☀️ Election Eve special

INCLUDING: What to expect, which states matter, and thicc trivia

It’s almost game day! Billions of dollars, millions of arguments, and an endless stream of ads-that-really-made-you-reconsider-that-ad-supported-tier-of-Netflix later, Election Day is upon us. In today’s issue, we’re taking a look at tomorrow: what to expect, what it all means, and how to sound smarter than your friends.

To take a peek at what your ballot will look like tomorrow, check out Vote.org’s sample ballot lookup tool. You don’t want a critical race for county clerk to sneak up on you. In other news, here’s a link to either read genuinely or passively aggressively send to someone in need: how to be kind to raging idiots nice people you disagree with.

Programming note: In honor of nerd Super Bowl, today’s issue is extra long. If your email provider clips the message, you may need to click through to read the full issue.

THE BASICS

🇺🇸 What to expect on Election Day

The basics: As a reminder, a candidate needs 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency — that’s a majority of the 538 available. Each state gets a number of Electoral College votes equal to its total number of Senators and Representative.

Where to watch: RIP Dancing with the Stars. Every major over-the-air network (ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox) will have wall-to-wall election coverage tomorrow evening. Max, Disney+, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Peacock will stream coverage as well. The networks will all use red for Republicans and blue for Democrats. Expect some goofy new, overcomplicated way of showing a map on TV.

The campaigns will be in battle mode. They’ll have staff on the ground in every state ready to legally pounce on any problems that may arise. They will, at some point, probably have a meltdown about rain or snow in some critical state keeping people at home and cozy instead of out voting.

Problems will arise. If you follow any news tomorrow during the day, everyone will likely panic at some point about random issues. For example, some polling stations are likely to run out of ballots temporarily and some voting machines will break down. It happens every election.

What does it mean when networks “call” a race or state? News networks race to announce the winners before their competitors. They’re taking the public voting data provided by states and making assumptions. For instance, if a state’s only uncounted votes are from a very pro-Harris area and she already leads the rest of the state, she’s likely to win that state. So a network will “call the race” a Harris victory. These calls have no bearing on the actual result. They are typically correct, though.

When will we know the winner? If the results are lopsided enough and states count quickly, we could find out late Tuesday night. But Wednesday is more likely in that scenario. In the event of a close race, the counting could take a week or more. More on that below.

You might see a long list of random names on your ballot next to the presidential candidates’ names. Those are the electors you’re technically voting for. They’re the real people who will cast your state’s Electoral College votes in December.

Candidates finish strong

Donald Trump is going hard on the final day today with four rallies across North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. He’ll finish the campaign with a rally tonight in Grand Rapids, Michigan at 10:30 p.m.

  • VP nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) will crisscross Michigan and Wisconsin today.

  • Trump and Vance will reunite at an Election Night watch party tomorrow in Palm Beach, Florida near Mar-a-Lago.

Kamala Harris will finish up with a celeb-supported event in Philadelphia that will be live-streamed to events in all seven swing states.

  • VP nominee Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) will also crisscross Michigan and Wisconsin today.

  • The two Democrats will watch the returns come in on Election Night at Harris’s alma mater, Howard University.

STATES

❓️ Which states matter this year?

In 1972, one candidate won 49 of 50 states. In 1984, a different candidate again won 49 of 50 states. In 2020, 30 states were decided by margins of 15% or more. With this age of polarization comes a narrowing of the field of states that either candidate could conceivably win. This year, Donald Trump and Joe Biden Kamala Harris have largely focused on seven states across two regions.

The Sun Belt is the growing, sunny, southern third(ish) of the country. Three of the four states in question here — Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina — lean Republican but have become more competitive in the Trump era. The fourth, Nevada, has long been a political battleground.

The Rust Belt, once America’s manufacturing powerhouse, began falling off economically in the 1970s. It roughly stretches from Upstate New York to Northern Minnesota. The three contested states here — Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — lean Democratic but have become more competitive in the Trump era.

  • Owing to their Democratic lean, these three are often called the “Blue Wall” (that Republicans have a tough time climbing).

The swing states of yesteryear have pretty much solidified in favor of one party. Florida, Ohio, and Iowa went Republican, while Colorado, New Hampshire, and Virginia went Democratic.

Let’s take a look at each swing state and when we might see results. Some states have changed their counting procedures for the better since 2020. Other states are Arizona.

Arizona

  • Polls close: 9:00 p.m. E.T.

  • Counting: Due to weird new counting procedures and extra-long ballots in the state’s largest county, Arizona is likely to need MORE THAN 10 DAYS to finish counting. Thankfully, depending on how things look, races should be called well ahead of that — but nowhere near Tuesday night. Let’s all just hope this whole thing doesn’t hinge on the Sand People.

Georgia

  • Polls close: 7:00 p.m. E.T.

  • Counting: Georgia has been processing mail-in votes (that is, removing their envelopes, checking signatures, etc.) for a few weeks already. They’ll start counting them tomorrow morning. The Peach State hopes to be done counting by late tomorrow night.

