Grab the popcorn. Here’s what to look for on Election Night in NC and elsewhere.
Tuesday is Election Day — but don’t count on knowing the results that night.
“We need to do something Americans are never very good at — being patient,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “If we have a landslide or near-landslide, that might become apparent within the first 24 hours of polls closing. But otherwise, all bets are off.”
That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to get a hint of the outcome of the most expensive presidential race in U.S. history. Or the winner of North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race, also the costliest ever — and a race that could decide control of the U.S. Senate.
Like voters across the country, North Carolinians are casting ballots in record numbers. A nationwide surge in mail-in ballots could delay final counts in several states, leaving the outcome of some races in doubt.
One factor: when votes are counted.
In states such as North Carolina and Florida a lot of early and absentee votes have already been processed. So those totals will be the first released while actual Election Day votes will be the last. States such as Michigan and Pennsylvania don’t start counting absentee votes until Tuesday, meaning those results probably won’t be known on Election Night.
As a result, early totals in some states could favor Democrat Joe Biden while those in others might favor President Donald Trump, even if those aren’t the ultimate results.
“We could have a ‘blue mirage’ in the South and a ‘red mirage’ in the North,” David Wasserman, an analyst with the Cook Political Report, told the Observer.
So what’s a smart way to watch the election results?
Who’s winning North Carolina?
Polls close: 7:30 p.m.
Through the end of early voting, 4.5 million North Carolinians had already voted. That’s nearly 62% of all registered voters. Because those totals could be posted as soon as 10 minutes after polls close, we should get a sense of how most North Carolinians voted. But it could be misleading.
Democrats lead in the number of ballots already cast, just like they did in 2016. Democrat Hillary Clinton beat Republican Donald Trump in the state’s early vote by about 3 percentage points. But Trump won 55% of the Election Day vote on his way to winning the state by 3.7 points, or 250,000 votes. Trump also won the absentees, though there weren’t nearly as many that year.
When the numbers come in on North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race between GOP Sen. Thom Tillis and Democrat Cal Cunningham, we could get an idea of which way the Senate goes. A bad night for Tillis may foreshadow a bad night for continued Republican control. A good night for him could make it harder for Democrats to flip the Senate.
Also zero in on some of the state’s bellwether counties like Caswell, Jackson and Hyde. Each went for Trump in 2016, Democrat Barack Obama in 2008 and Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, matching statewide results. Wasserman will have his eye on Robeson County. Obama carried the county twice before Trump won it four years ago.
“If Biden carries it, it would be a strong sign that registered Democrats are behaving more like Democrats again,” he said.
Watch congressional races in the 8th, 9th and 11 districts, where a strong blue wave could lift Democratic underdogs.
One caveat: No N.C. results will be posted until all the polls close. If there are lines anywhere in the state at 7:30, results won’t be released until every poll shuts down. That happened in Durham in 2016 when time was extended in eight precincts by up to an hour.
The State Board of Elections expects that 97% or more of ballots cast in North Carolina will be counted on Election Day, including all mail-in votes received by 5 p.m. the day before. Provisional ballots and mail-in absentee ballots postmarked on or before Election Day and received before 5 p.m. Nov. 12 will be counted and added to the total later.
What will the Supreme Court decision mean?
This week the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to let N.C. officials count absentee ballots until Nov. 12, as long as they’re postmarked by Tuesday, Nov. 3. That’s one of the longest grace periods in the country.
So what will that mean in North Carolina?
It depends on how many people return their absentee ballots early and how many wait. Ballots can be returned by mail or dropped off at early voting sites or, on Election Day, at the board of elections, 741 Kenilworth Ave.
Of the 1.4 million absentee ballots requested in North Carolina, almost 938,000 had been returned by Monday. About 168,000 people who requested absentee ballots haven’t returned them and didn’t vote early. Those people can choose to vote on Tuesday, get their ballots postmarked that day or not vote at all.
Gerry Cohen, a longtime legislative lawyer who’s now on the Wake County Board of Elections, tallied the absentee ballots that arrived too late to be counted in 2016. That year voters had a three-day grace period for ballots postmarked on Election Day, not nine days. The number of ballots deemed late in 2016 but would be accepted in 2020: 13,223.
Democrat Roy Cooper beat Republican Gov. Pat McCrory by 10,277 votes.
This year there could be five times as many absentee ballots returned.
