When Is the Earliest the 2024 Election Can Be Called?

As many continue to cast their votes on Election Day for either Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, or former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, in the race for the White House, unofficial results could take days to come in as polling averages show the two candidates in a close race.

When Is the Earliest the 2024 Election Can Be Called?

Election Day has previously morphed into election week in 2020 with an influx of mail-in and early ballots due to the COVID-19 pandemic causing major slowdowns in vote counting and reporting election results. It took four days for enough votes to be counted for the major decision to call the presidency for Joe Biden.

While vote counting isn’t expected to be nearly as slow as it was last time around, there’s still a chance we won’t know the outcome of the presidential race on election night as pollsters and analysts do not expect votes to be fully tabulated by the night of November 5, and projections of who will win in key battleground states may not come for days.

However, the earliest indications of how the night is going will come in Georgia shortly after 7 p.m. Eastern time on election night and in North Carolina after 7:30 p.m. Eastern.

According to The New York Timesif Harris does well in those states, that could suggest the result won’t come down solely to the slower-counting so-called “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Meanwhile, if Trump is winning the southern battleground states, Harris will still have a plausible path to victory through the “blue wall”, but we’ll have to wait longer to know.

Which States Have Been Called?

The Associated Press, which uses a network of “thousands of stringers and vote center clerks who take feeds, scrape official state websites for data and electronically add up votes across the country,” is the official source used by major media outlets for determining U.S. election outcomes, which are made when “it’s certain that the candidate who’s ahead in the count can’t be caught,” according to the AP.

As of noon Tuesday, polls are still open, and no states have been called.

How Does the Electoral College Impact Poll Results?

This comes as the Electoral College will also play a vital role in election results as a presidential candidate needs to secure 270 Electoral College votes for victory, and winning the national popular vote does not guarantee success.

This makes battleground states significant as each swing state holds several Electoral College votes, with Pennsylvania having 19 electoral votes—the most of any swing state. Overall, the Republican Party has carried Pennsylvania in 26 presidential elections, while the Democratic Party has carried it in 20.

When Do the Polls Close?

Poll closing times vary from state-to-state, from county-to-county and, in some parts of the country, from town-to-town.

However, polls in the seven swing states that will determine the presidential race will close from 7 to 10 p.m. Eastern.

Meanwhile, the polls close at 8 p.m. Eastern in Pennsylvania and most of Michigan, 9 p.m. Eastern in Wisconsin and Arizona and a small part of northern Michigan, and 10 p.m. Eastern in Nevada.

Who Is Leaning in the Current Polls?

Polls have shown Harris and Trump locked in a close battle nationally. As of noon Tuesday, according to 538’s poll tracker, Harris is ahead of Trump by 1.2 points with 48 percent to his 46.8 percent.