What to watch for as the polls close on election night - and beyond

The 2024 presidential election has been a wild ride. We have seen heated rhetoric, raw partisan divides on most issues, major candidates dropping out of the race and so much more. As the polls close on Election Day, people around the world will watch the returns with excitement and anxiety. 

Here are a few things to keep an eye on as ballots are counted throughout the country.

The blue shift may open the door to accusations of fraud

It should not be a surprise if Donald Trump takes an early lead in key battleground states on election night. That lead will inevitably narrow and potentially reverse as votes are tabulated late into the evening and in the days after the election. This is a well-documented phenomenon called the blue shift.

The blue shift appears to occur because Election Day voters tend to lean slightly more Republican while voters using mail-in and provisional ballots typically lean slightly more Democratic. In-person (Republican leaning) ballots are easier to count and frequently appear in early reports, while mail-in and provisional ballots (Democratic leaning) often take multiple steps to record. Some mail-in ballots may even arrive after election day and still be included in the final calculations depending on state laws and various court rulings.

While political scientists continue to explore why mail-in and provisional ballots lean more Democratic, a recent study shows that the blue shift is potentially linked to the demographic characteristics of the groups that are more likely to use this voting method (young, non-white, voting for the first time, etc.).

Unfortunately, as others note, all of this “raises the possibility that losing candidates and their supporters may increasingly, even if mistakenly, regard the vote count as ‘rigged.’” In fact, former President Trump’s online commentary during the 2018 midterm elections highlighted this exact concern: “The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!”

So, if there is no concession on election night, watch for the blue shift and the resulting rhetoric. The shift is one of many pathways candidates can use to question the election results, even though it does not indicate that anything fraudulent is happening. 

We may not know every winner on election night

Given the tight race, it is unlikely that we will know the winner of every state on election night. State laws differ on when mail-in ballots are counted. For instance, Florida begins counting mail-in ballots before Election Day, which makes it easier to quickly announce a winner. Other states do not begin counting mail-in ballots until polls close, which can make it difficult to call a state if the race is close. Moreover, state laws vary on when ballots must be postmarked and received to be counted.

The process for counting ballots is particularly important in the swing states (where polling data shows an incredibly close race). States like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Nevada begin counting mail-in ballots prior to Election Day. While states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania do not process mail-in ballots until Election Day. Given that Pennsylvania is viewed by many to be the key “tipping point” state that will get either Trump or Kamala Harris to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election, the state rules governing the mail-in ballot count could leave the nation anxiously waiting.

The popular vote winner may lose the election

On Election Day, there will be two vote tallies plastered on every newscast: the popular vote and the electoral vote. The popular vote is the actual number of votes a candidate receives nationwide. The electoral vote is the number of votes the candidate will receive in the Electoral College based on outcomes in individual states. Each state has a set number of electoral votes that is based on the size of the state’s congressional delegation. In all but two states (Maine and Nebraska), the candidate that wins the most votes in the state will be given all the state’s electoral votes. This is what political scientists refer to as a winner-take-all system. If any candidate wins a majority of the electoral vote (270), they win the election. If no majority is reached, then the House of Representatives decides the outcome of the presidential election.

Because of the winner-take-all nature of the Electoral College, it is possible for a candidate to win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote. This scenario has occurred five times in the past. It happens in situations where a candidate wins big where they win, but barely loses where they lose. For example, in 2016, Hilary Clinton won millions of votes more than Trump in California. This helped her in the popular vote but did nothing extra for her in the electoral vote. She would have received all of California’s electoral votes with just one vote more than her opponent. Therefore, the “inefficient” distribution of Democratic supporters throughout the Electoral College created a meaningful advantage for Trump in 2016. Similar levels of bias are likely to be present in the current election, with forecasters predicting that there are many scenarios where Trump wins the electoral vote and loses the popular vote to Harris (and very few, if any, in the opposing direction).

This kind of outcome is always controversial because it feels inherently undemocratic to many people – particularly those on the losing side. In fact, survey data from Pew Research Center shows that 63% of Americans would prefer to change the current system so that the candidate receiving the most votes wins the election while only 35% want to keep the Electoral College.

Regardless of who wins the presidential election, slim congressional majorities will make governing difficult

We often focus our attention on the presidential election, but congressional races are important to consider on election night as well. The balance of power in Congress will certainly impact the president’s ability to implement their agenda. Divided government is a very real possibility for the new president. Even if unified partisan-control of government does occur, the majorities will be so slim that it will make governing hard.

In the Senate, Democrats currently have a 51-49 majority over Republicans. However, 2024 Senate election forecasts are not in the Democrats’ favor. Republicans are projected to pick up seats in Montana and West Virginia. Additionally, the polls in Wisconsin between incumbent Democrat Senator Tammy Baldwin and Republican challenger Eric Hovde have narrowed in recent days. Election forecasters have also moved Ohio into the tossup category as polls between incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown and Republican challenger Bernie Moreno are now incredibly close. Control of the Senate is within reach for Republicans.

Unlike predictions for the Senate, the House of Representatives appears to be a coin flip at this point, and it is unclear which party will control the chamber next year.

The most successful presidents have frequently enjoyed strong partisan coalitions in Congress. The current data points toward four more years of tumult, strained inter-branch relations and partisan messaging that does not lend itself to a productive lawmaking environment. It can be expected that the new president will frequently strike out on their own and lean heavily on unilateral tools like executive orders and presidential memoranda to influence policy to the best of their ability.