Michigan

  • Polls close: 9:00 p.m. E.T.

  • Counting: Michigan’s secretary of state says her state hopes to be done counting by late Wednesday thanks to new rules that fixed older, even slower procedures.

Nevada

  • Polls close: 10:00 p.m. E.T.

  • Counting: About half of Nevada’s votes will come by mail. And, as long as they’re postmarked by tomorrow, those mail-in ballots don’t need to arrive until Saturday. Getting results here could take a while.

  • Note: Nevada is a longtime bellwether (a state that predicts the larger outcome). It’s voted for the nationwide winner in all but three presidential elections dating back to 1904.

North Carolina

  • Polls close: 7:30 p.m. E.T.

  • Counting: North Carolina counts fast, using a similar system to Georgia. They’re likely to have complete results by late Tuesday night.

  • Note: North Carolina is the only state of these seven that Trump won in 2020. With a 1.34% margin, it was also his closest state.

Pennsylvania

  • Polls close: 8:00 p.m. E.T.

  • Counting: They won’t start processing and counting mail-in ballots until Election Day because really, what’s the rush? So the winner is unlikely to be known by Tuesday night but could be known by Wednesday.

  • Note: With 19 Electoral College votes, Pennsylvania’s the biggest prize on the swing state board this year. Amish voters could be crucial.

Wisconsin

  • Polls close: 9:00 p.m. E.T.

  • Counting: As with Pennsylvania, Wisconsin is in no hurry. They won’t begin processing mail-in ballots until Tuesday morning but could finish by Wednesday.

  • Note: No stranger to close races, Wisconsin was decided by less than 1% in 2000, 2004, 2016, and 2020. There must be something in all that cheese. Or maybe it’s the beer?

POLLS

📊 Crunching the numbers: 2024’s final polls

Surprise, surprise. The final polls of the year show… a super close race. But what if the polls are wrong? They’ve been wrong before.

  • In 2016 and 2020, polls underestimated Donald Trump by about 4%. If they’re wrong again by that much, we’re looking at a blowout election for whichever candidate benefits from the whiff.

  • Why is polling so hard? A lot of people don’t respond to polls. And a lot of those people happen to support Donald Trump. Pollsters also have trouble weighing their samples by factors like education to accurately reflect the voters.

Models: If you’re more into complicated statistical prediction models, the three we read all pointed toward a Trump victory. The Hill’s model has him winning in 54% of simulated elections, while FiveThirtyEight has him winning 53% of the time. Trump wins 51% of the Economist’s simulated elections.

Note: We’ve only included public, non-partisan polls here that had at least some data gathered in November.

National polls

  • 🔵 Harris 49%, Trump 47% (M.C.)

  • 🔵 Harris 49%, Trump 46% (ABC)

  • ⚪️ Tied at 49% (NBC)

  • ⚪️ Tied at 49% (Emerson)

  • 🔴 Trump 49%, Harris 48% (TIPP)

  • 🔴 Trump 49%, Harris 47% (Atlas)

Battleground state polls

Arizona:

  • 🔴 Trump 49%, Harris 46% (Insider)

  • 🔴 Trump 49%, Harris 45% (NYT)

  • 🔴 Trump 52%, Harris 46% (Atlas)

Georgia:

  • 🔵 Harris 48%, Trump 47% (NYT)

  • 🔴 Trump 50%, Harris 48% (Atlas)

  • 🔴 Trump 49%, Harris 48% (Insider)

Michigan: (these are extra helpful…)

  • ⚪️ Tied at 47% (Insider)

  • ⚪️ Tied at 47% (NYT)

  • 🔴 Trump 50%, Harris 48% (Atlas)

  • 🔵 Harris 50%, Trump 48% (MNS)

Nevada:

  • 🔵 Harris 49%, Trump 46% (NYT)

  • 🔴 Trump 52%, Harris 46% (Atlas)

North Carolina:

  • 🔴 Trump 49%, Harris 47% (Insider)

  • 🔵 Harris 48%, Trump 46% (NYT)

  • 🔴 Trump 51%, Harris 47% (Atlas)

Pennsylvania:

  • 🔴 Trump 49%, Harris 48% (Insider)

  • ⚪️ Tied at 48% (NYT)

  • 🔴 Trump 50%, Harris 48% (Atlas)

Wisconsin:

  • 🔴 Trump 49%, Harris 48% (Insider)

  • 🔵 Harris 49%, Trump 47% (NYT)

  • 🔴 Trump 50%, Harris 49% (Atlas)

TRIVIA

Don’t shoot the messenger, but one of these two people is about to become the most powerful person on the planet. So learning a bit more about them seems like a reasonable way to spend a few minutes this morning.

Kamala Harris:

  1. Kamala Harris might soon become the first woman to serve as president of the United States. Who was the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice?

  2. Of the 15 vice presidents who became president, nine got the promotion because the sitting president died or resigned. A few others, including Biden, won the gig after a few years out of office. Who was the last sitting vice president to be elected president?

