Heads I win, tails you lose

Popular Information's guide to Election Night 2024

In 2020, Donald Trump declared himself the winner of any state where a partial tally of votes showed him ahead. 

As more votes were counted and Trump fell behind in states where he previously had an advantage, Trump claimed that was evidence of cheating. 

Trump expanded on his theory during a November 4, 2020, press conference:

We won states, and all of a sudden, I said, ‘What happened to the election? It’s off.’ And we have all these announcers saying, ‘What happened?’ And then they said, ‘Oh —' Because you know what happened?... I’ve been saying this from the day I heard they were going to send out tens of millions of ballots. I said exactly.

It was Democratic officials, Trump claimed without evidence, who were cooking the books.

This year, Trump and his allies are setting the table for a similar strategy. At a press conference last Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago, Trump claimed that there were some "bad spots in Pennsylvania" where "serious things have been caught." On Wednesday morning on Truth Social, Trump escalated his rhetoric: "Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before. REPORT CHEATING TO AUTHORITIES. Law Enforcement must act, NOW!" On X, Trump's allies are making similar baseless claims about cheating in Michigan, Georgia, and Texas.

One thing is clear: No matter what the vote total shows, Trump will claim victory. Either the vote totals will show him winning, and Trump will declare the process was legitimate. Or the vote totals will show that Trump lost, and Trump will claim he was cheated again — citing partial vote totals as proof. 

To get prepared, Popular Information has teamed up with More Perfect Union to create an election night guide for key states, illustrating how the vote totals will fluctuate as the night progresses. 

Check out our video below, or keep scrolling for the text version:

Pennsylvania

Polls open at 7 a.m. ET in Pennsylvania and close at 8 p.m. ET. Election officials are required to wait until polls open to process mail-in ballots. Pennsylvania is typically slow to report votes due to the high number of mail-in ballots cast in the state. In 2022, “almost a quarter of the total vote” came from mail-in ballots. Since 2020, some counties have purchased new envelope opening machines to speed up the process.

The first reports released shortly after polls close will include mail-in ballots, and will therefore likely lean Democratic. Later reports will also contain votes cast on Election Day, causing the race to tighten. More mail-in ballots will be reported later in the night. If the race is close, it could take multiple days to determine the winner. In 2020, it took four days for President Joe Biden to be determined the winner of the state. Some counties to watch include Erie and Northampton, which both flipped from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020, the AP reported. 

In 2020, Biden had a lead as early votes were reported. On Wednesday morning, Trump had gained a lead of “nearly 700,000 votes,” but Biden ultimately won the state as more mail-in votes were counted. In 2020, Trump used this to falsely claim election fraud. As a result, on election night most counties will now be required to announce “how many mail ballots remain to be counted in an effort to forestall conspiracy theories.”

North Carolina 

In North Carolina, polls open at 6:30 a.m. ET and stay open until 7:30 p.m. ET. The State Board of Elections estimates that “about 98 percent of all ballots” will be “reported by the end of election night.” Because election officials in North Carolina can start counting mail-in ballots before the polls close, the state typically reports votes quickly, but the counting process may be slower this year in areas affected by Hurricane Helene. Legislators also passed a law requiring election officials to wait to count early voting ballots until after polls close, which could slow down the reporting process by around an hour. According to the State Board of Elections, “65 percent of N.C. voters cast their ballots during early voting” in 2020.

After polls close, mail-in ballots are reported. Early voting ballots are reported next, followed by ballots cast on Election Day. Because of this, it is likely that early reports will lean Democratic, but later reports will favor Republicans. In 2022, for example, Senate candidate Cheri Beasley (D) “had a lead of nearly 200,000 votes” half an hour after the polls closed, but by midnight, Republican Senator Ted Budd had overtaken Beasley with “a lead of over 150,000 votes.” 

Some counties of interest include Nash and New Hanover, which both flipped from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020. Nash and New Hanover are expected to finish counting at 10 p.m. ET and 10:30 p.m. ET, respectively, the AP reported. If the election is close, the state may not be called on Election Day. After election night, election officials count mail-in ballots that arrived on Election Day, ballots from overseas, ballots from military voters, and provisional ballots. In 2020, it took 10 days to call the state for Trump. 

Wisconsin

In Wisconsin, polls open at 8 a.m. ET and close at 9 p.m. ET. Election officials in Wisconsin are not permitted to begin processing mail-in ballots until Election Day, causing the state to take longer to report results. Mail-in ballots, which usually lean Democratic, are often reported later in the night or early the next day. 

