A Hard Day’s Night

Election Day 2024, journaling all the way

7:00 AM: It is a beautiful day in central Pennsylvania, so I walked to my polling place. I told one of the poll workers that there is something authentically democratic about traveling to vote on foot. She agreed, though neither of us could explain exactly why that was the case. I said hello to at least five people I knew, spent less than two minutes in the booth, and exchanged pleasantries with a Democratic Party volunteer waiting for me at the door. Tip O’Neill was right: All politics is local. On my walk home I took a selfie, making sure my “I Voted” sticker was in the frame, and sent it to my family.The best argument against mail-in voting is that those who vote this way do not get a sticker. 

1:30 PM: I am always a little bit antsy on Election Day. It is hard to get work done. I had blocked-off several hours for writing today but I was too anxious to make any significant headway on my chapter. I took another short walk around the neighborhood. The front-yard signs seem to have doubled in the last week. Nearly all of them are Trump/Vance.

8:30 PM: I am glad to see that Mark Robinson, the MAGA evangelical candidate who crashed and burned after a pornography scandal in September, lost the North Carolina gubernatorial bid to Josh Stein. North Carolina is a major swing state in the presidential election. Trump will certainly outperform Robinson in the Tar Heel State. Apparently North Carolinians refuse to vote for a “Black Nazi” who writes about his sexual prowess on a porn site, but they have no problem with a presidential candidate who sleeps with a porn star and sexually assaults women in department store dressing rooms.

10:08 PM: I just made a cup of coffee. I’m going to try to watch the returns as late into the night as possible. I am closely following my home Pennsylvania county of Cumberland. 72% of the vote is counted and Trump is leading 53% to 45.5%. Right now Harris is performing slightly better than Biden in 2020. I am also watching Pennsylvania House District 10. Scott Perry, the former chair of the Freedom Caucus who was part of the group that tried to overturn the 2020 election, is on the ropes. With 48% of the votes in, local television news personality Janelle Stelson is leading by ten percent. We have lived in this district for more than twenty years and have always had a conservative Republican representative. A Stelson win would be huge.

10:19 PM: The New York Times “The Needle” feature says that Trump has a 78% of victory tonight. The so-called “paper of record” is saying that Trump is likely to win Georgia and North Carolina. If this prediction holds up, Harris will probably need to sweep the Northern “firewall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania to win the presidency. I’m watching John King on CNN. I breathe a sigh of relief every time he says, “It’s still early.”

10:46 PM: I just looked at X. Ross Douthat of The New York Times is praying: “Please God, as you love America, your almost-chosen nation, spare us a Florida-in-2000 scenario with Pennsylvania.” Right now Trump is leading by about 130,000 votes, but the Philadelphia votes are still outstanding.

10:52 PM: This election is going to be decided by voters in Milwaukee, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Harris needs to run up the vote in these swing-state cities. 

10:54 PM: What was the deal with that J. Ann Selzer poll in Iowa? The esteemed Iowa pollster said Harris had a three point lead in the week before the election. Tonight Trump ran away with Iowa.

11:38 PM: It is not looking good for Harris in Pennsylvania. She is underperforming Biden in most of the key counties, including Philadelphia County. Harris is just too culturally progressive for white working-class voters in Lackawanna, Lehigh, Monroe, Carbon, Northampton, and Luzerne. Many of these voters are working-class Catholics. This is the scenario I explained to the Associated Press last week.

11:40 PM: CNN calls North Carolina for Trump. 

11:56 PM: According to The Washington Post, 31% of North Carolina voters were white evangelicals. 85% of them pulled the lever for Trump. In Georgia, 29% of voters were white evangelicals and 92% of them voted for Trump. In Ohio, 29% of voters were white evangelicals and 87% of them cast a ballot for Trump. In Texas, 22% of voters were white evangelicals and 85% of them voted for Trump. In Wisconsin, 22% of the voters were white evangelicals and 76% of them voted for Trump.

12:26 AM: The New York Times is now giving Trump a 92% chance of winning the presidency. 

12:30 AM: CNN is reporting that there are only 100,000 votes that have yet to be counted in Georgia. Trump is now leading by about 118,000. No news outlet has called Georgia yet, but the math tells us that Trump has won the state.

12:32 AM: As I get ready for bed, Harris still has a chance. She needs to sweep Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Right now she is trailing in all three of those states, but there are still large blocks of votes that still need to be counted in Harris-friendly urban areas.

12:37 AM: CNN calls Georgia for Trump. 

12:38 AM: CNN is reporting that Biden won Hispanic voters in 2020 by more than thirty points. Harris is leading with Hispanic voters by only eight points. 

12:41 AM: Tonight proved that the Democratic Party has lost touch with its moderate wing. It has failed to attract white working class voters. It is too extreme on abortion, transgender issues, and identity politics. It is losing support among Hispanics and Black men. 

The race is not over yet, but I’ve seen enough for the night. If the Democrats can’t beat this guy, they’d better start rethinking things.

John Fea is Executive Editor of Current.