What US Election Night Will Look Like?

Photo: Agence France-Presse, Montage Le Devoir Unless there are significant movements in the polls over the weekend, “we're going to start the evening not knowing where we're going.”

Sarah R. Champagne

Publié à 0h00

• États-Unis

That's it, after a long campaign with unpredictable twists and turns and inflammatory statements, millions of people will be on the lookout Tuesday evening waiting to know the outcome of the presidential election. What you should know before sitting down in front of your screen ? Le Devoir asked two American politics experts to outline how the evening of Tuesday, November 5, 2024 will unfold.

1- Can we get an idea of ​​the results before the counting even begins ?

The polls are so close at the time of writing that, as far as the outcome of the election is concerned, “it’s really a toss-up,” announces Frédérick Gagnon, director of the Raoul Dandurand Chair’s Observatory on the United States.

According to national data, there is less than a point difference between Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump. The margin is sometimes even narrower in key states. The race has even tightened in recent weeks, he points out, as Harris “has lost a bit of her momentum.”

Unless there are significant movements in the polls over the weekend, “we’re going to start the evening not knowing where we’re going.”

For data buffs, Frédérick Gagnon suggests consulting sites with a solid reputation, such as that of statistics guru Nate Silver, or RealClearPolitics, which present averages of national polls as well as for pivotal states. The FiveThirtyEight website also has a final forecast model.

Political scientist Matthew Lebo plans to follow the polls that will be conductedat the exit polls. “If, for example, Harris has a better result than [Joe] Biden with certain categories of voters, like white women and black or Latino voters, that could be a good sign for the Democrats.”

However, these polls generally arrive quite late in the day, notes this visiting professor at McGill University, normally attached to the Department of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario.

2- What should we watch as a priority ?

Don’t waste too much time on the 43 states that are pretty much already known, Lebo says. Instead, keep an eye on the seven key states that are uncertain: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

Beware early-morning biases: “Votes are never counted everywhere at the same time,” he notes.

In Virginia, for example, rural counties are counted first. That could make Republicans appear ahead by early evening. Then the ballot boxes in the more northern sectors of the state are counted, and then the “blue vote”, in the suburbs of the capital Washington, could stand out more.

It is the same case for Pennsylvania, on which all eyes will be riveted, so ready does the state seem to swing one way or the other.

The 2020 comparison point is also very important to keep in mind (or on screen): “If Kamala Harris has, for example, a 2% lead in North Carolina compared to Joe Biden, that could also be a positive signal for her campaign,” explains Matthew Lebo.

Frédérick Gagnon has clearly established his “game plan” for the evening: starting at 7 p.m., the results from Georgia will start coming in. At 7:30 p.m., the polls in North Carolina will close in turn. At 8 p.m., it will be Pennsylvania and Michigan. Then, at 9 p.m., Wisconsin and Arizona, and finally, at 10 p.m., Nevada.

“That's really my watch sequence,” he says, in addition to having a long list of specific counties to watch in those seven key states.

3- Are we going to be up all night ? Or the whole week ?

“I don’t expect to really sleep, but that’s your choice,” Matthew Lebo says with a laugh when asked. It’s still possible that one or the other candidate will get a better score than the polls suggest: every exercise includes a margin of error, he reminds us. The result would then be known quickly.

Frédérick Gagnon also recalls the experience of 2016, when it became clear, around 10:30 p.m., that the vote was going in Donald Trump’s direction. “[Hillary] Clinton couldn’t get enough votes where there were still votes to count, it was mathematical.”

He, too, is already predicting that the night will be short or nonexistent for his part, and that the sleep deficit could continue to accumulate for several days, if not all week. “If you look at the recent elections in 2020, they seemed less close than this year, but we didn’t know the winner until the following Saturday,” he recalls.

That was partly because of media caution, he notes, but also because the amount of mail-in voting was unprecedented. There are 51 different electoral systems in 50 states and the District of Columbia. However, many have since passed laws to allow those votes to be processed before election night. These are not “counts in the strict sense”, but a form of “pre-filtering”, describes this expert, to ensure that the ballots are in order, by checking for example that they are signed.

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Georgia, a swing state, will notably count this type of mail-in vote before the polls close. It is less obvious for Pennsylvania, where we can expect a count that will take a few days, especially if the result is close.

4- Could a candidate declare himself the winner early in the evening ?

“It’s certain that if one of the two has a chance of doing it, it’s Trump,” Mr. Gagnon states immediately. “Regardless of the trends, around 10 p.m. or 11 p.m., we can predict that he will make a public statement and that he will at least try to maintain a certain ambiguity, even more so if the trends are not clear.”

The number of votes sent by mail will be smaller this year than in 2020, and they will probably come more from both camps. The fact remains that more Democrats than Republicans use this method. “It can create what is called the mirage of Republican victory,” explains this expert.

The results of the vote in the offices are starting to come out more quickly, and it is more Republican, he continues. The votes that are not yet counted, those that will wait until the next day or even the day after for example, will be more Democratic. “That’s what happened in 2020. Trump was leading in Georgia and Pennsylvania when we went to bed. The next day, we started counting the mail-in votes and that’s when Trump started saying that they had ‘found’ boxes of ballots and that they were creating fake votes,” says Mr. Gagnon.

“I expect him to say: ‘I won, it’s over’ or even: ‘They are stealing the election,’” says Matthew Lebo. He also notes that it is this change in the trend in the two key states that has “fueled his stories of fraud.” “I really can't imagine him saying he lost or congratulating his opponent,” he concludes.

5- Will the courts get involved? ?

Both men agree that it is very likely that dozens of lawsuits will be filed. “In 2020, there were about 60 lawsuits. As soon as Trump didn’t like the results somewhere, he would sue,” says Matthew Lebo.

It is very possible that Kamala Harris will also file lawsuits in places where the Democratic camp doubts the objectivity of the officials who organize the actual elections.

This article is part of our Perspectives section.

One of these lawsuits could make its way to the Supreme Court if the parties repeatedly appeal, for example. The composition of the Supreme Court currently leans to the right, including the three justices appointed by Donald Trump during his term. “That's what's a little scary,” Mr. Lebo said.

The narrower the gap between the two parties, the more lawsuits there will be, Gagnon also says. Challenges to electoral procedures are already before the courts of several states and Mr. Trump has told his troops to seek “all means of not certifying votes against him.” “American democracy remains fragile and there is a scenario where Trump could try to win the election after the fact even if he lost,” he says.