Each Wisconsin municipality can choose to report its results differently, either reporting mail-in ballots at the same time as ballots cast on Election Day, or choosing to report them separately. Milwaukee, for example, reports mail-in ballots after it reports votes cast on Election Day. Some larger Democratic areas, like Milwaukee and Dane, often take longer to count votes. In 2020, Milwaukee reported “nearly 170,000 absentee ballots around 3:30 a.m.” local time. These ballots leaned heavily Democratic and put Biden in the lead.

Nevada

In 2020, Nevada was among the slowest states to count their votes. The AP did not officially declare Biden the winner in Nevada until just after noon on November 7, four days after Election Day. While the results are unlikely to be final by the end of Election Day, Nevada has made changes that state election officials hope will speed up the process.

While in 2020 counties had to wait until Election Day to start counting mail-in ballots, they were able to begin counting this year on October 21. Any early votes cast in-person will start being counted at 11 a.m. ET on Election Day, instead of after polls close at 10 p.m. ET. Finally, Clark County, which accounted for 69% of the state’s vote in 2020, has purchased additional equipment to help process ballots faster.

Although Nevada’s polls close at 10 p.m. ET, no results will be released until the last person waiting in line to cast an in-person vote has done so, which could be much later. Nevada also allows mail-in votes postmarked by November 5 to be counted up to four days after Election Day, further delaying final results.

In 2020 and 2022, when mail-in ballots were not counted prior to Election Day, Republican candidates looked dominant early on, but as the mail-in results were reported, their races became tighter and tighter. Now that the mail-in ballots are counted first, a blue mirage might be expected to replace the red one. But Nevada Republicans are voting early in large numbers, which could dampen the blue mirage effect.

Michigan

Because Michigan spans two time zones, most of its polls will close at 8 p.m. ET, while some others in counties on the state’s Upper Peninsula will close at 9 p.m. ET. The most important counties in determining Michigan’s final count — Wayne, Oakland, and Washtenaw — all close their polls at 8 p.m. ET.

Like Nevada, Michigan has also changed its election procedures to allow more time for counting mail-in ballots. Michigan towns with more than 5,000 residents can now begin counting ballots up to eight days before the election.

This change will also impact which candidates appear to be in the lead as results come in. In 2020, Trump started with a significant lead over Biden because in-person votes were reported first. But the mail-in results chipped away at that lead until Biden ultimately took over. This year, counting mail-in ballots early could lead to the opposite scenario, where Democrats seem to have the advantage initially, but lose it as more results come in. 

Georgia

In Georgia, where early in-person voting is popular (state officials expect it to account for 65-70% of the vote total), election workers cannot start counting early votes until 7 AM on Election Day. These votes, as well as early mail-in ballots (expected to be about 5% of the vote) must be totaled by 8 PM, one hour after polls close.

The blue mirage from these early votes has been known to last for hours in Georgia. In the state’s 2022 senate race, Democrat Raphael Warnock held a 40-point lead for two hours until it dipped to less than a 1-point lead over Republican Herschel Walker.

In 2020, Biden beat Trump in Georgia by less than half of a percentage point, and the race was not called by the AP until November 19. Final results could be slow to materialize again this year. The state saw 21,000 requests for overseas or military absentee ballots, which Georgia will count up to three days after the election if they are postmarked by November 5. In 2020, Biden beat Trump by about half as many votes. 

Arizona

In Arizona, polling locations will be open from 8 AM Eastern to 9 PM Eastern. The first batch of results, released around 10 PM Eastern, will include any mail-in ballots or in-person votes that were cast and counted before Election Day.

Once the early voting results are released, votes cast in-person on Election Day will be reported in the hours after polls close. The final votes to be counted and reported will be mail-in ballots dropped off too close to Election Day to be counted in advance. According to the AP, about 20% of mail-in ballots in Maricopa County, where most of the state lives, were dropped off on Election Day in 2020.

Typically, results from early voting and mail-in ballots favor Democrats, meaning Arizona results tend to see a blue mirage after the first batch of results is reported, which fades as the votes cast on Election Day are counted. In 2022 for example, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly started election night with a 20-point lead over challenger Blake Masters, but that lead dwindled to five points as results continued rolling in.

Arizona Republicans, however, have voted early in larger numbers than in 2020, while Democrats’ numbers are down. This could mean that Arizona’s blue mirage doesn’t materialize this year.