Quiet before the storm… Clark County Election Department on Oct. 16, 2024. (Photo: April Corbin Girnus)
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump on Monday hopscotched across swing states and prepared for what could be an exceedingly tense election night watch as the 2024 presidential election sped to a close.
So far, more than 80.6 million Americans have voted, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab.
In a presidential contest that pollsters say is virtually a toss-up, seven battleground states likely will determine the outcome of the election. The results could take days, election officials repeatedly have warned and stressed again Monday. The 2020 presidential race was called for President Joe Biden the Saturday following Election Day.
“Election Day is not results day,” said Quentin Turner, the Common Cause Michigan executive director, during a Monday webinar.
Jen O’Malley Dillon, chair of the Harris-Walz campaign, made similar remarks during a Monday call with reporters, but still issued predictions as to when the campaign expects to know some results from key states.
She said the campaign understands that results could take a while based on each state’s law. Some states begin counting votes after the polls close, some as they come in.
O’Malley Dillon said because of that, the campaign expects on election night to have “near complete results” for North Carolina, Michigan and Georgia, “and then partial results from Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Arizona.”
The campaign also noted there will be initial results from Nevada on election night.
She said the campaign expects by Wednesday morning to have most of the “results in from Wisconsin and additional results from Pennsylvania and potentially Michigan.”
“And then on Wednesday and beyond, we expect additional results from Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada,” she said. “So we think some of this stuff will trickle in, but keep in mind that some ballots will continue to be counted for many days.”