat John Fetterman as the winner of the state Senate race at 12:51 p.m. ET.

In Wisconsin and Michigan, most votes could also be counted by Wednesday if past reporting patterns continue.

Based on these patterns, the total counted in Wisconsin by Wednesday morning should be greater than 99%. In Michigan it should be more than 95%. An important note for Michigan: For the first time, municipalities with populations of more than 5,000 residents can begin pre-processing absentee ballots—opening envelopes, verifying voter signatures, etc.—in the days before an election, which could lead to more efficient election counting. night.

On the other hand, the introduction of early in-person voting in Michigan could add some challenges to quickly counting votes. Regardless of these changes, both Michigan and Wisconsin are quickly counting almost all of their votes. So unless the races are very close, there’s a good chance NBC News’ decision-making team will be able to make a forecast sometime Wednesday.

However, if the races are that close, it could take days or perhaps even a week, depending on the difference.

How votes are counted on Sun Belt battlefields

Outside the blue wall, the critical swing states of Georgia and North Carolina are among the best in the country for efficiently processing and counting votes.

These two states are also very good at making their data available to the public electronically. In Georgia, more than 99% of the votes will be counted on election night. In fact, nearly all the votes in the last election were counted by 1 a.m. ET. However, Georgia was so close to winning in 2020 that it took several days to declare victory.

North Carolina has a similar voting reporting scheme, with 99% of votes counted by midnight in past elections. However, any chance of predicting election night in any of these closely divided states depends on a fairly wide spread of votes between the two candidates.

The one electoral vote awarded to the winner of Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District could also be critical on the path to 270. Without significant changes to how votes are counted in Nebraska, about 90% of the votes can be expected to be counted by Wednesday morning . , which again can lead to a prediction if there is enough variation between the candidates.

The final two battleground states, Arizona and Nevada, almost certainly won’t be called up anytime soon. If the presidency comes down to one of these states, forget any thoughts about Wednesday’s resolution.

In 2020, NBC News did not project a winner in Arizona until November 12, nine days after Election Day. And unlike some other close states, this was not just because the difference was so subtle.

Typically, after election night in Arizona, about 20% of the votes still remain to be counted – mostly late-arriving ballots. And there are very significant differences between Republicans and Democrats in terms of who votes and when (early or on Election Day). This makes it nearly impossible to predict the winner in Arizona on election night.

Nevada is a state that has a large number of early votes, both absentee and in-person, that are not counted on election night. In the past, nearly a quarter of the votes were still uncounted by the Wednesday morning after Election Day.

Given that the state has historically been close in presidential elections, the likelihood of calling a close race with many uncounted votes is very slim.

Bottom line: In Arizona and Nevada, it will likely take several days, perhaps longer, to know the winner.