I’m not expecting the presidential election to be decided tonight. If the election turns out to be as close as the polls predict, we’ll need to await late returns from several swing states that will not be finalized today.
It will also likely take days (if not weeks) for control of the House to be figured out. Even control of the Senate probably will not be determined before midnight tonight.
So, what should we be watching for tonight, if the election returns that come in today won’t provide definitive results for the races that have received the most scrutiny?
Actually, there’s still a lot that we can learn from tonight’s early returns. Here’s what I’ll be watching for during the first three hours of early election returns – that is, from 8-11pm ET, which is about as late as I’m likely to stay up, given that I’m not a night owl and have a 9am class to teach tomorrow.
First, abortion – Since this is a topic that I’ve written about frequently, I will be very interested in finding out what happens in the ten states that are considering referendums on the issue. Five states that currently restrict abortion are voting on whether they should lift those restrictions and legalize it through the second trimester (just as Ohio did last year). Another five that currently permit abortion are voting on whether to codify expansions in abortion access or abortion funding. I expect that the pro-choice states will likely vote to codify abortion rights, and I expect that abortion legalization measures will pass in most of the five states that currently restrict abortion rights. So, on the whole, it probably won’t be a good night for the pro-life movement.
But I will be especially eager to see the results of the referendums in Missouri and South Dakota, because historically, those two states have been strongly opposed to abortion. Polls show that the Missouri legalization referendum is likely to pass, but in South Dakota, the latest polls show a very slight advantage for the pro-life forces, with 48 percent opposed to the abortion legalization measure and 45 percent supporting it.
If a majority of voters in even a single state cast their ballots against an abortion legalization referendum, it will be the first time since Dobbs that an abortion legalization referendum is defeated by a majority – and that will be at least a small victory for the pro-life movement, which has suffered a string of defeats lately.
(An abortion legalization referendum is expected to fail in Florida, but that is only because the referendum requires a 60 percent supermajority to pass, not because a majority of Floridians oppose the measure).
It will be 9pm on the East Coast by the time the last polls in South Dakota close, but since South Dakota has a record of counting its ballots quickly and releasing the full results within just a few hours at most, I think there’s at least a chance that I could find out what happens with this referendum by the time I turn off my computer and go to bed for the night.
Marijuana and recreational drugs – Like abortion, marijuana legalization initiatives have been an electoral juggernaut in the last two years, with state after state voting to legalize either medical or recreational marijuana, regardless of whether those states veer to the right or left. But there are signs this year that a narrow majority of voters in a few places may be ready to put the brakes on marijuana legalization. Polls show that a marijuana legalization measure may be narrowly defeated in South Dakota, so I’ll be watching the results for that measure, along with the results in other states where voters are also deciding whether to legalize marijuana – but where they also may be less socially conservative, on average.
In Massachusetts, where recreational marijuana has already been legal for some time, voters are deciding whether to legalize psychedelic drugs for recreational use. Polls indicate that the measure will probably pass, but I’ll be watching for the results anyway, so that I won’t be caught off guard when I start seeing “magic mushroom” shops on my next trip to Boston.
The Michigan presidential results – With Pennsylvania notoriously slow in reporting results and Wisconsin also likely to go well past midnight in counting its ballots, Michigan may be the only Rust Belt swing state that will be able to report its presidential vote before the end of the day on Tuesday. If Donald Trump wins the state, the path to victory for Kamala Harris will narrow considerably, but if Harris wins, it could be an important harbinger of a similar victory in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. I’ll be eager to see not only who wins the state but also how each candidate fared among two groups that were historically Democratic but have been edging toward Trump lately: Arab Americans and Black men.
Georgia – Georgia polls close at 7pm ET, and in the past, it has reported results quickly. If that’s the case this year, it will likely be the first swing state of the Sunbelt to report its presidential results. If Harris wins Georgia, it will be a bit of an upset – and a likely sign that she’ll win the election, I imagine, since it may indicate that she’ll be able to outperform polls in other areas. If Trump wins the state, it won’t be a guarantee of his victory – though if he wins by a higher-than-expected margin, it could prove that Harris may also be in trouble in other areas, especially in the Sunbelt.
The Ohio Senate race – Trump is expected to win Ohio without much of a contest, but the Senate race between Sherrod Brown and Bernie Moreno is highly competitive. If Brown loses his bid for reelection, the Republicans will almost certainly retake the Senate, but there’s a good chance he could survive. Ohio polls close at 7:30pm, but it usually takes some counties several hours to count their votes, so we may not know the results before midnight if the race is as close as polls predict. Still, it’s a Senate race worth watching – and we may get some idea of how things are leaning by the time the night is over. If Brown holds on, it will indicate that the Trumpian tilt of the Rust Belt working class doesn’t necessarily mean a complete conversion to the Republican Party. Brown is a pro-tariff Democratic champion of the working class in what has become a pretty solidly Republican state. His breed of working-class Democratic populist politician is becoming an endangered species in some places, but if he holds on, it will show that there’s still a small place in an increasingly college-educated party for the white working class.
Maine’s District 2 House race – In northern Maine’s solidly Trumpian second district, the working-class, moderately conservative Jared Golden is fighting for his political life – and he might make it. Like the Senate contest in Ohio, this race will be a test of the Democratic Party’s continued ability to appeal to rural white working-class voters.
The polls v. reality – Many of the results from the early-reporting states (such as Kentucky, for instance) won’t be surprises. But it will still be interesting to compare the vote totals with polling averages. If either Trump or Harris is consistently outperforming polls, that could be an indication of what will happen in the swing states that won’t release final tallies until tomorrow.
The extent of the party realignment – In 2016, Trump changed the composition of the Republican Party by rebranding it as the party of white rural conservatives, and by doing so, he won Rust Belt states that had not voted Republican in decades. This year, he’s trying to expand that coalition by winning more Hispanics and Black men. Harris is trying to hold onto those votes while also expanding the party’s reach in the suburbs. Early returns may give us some sense of how those competing strategies are playing out. Will Trump do better than expected in the Hispanic areas of Texas? Will Harris sweep the Atlanta suburbs that a short time ago were solidly Republican? I’ll be looking at the returns from particular districts or counties with almost as much anticipation as state returns.
What we won’t know by midnight ET: There’s a lot that we won’t know by the time the night is over. We won’t know the final results from Pennsylvania, since it will take many hours to count the mail-in ballots there. We probably won’t know anything from North Carolina, a swing state where damage from the hurricane is expected to delay reporting. We won’t know anything from Nevada, another swing state that reports its results well after midnight ET. We probably won’t have the final results from Wisconsin. So, it seems almost certain that neither presidential candidate will have the electoral votes to declare victory by midnight Eastern Time.
But even if I have to go to bed without knowing the winner (as I undoubtedly will), I’m looking forward to watching the returns tonight and learning what I can. This will be a historic election in ways that extend far beyond the presidential race, and it will definitely be worth watching – regardless of how we might feel about any of the candidates.