Here’s what to watch on Election Day in the US

WASHINGTON (AP) — Today is Election Day. Polls opened across the country Tuesday and Americans cast their ballots. 2024 presidential elections. In a deeply divided country, elections are a real fight between Democrats and Democrats. Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.

We know there is seven states of the battlefield this will decide the outcome, barring a major surprise. However, serious questions remain about the timing of the announcement of results, the composition of the electorate, the influx of disinformation and even the possibility of political violence. At the same time, both sides are prepared for a protracted legal battle that could further complicate the situation.

Here’s what to watch on Election Day 2024:

History will be made anyway

With all the twists and turns that have taken place in recent months, it is easy to lose sight of the historical significance of this election.

Harris will become the first female president in the 248-year history of the United States. If elected, she would also become the first black woman and person of South Asian descent to hold the position. Harris and her campaign have largely downplayed the importance of gender and race, fearing they could alienate some supporters. But historians have not lost sight of the significance of Harris’ victory.

A Trump victory would be a different kind of historic achievement. He will become the first person convicted of a felony to be elected president of the United States. convicted on 34 counts in a hush money case in New York just over five months ago.

Trump, who still faces criminal charges in at least two separate criminal cases, has argued that he is the victim of a politicized justice system. And tens of millions of voters apparently believe him—or they are willing to ignore his extraordinary legal baggage.

How long will it take to find out the winner?

Election Day in the United States is now often considered election week, as each state follows its own rules and practices for counting ballots (not to mention legal challenges) that could delay results. But the truth is that no one knows how long it will take for a winner to be declared this time.

In 2020 Associated Press stated President Joe Biden emerged as the winner on Saturday afternoon, four days after polls closed. But even then, the AP called North Carolina for Trump 10 days after Election Day and Georgia for Biden 16 days after the manual recount.

Four years ago, the 2016 election was decided just hours after most polls closed. The AP declared Trump the winner on election night at 2:29 a.m. (technically it was Wednesday morning on the East Coast).

This time, both campaigns believe the race is very close in the seven swing states expected to decide the election, barring a big surprise: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The size of the map and the intensity of the race make it difficult to predict when the winner will be declared.

Where can I find the first clues about how the competition might unfold?

Look to two East Coast states—North Carolina and Georgia—where results could emerge relatively quickly. This doesn’t mean we’ll get final results quickly in these states if yields are close, but these are the first swing states that could give a clue to what kind of night we’re in for.

Digging deeper, look to the urban and suburban areas of the industrial North and Southeast, where Democrats have made gains since 2020.

In North Carolina, Harris’ gains in Wake and Mecklenburg counties, home to the state capital of Raleigh and the state’s largest city, Charlotte, respectively, will show how much Trump will have to squeeze out of the less populated rural areas where he has dominated. .

In Pennsylvania, Harris needs strong turnout in deep-blue Philadelphia, but she’s also looking to bolster Democrats’ advantage in suburban counties north and west of the city. She campaigned aggressively in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties, where Biden improved on Clinton’s 2016 victory. The Philadelphia metropolitan area, including four counties, accounts for 43% of Pennsylvania’s vote.

Elsewhere on the blue wall, Trump needs to slow Democratic gains in key suburban Michigan counties outside Detroit, especially Oakland County. He faces the same problem in Wisconsin’s Waukesha County near Milwaukee.

Where are the candidates?

Trump spent the early hours of Election Day in Michigan, where he wrapped up an overnight rally in Grand Rapids. The Republican nominee plans to spend the day in Florida, where he is expected to vote in person, despite previously saying he would vote early. He plans to hold a campaign watch party in Palm Beach on Tuesday night.

Harris plans to attend an election night party at Howard University in Washington, a historically black university where she graduated from economics and political science in 1986 and was an active member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Other than Howard, she doesn’t have a public schedule for Election Day.

Harris said Sunday that she “just filled out” her mail-in ballot and it is “on its way to California.”

Who else will show up on Election Day?

It is unclear which voters will turn out to vote on Tuesday.

More than 82 million people voted early – in person or by mail. So many people have already voted that some officials say elections in states like Georgia could be “ghost town” on election day.

One of the main reasons for the surge is that Trump has generally encouraged his supporters to vote early this time, a reversal from 2020, when he encouraged Republicans to only vote in person on Election Day. Early voting results confirm that millions of Republicans have heeded Trump’s call in recent weeks.

The key question, however, is whether the increase in Republicans voting early this time around will ultimately cannibalize the number of Republicans who show up on Tuesday.

There are shifts on the Democratic side as well. Four years ago, as the pandemic continued, the vast majority of Democrats voted early. But this time, without risking public health, it’s likely that more Democrats will show up in person on Election Day.

This balance on both sides is critical as we try to understand the early results. And it’s up to the campaigns to know which voters they still need to turn out on Tuesday. On this front, Democrats may have an advantage.

The Trump campaign and Republican National Committee have outsourced much of their voting operation to outside groups, including one funded largely by Trump ally billionaire Elon Musk, who faced with new questions about your practice. The Harris campaign, by contrast, runs a more traditional operation with more than 2,500 paid staff and 357 offices in battleground states alone.

Could there be unrest?

Trump was aggressive promotion of unfounded claims has been questioning the integrity of the elections in recent days. He falsely claims that the only way he can lose is if Democrats cheat, even though polls show the race to be a real toss-up.

Trump could again claim victory on election night regardless of the results, as he did in 2020.

Such rhetoric can have serious consequences, as the country saw when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. January 6, 2021 on one of the darkest days in modern American history. And unfortunately, there is still the potential for further violence this election season.

On Tuesday, the Republican National Committee will have thousands of “election integrity” poll watchers on hand to look for any signs of fraud, which critics fear could lead to prosecution of voters or election workers. At some key polling places, officials have required the presence of sheriff’s deputies in addition to bulletproof glass and panic buttons which connect survey managers to the local emergency dispatcher.

At the same time, Trump’s allies note that he faces two assassination attempts in recent months, this has increased the likelihood of further threats against him. And the police in Washington and other cities getting ready for the likelihood of serious unrest on election day.

As always, it’s worth noting that a broad coalition of senior government and industry officials, many of them Republicans, have concluded that the 2020 election was “safest” in American history“

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AP writers Tom Beaumont and Will Weissert in Washington and Jill Colvin in Grand Rapids, Michigan, contributed.

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