What you need to know for Election Day
No one knows who will win! But I have an idea...
Note: Things are almost surely going to get crazy — not just today but in the days, weeks and months ahead. There could be a protracted battle over today’s results that tests each and every one of the checks and balances that make up this fragile system. I’ll be tracking all those developments and putting them in context for you, so I hope you might consider supporting my work with a paid subscription to American Doom for as little as $5 a month or a one-time contribution to the Doom Coffee Fund. (Well, pizza fund for tonight.) I’m an independent journalist and your support helps keep it that way. Tonight, paid subscribers will get access to a live chat I’ll be kicking off around 7 pm EST, so for those of you who are paid subscribers, keep an eye on your inbox around then. For those who aren’t, what are you waiting for!? Now, on to the news…
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It’s all over but the crying. By tonight, we may know who will be the next president. Then again, we may simply know if Vice President Kamala Harris won the election — not necessarily that she’ll actually become president. That’s because, after a possible Harris win today, it will become a question of whether Republicans let her keep it.
If Donald Trump wins, there is basically zero chance that Democrats will try to overturn today’s election like Republicans did for Joe Biden’s win in 2020 — and like what they might do following today, utilizing parliamentary maneuvers and questionable interpretation of constitutional law to try to install Trump as president. There’ll be loud and possibly violent teeth-gnashing from the American right if Harris wins, but there’s one scenario I probably haven’t given enough thought to amid my focus on election denial officials and forthcoming efforts to overturn today’s election in favor of Trump: Harris could wipe the floor with Trump today. While the polls don’t currently reflect this possibility, Harris just might beat Trump so badly that it serves as a repudiation of Trumpism and election denialism so powerful that Republicans don’t even bother trying to fight it.
If this happens, I want everyone to keep in mind that many, many Americans will not be prepared for it. Much of the American right is completely siloed off from reputable sources of information — sort of the reason we are where we are to begin with — so if Harris wins tonight, they won’t have seen it coming. Many Americans wake up this morning believing that a Trump victory is in the bag. A Harris win, let alone a Harris landslide, will be a devastating blow to them.
While I don’t have pity for many of these folks, some hardcore Trump supporters are good, honest people who have simply been conned. They’ll be the ones hurt the most by all of this, so I just wanted to take a minute to extend a hand in the spirit of brotherhood.
Now, here’s a few things I’m keeping an eye on today and tonight.
Trump could claim he won as soon as tonight but that will almost surely not be the case
Don’t be surprised when you see news headlines come rolling in between 7 and 10 pm EST declaring, Trump claims election win. This is to be expected. In fact, team Trump said as much for a story I wrote alongside Asawin Suebsaeng a few weeks back at Rolling Stone. Unless months of national polling efforts are breathtakingly wrong, no one will be the obvious winner by tonight. So any statement from Trump claiming to have won will be no different than before, when he claimed victory in order to lay the narrative groundwork to claim the election was stolen from him.
Trump pretty much has to do this. Even if his ego would let him accept a loss and allow him to ride off peacefully in the sunset, it’s imperative that he win this election in order to stay out of prison. Without the power of the presidency to wield against his political enemies, Trump will be sentenced for the 34 felonies he’s already been convicted of in New York, as well as myriad other crimes that he’ll stand trial for once this election is over.
Trump and allies will claim they won based on unfounded fraud claims. These efforts are backed by a sprawling network of election denial groups serving as poll watchers, monitoring live streams of voting and tabulating locations, and users on X spreading misinformation about voter fraud, Swin and I reported today at Rolling Stone. In addition, dark money conservative groups are pressuring local election officials to refuse to certify results.
Trump’s stolen election lie will be backed by bogus fraud claims.
Poll watchers at polling locations, online sleuths viewing livestreams of ballot drop boxes, everyday Americans spending hours upon hours filming those drop boxes, and of course the army on X pushing misinformation about supposed instances of voter fraud — all of this will be piling up today and will be pointed to by Trump and his allies as evidence the election was stolen. It simply won’t be true. Again, go check out today’s Rolling Stone piece that explains all of this — as well as the right-wing dark money groups trying to convince election workers they don’t have to certify a Trump loss.
Oh, and this misinformation warfare has already kicked off this morning in Georgia. A pro-Trump member of the State Election Board is already up and sharing unsubstantiated fraud claims.
Here we go.
More than 75 million Americans have already voted, but those votes don’t show any obvious trends as to who might win.