“Whether you can extrapolate that (2016 number) this year I just don’t know,” Cohen said. “There is lot more pressure to get your ballots in earlier.”
Always keep an eye on Florida
Polls close: 7 p.m. (8 p.m. in the panhandle.)
The Sunshine State could be an early indicator in the presidential race.
With 29 electoral votes, the state is prized by both campaigns and could be crucial to each. Real Clear Politics average of a half-dozen recent polls show the state is virtually deadlocked.
In the 21st century, no state has been more of a bellwether. Trump won it four years ago; Obama won it twice and so did Republican George W. Bush, the first time in an election ultimately decided by a single vote on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Like North Carolina, the first results will be absentee and early-votes that could skew toward Biden. Election Day votes and those from the more conservative panhandle will come in later.
But there should be strong hints in the early numbers, Wasserman said.
He looked at Sumter County, home of The Villages, a sprawling retirement community in central Florida. In 2016 Trump won the county 68%-29% and needs to win it by a large margin again, Wasserman said. And because 80% of the votes may already have been cast, he said the county could signal whether there’s a “gray revolt” against the president among seniors.
“Trump needs to win by 2-1 if he has a chance,” Wasserman said. “If he’s only ahead something like 62%-37%, then he’s probably not on pace to win.”
Ohio, Georgia and South Carolina
Polls close: 7 p.m. in Georgia and South Carolina; 7:30 p.m. in Ohio.
▪ Georgia, usually deep red, is suddenly a battleground. So much so that Biden visited there this month.
But early and absentee votes won’t be counted until Tuesday, likely delaying the results. And Georgia has not one but two U.S. Senate races. In one, GOP Sen David Perdue is in a tight race with Democrat Jon Ossoff. The other is a special election with 20 candidates on the ballot. Either could go to a January runoff, possibly leaving Senate control in limbo.
▪ In South Carolina, the race to watch features GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham defending his seat against former state Democratic chairman Jaime Harrison. Harrison raised $57 million in the third quarter, shattering the record for quarterly fundraising in any U.S. Senate race.
Trump won the state by 14 points four years ago, so a smaller margin could forecast a good night for Democrats.
▪ Trump won Ohio by 8 percentage points in 2016, but this year polls show the race close.
“I think Ohio . . . has the potential to report out a lot of vote (early) and could be a good barometer,” said Steve Kornacki, election analyst for NBC News. “They can process mail ballots ahead of time and have experience doing it.”
The Big Three: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin
Polls close at 8 p.m. in Pennsylvania and Michigan (where some polls close at 9 Eastern.) They close at 9 p.m. Eastern in Wisconsin.
These three states gave Donald Trump the win in 2016. He carried each by less than 1 percent. Clinton lost them by a combined 80,000 votes, or fewer than the number of seats in the University of South Carolina’s Williams-Brice Stadium.
And each is a battleground in 2020.
In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the counting of mail-in votes can’t start until Election Day and may take days to process. So if, as in many places, they favor Biden, the early posted results could show Trump in the lead, which might be part of the “red mirage” that Wasserman talked about.
In Michigan, many urban areas will start counting votes Monday. Other areas will have to wait until Election Day. Unofficial statewide results aren’t expected until Friday, according to the Washington Post.
Texas and Arizona. New swing states?
Polls close in Arizona at 9 p.m. Eastern time. In Texas, most close at 8 p.m.; some at 9.
These are two traditionally red states that could be interesting to watch this year.
It’s been 24 years since a Democratic presidential candidate — Bill Clinton — carried Arizona.
But with the Phoenix area growing and becoming more diverse, Biden clings to a narrow lead in Real Clear Politics polling average. In 2016 Trump won the state by 3.5 points.
In 2016 Trump won Texas by 9 points. This year he has a lead but it’s within the margin of error. Texas has been growing more diverse all the time and Democrats hope (again) that this will be the year to flip the state.
Both Arizona and Texas also have competitive Senate races. Texas is expected to re-elect GOP Sen. John Cornyn while Democrat Mark Kelly leads incumbent Republican Martha McSally in Arizona polls.
Then there’s this from Sabato, the UVA political scientist.
“My best advice for people is, don’t focus on anything in particular,” he said. “Don’t jump to conclusions. There is no precedent for this massive early voting, nor do we know if it will continue into Nov. 3 itself, nor for certain that Election Day voting will be much more Republican than early voting in every state.”
This story was originally published October 30, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
