I am predicting 9pm EST on election day. Pennsylvania’s polls will have closed 1 hour prior and Georgia 2 hours prior. If the same candidate takes both then they will eventually win the election.
It could get interesting if they are split or are too close to call.
It won’t be close. Kamala will win in a rout. There won’t be any drama past 8 or 9 PM. The only item of interest will be whether Trump will have it in him to make a concession phone call to Harris or not.
Not a chance, even if Harris has a significant lead. The polling deadline always gets extended a couple hours by courts in some precincts that had malfunctions. Also, it took days last time for Pennsylvania and Georgia just to get all of their mail-in ballots processed and to get numbers in from all of its precincts. Just the slow grind of election machinery makes it all but impossible to have a statistically certain prediction within a couple hours of polls closing in states that aren’t absolute blowouts.
If it is called as early as possible, Trump is going to say he is being cheated.
If it is called within a reasonable amount of time, Trump is going to say he is being cheated.
If it is called a day or two later, Trump is going to say he is being cheated.
When will Trump start whining about it? He already has.
When will Trump stop whining about it? When he dies.
I’ve known for a couple weeks now, and each day it becomes a bit more certain.
For values of “know,” probably weeks if not longer.
I’m of course assuming that no matter who wins, there will be many lawsuits challenging the results.
If Trump wins, and there’s credible evidence of chicanery in any state, Harris would be a fool not to challenge, even if it doesn’t look good, too much is at risk.
If Harris wins, well, duh, every vote in every state that comes within a football field of winning will be challenged, by Trump or one or someone else. I mean, Republican held states will likely try AGAIN to sue swing states for disenfranchising their own ruby red states by allowing votes they shouldn’t have.
For that matter, like @flurb mentions, the normal SNAFU issues, as well as all parties trying to show due care will probably lead to delays in counting and reporting. And certain networks (oh hell, lets just say it, FOX) will probably not call or confirm for anyone not named Trump until all the legal issues are resolved, probably claiming it due to “questions about vote integrity leave us no choice but to be cautions in evaluating all totals (that aren’t for our side)”.
I am early voting. Its a good idea.
When will we know? Even God doesn’t know.
Pennsylvania has a law that says that they cannot start processing mail-in ballots until election day. A bill was proposed that would allow them to be processed as they come in (that’s how Florida gets their count done on election day) but the Rs in the legislature killed it.
Hell, Arizona processes and tabulates ballots as they come in and still takes a week or more if the race is close. This is because they allow mail-in ballots to be dropped off at any polling place on election day, so they end up with several hundred thousand to start processing the day after the election.
If there are still laws in place that delay counting mail-in ballots, I think 3-4 days after Election Day will be the new normal.
I envy those of you that think it will be a landslide Harris win. You’re dead wrong but I still envy you.
I’ll be very surprised if we know anything for certain on election night. A couple of days or even weeks later seems more realistic. I’ll also say I think a landslide is extremely unlikely. I can wish and hope, and even though polling seems to be going Harris’s way right now, two and a half months is still a long way out and common sense would seem to dictate it’s going to be a nail biter. Given the political realities on the ground at this point, I think landslides are pretty much a thing of the past right now.
I will make a prediction. I think, some point after election night, we’re going to discover that Trump tried something similar to what he did with the infamous Georgia phone call. All of his advisors are going to tell him to stay off the phone. But he’s not going to be able to. When the numbers don’t immediately go his way he’s going to get on the phone and he’s going to try to interfere somewhere somehow with someone. I think this is a near certainty.
The RWNJ contingent believes that any time between the close of the polls and certification of the results is proof of fraud. I think that at least one state (PA perhaps?) had a bill in their legislature that would require the votes be certified within a day or two. It didn’t get far.
Of course, these are all people who don’t know anything about how votes get tabulated or how elections work. These are the kinds of nuts that really believe that Fox News calling AZ for Biden is what caused Trump to lose.
That’s a joke, right? I’d give the odds of aliens landing as higher than Trump making a concession phone call, especially immediately. He’ll be much too busy whining that the election was rigged.
We’ll know when either Trump is declared winner or when Harris takes office, because if Harris wins Trump and the Republicans are going to do everything in their power to overturn the election and install Trump anyway.
Right? Trump remains closer to her than he was to Clinton.
ETA: Sorry, as to the OP, unless polls continue to widen and Harris somehow wins resoundingly in a few swing states, it will take days or weeks.
It won’t be until January 6, 2025 when, with the Capitol surrounded by federal troops and the DC NG, Congress certifies the Harris win. Until that moment, there will be endless lawsuits.
I think the networks will call it in the wee hours of Wednesday when the projections come in from the big states that are in doubt. I’m still hopeful that NC and FL turn blue early in the evening and we can start the party.
This.
Agreed. Until Harris is inaugurated in Jan, trump will be trying to overturn things. After that date he’ll still be whining and threatening about trying to overturn things, but the range of mechanisms that can actually alter the facts on the ground get very, very, few and small and weak after the inauguration.
It depends- if Harris wins the purple Eastern states, and pulls a minor Miracle in Florida- they can call it then.
Who cares? He might be in prison by then.
Unless Trump is elected by the people, Americans will not know who their president is until the SCOTUS rules on it.