Early voting numbers are hard to parse and, basically, all over the map. Many states don’t break down votes by party but some do. NBC News has been breaking down early votes by party and have Democrats ahead of Republicans by two points — but with 20 percent of early votes cast by voters not affiliated with either party. In Florida, registered Republicans outvoted registered Democrats by a million votes. (Meanwhile, 1.3 million early votes in the state were from voters not registered to either party.) As of four days ago, per PBS, Republicans outpaced Democrats in early voting in Nevada as well. (Still, like Florida, there’s a lot of early voters who are not registered with either party.)
Essential reading from American Doom
Republicans leading in early voting in some states is good for the Trump campaign, but the question here is whether these voters are new early voters or are simply folks who would have voted on Election Day, but have chosen to vote early thanks to Trump’s (albeit lukewarm) embrace of early voting. So, there’s encouraging signs for Trump, depending on the above. But there’s also encouraging signs for Harris.
Women are outvoting men by almost 10 points as of Monday morning, and if you believe the rhetoric from the Harris campaign as well as general voting trends broken down by sex, you have to figure most American women are voting for Harris. Here is perhaps the most encouraging stat for Harris: across battleground states, Democrats have a slight, two-point lead over Republicans and women lead men by nine points. But again, the question remains as to exactly who these women are. NBC News’ data shows that 40 percent of early votes in battleground states has come from those 65 or older. Are the women in this age bracket voting for Trump or Harris?
Results may take a while.
A landslide from either candidate means we’ll know by 10 pm or Midnight EST who won. But unless national polling is laughably, historically, cartoonishly off, neither Trump or Harris will smoke the other, leading to a conclusion this evening. Some thoughts on states I’m watching:
We’re going to know who won Georgia as soon as tonight, but things could then get complicated. If it’s super close, as it was last time when Biden won by 11,779 votes, we’re probably looking at at least one recount. Further, widespread certification refusals could gum things up. Luckily, despite election deniers having infiltrated election boards across the state, they don’t hold a majority on any of those boards. So if they vote against certification, those will effectively be protest votes. (Counties have until 5 p.m. this coming Monday to certify their results. I expect many will be certifying much sooner than that.)
Pennsylvania is going to be a mess — and Republicans only have themselves to blame (which is, of course, the point). As you might remember, I reported a couple weeks back on how Trump and Republicans purposefully made it so county election officials throughout Pennsylvania can’t count mail-in ballots until Election Day. This means, unlike other states like Georgia where early and mail-in votes are already being counted, election officials in the Keystone State can’t even touch those ballots until right now. So, we’re probably going to see a repeat of 2020’s “red mirage.” Republicans — who until this year almost exclusively voted on Election Day — could be leading by tonight. Then the mail-in ballots will start being counted. Democrats hold an advantage in that category, which means Trump’s lead will begin to diminish as the night — and the days — wear on. Trump will use this totally predictable sequence of events to declare fraud is being carried out in the form of illegitimate mail-in ballots. I mean, he’s going to claim he won the election regardless, but at least in Pennsylvania we already know the specific fraud claims he’s going to make. One other quick thing: Pennsylvania is teeming with election denial officials. As with their counterparts in Georgia and elsewhere — nearly 300 of them across the country — they could cause chaos by amplifying fraud claims and refusing to certify results. But that will likely only be a speed bump: Secretary of State Al Schmidt, a Republican, has said he’ll immediately take election officials who refuse to certify results to court, demanding that they do their jobs and certify. Still, something to watch.
We’ll know who won North Carolina by tonight, but late. Midnight Eastern time is when results will probably come in for the Tarheel State. Democrats have only won the presidential vote once in North Carolina since 1976 — Barack Obama in 2008.
We could know Michigan as soon as tonight but almost surely by tomorrow. Wisconsin’s results will also probably come in tomorrow as well.
Nevada and Arizona will be a mess. These states’ results will take days and be the subject of much teeth-gnashing. If I had to guess I’d say this is where pro-Trump protests and attempted disruptions to voting and canvassing are going to occur as well. I hope everyone in both states stays safe.
What states matter the most?
Well, now, isn’t that the question? I don’t know, go read 538 or something. There’s all sorts of wargaming and handicapping that can be done for an endless variety of scenarios by people who spend a lot more time on the horse-race aspect of political journalism than I do, but for me, this all comes down to Georgia and Pennsylvania. If someone wins both those states it’s over — big duh there, I guess. I think if Harris wins Penna. (proper abbreviation according to my ancestors’ citizenship forms there), she takes it. If Trump wins PA but Harris takes Georgia, I think that’s more of a toss-up.
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