  3. Barack Obama spent a few years as a young kid living in his stepfather’s home country of Indonesia. Kamala Harris also grew up partly in a foreign country after her mom took a job as a professor there. In what country did Harris attend high school?

Donald Trump:

  1. Donald Trump might soon become the second ex-president to return to power after getting the boot. Who was the first president to lose reelection but win back power four years later?

  2. Trump won the White House for the first time back in 2016. But that wasn’t the first time he’d run. For which minor party’s presidential nomination did Donald Trump briefly run in 2000?

  3. The Hollywood Walk of Fame honors thousands of people for their contributions to the entertainment industry. A few of those have also seen success in politics. Other than Donald Trump, which U.S. president has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame? 

CONGRESS

🏛️ The fight for Congress comes to a close

Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT)

The White House isn’t the only thing up for grabs tomorrow. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are on the ballot for their two-year terms. Since Senators serve six-year terms, one-third of them are on the ballot in 2024.

The House: Republicans control the House right now with a tiny majority of just 4 seats. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is trying to hang onto his job as Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) looks to pick up enough seats to take over the chamber.

  • Republicans’ House majority is, strangely, built on holding a handful of Republican-leaning seats in large, Democratic states like New York and California. How well (or poorly) Trump does in those states could decide the House.

  • We won’t bore you with the details on 435 elections. But so-called “generic congressional ballot” (GCB) polls show voters prefer a Democratic Congress… by an itty bitty 1% margin (Emerson)(NBC).

The Senate: Democrats (barely) control the Senate right now with 51 seats. Republicans have 49. The retirement of longtime moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) gives Republicans a guaranteed pickup in the uber-conservative state.

  • Seven-fingered Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) is a down-the-line Democrat representing conservative Montana. Veteran and businessman Tim Sheehy (R) leads the polls by an average of 6.5%. Tester’s somehow held on since 2006, but this year? His goose is all but cooked (along with Democratic hopes of keeping the Senate).

Splitting tickets: Voters today almost never support one party for president and another for Senate. Five of the seven swing states have incumbent (current) Democratic senators up for re-election this year and two others are up in seats Trump won in 2020. That is… not good for Team D. If Donald Trump sweeps the swing states, a hefty Republican Senate majority could come with him.

  • That said, Democrats lead polling averages in every Senate seat they’re defending that isn’t West Virginia or Montana: Nevada by 4.2%, Arizona by 3.8%, Michigan by 2.8%, Pennsylvania by 2.5%, Wisconsin by 1.4%, and Ohio by 0.3%.

  • Republicans are only defending two remotely competitive Senate seats this year. They lead in Florida by 4.6% and in Texas (Ted Cruz’s seat) by 4.0%.

BRIEFS

● Federal officials are getting worried as chipmaker Intel’s problems continue to mount. The company, key to boosting American production of critical computer chips, is viewed as “too important to fail.”

● The U.S. economy added 12,000 jobs in October, which was much weaker than economist expectations of 110,000 and wayyy below September’s 223,000. But the bad month could be more about hurricanes and labor strikes than real economic weakness.

● Data might be replacing oil as the stock market’s gold mine. Oil companies all over the world are seeing their lowest profits in years as data-heavy tech companies like Microsoft, Facebook Meta, and Google Alphabet report solid growth.

● Moldova, a lil guy sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania, reelected its pro-Western president on Sunday. Her victory boosts the odds that the country will merge with Romania — both speak Romanian — in a bid for safety from Russia.

QUOTE

I don't know whether it's the finest public housing in America or the crown jewel of the prison system.

— Then-President Bill Clinton on life in the White House

ANSWERS

Kamala Harris:

  1. The first woman to serve on the Supreme Court was Ronald Reagan’s (R) 1981 nominee, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (note: this doesn’t make RBG any less Notorious).

  2. In 1988, George H.W. Bush (R) became the first sitting VP to win the White House the old-fashioned way since Martin Van Buren (D) in 1836 — an insane 152-year gap.

  3. Kamala Harris lived in Canada from ages 12 to 17 after her mom took a job there as a professor at McGill University (Canada’s Harvard). She graduated from high school in Montreal, Quebec in 1981 and attended a year of college there before moving back to the United States.

Donald Trump:

  1. Grover Cleveland (D) won the White House in 1884 before getting tossed in 1888. In 1892, he came roaring back to win a second, non-consecutive, term. Strange that “Grover” never caught on as a baby name…

  2. Back in 2000, Trump ran in three primaries for the Reform Party’s presidential nomination before backing out over party dysfunction. Reform had been created a few years earlier by billionaire Ross Perot, who won 19% of the vote in 1992 — the best showing for a third-party or independent candidate since 1912.

  3. Ronald Reagan (R) was an actor and president of the Screen Actors Guild before serving as governor of California and president of the United States. Other entertainer-politicians honored include Congressman Sonny Bono (R) of Sonny & Cher fame, child star-turned-Ambassador Shirley Temple (R), and some random old musician who dabbled as Prime Minister of Poland.