when will we know who won, Kamala Harris or Donald Trump?

Kamala Harris or Donald Trump? America decides this Tuesday which candidate will enter the White House, at the end of a campaign of incredible tension, undecided until the last minute.

Also, it is impossible for the moment to know whether it will take hours or days of counting to decide between the 60-year-old Democratic vice-president and the 78-year-old former Republican leader, whose personalities and visions could not be more different and as they are neck and neck in the polls.

A historic ballot box verdict

The verdict at the polls will be historic in any case. Either America will send a woman to the White House for the first time. Either she will send back the former populist president, convicted of criminal charges and targeted by numerous prosecutions.

The latest polls give the 2 opponents almost tied in the 7 crucial states, those which, in this indirect vote, will give the Democrat or the Republican the sufficient number of electors to reach the threshold of 270 out of 538, synonymous with victory.

First estimates early in the morning

The American vote is different from the French vote, and several days should in fact be necessary to know the 47th President of the United States. First of all, you should know that the first polling stations will close at 6 p.m. (midnight in France), but the later ones will be open until 1 a.m. (7 a.m. in France). The first estimates should reach us around 5 or 6 a.m., French time.

The results could only make it possible to determine the winner if the gap between the two candidates is sufficiently large, which is not the case at present, with the two opponents close behind each other in the polls.

Also to be taken into consideration are the counting methods specific to each State, as well as the long counting of electronic ballots and postal votes. In some states, the latter are counted at the same time as the ballots cast on election day, recalls the New York Times.

Precedents

In 2020, Joe Biden had to wait 4 days before announcing his victory, in particular because of the numerous postal votes and appeals from Donald Trump.

It took even longer in 2000, George W. Bush was officially declared president 36 days after the election, due to multiple appeals filed by Democrat Al Gore against his opponent's victory. Conversely, in 2016, Donald Trump was quickly declared the winner, at 8:30 a.m. French time, after reaching the threshold of 270 electors.

For this campaign, Kamala Harris' campaign team estimated that the final results would not be known until “several days”.