WASHINGTON – Election Day is fast approaching. In a few hours, the final votes for the 2024 presidential election will take place.

In a deeply divided nation, the election is a true showdown between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.

We know that there are seven states on the battlefield that will decide the outcome of the conflict, barring any major surprises. But major questions remain about the timing of the results, the composition of the electorate, the influx of disinformation, and even the possibility of political violence. At the same time, both sides are bracing for a lengthy legal battle that could further complicate matters.

Here’s what to watch on the eve of Election Day 2024:

History will be written anyway

Given all the twists and turns of the past few months, it’s easy to overlook the historical significance of this election.

Harris would become the first female president in the 248-year history of the United States. She would also be the first black woman and person of South Asian descent to hold this position. Harris and her campaign have largely downplayed gender and race, fearing alienating some supporters. But the importance of a Harris victory would not escape historians.

A Trump victory would represent a different kind of historic accomplishment. He would become the first person convicted of a crime elected to the presidency of the United States, after being found guilty of 34 counts in a hush money case in New York just over five months ago .

Trump, who still faces felony charges in at least two separate criminal cases, has argued that he is a victim of a politicized justice system. And tens of millions of voters apparently believe him – or are willing to ignore his extraordinary legal background.

How long will it take to find out the winner?

In the United States, Election Day is now often considered election week, as each state follows its own rules and practices for counting ballots – not to mention legal challenges – that can delay results. But the truth is that no one knows how long it will take this time for the winner to be announced.

In 2020, the Associated Press declared President Joe Biden the winner on Saturday afternoon – four days after polls closed. But even then, the AP called North Carolina for Trump 10 days after Election Day and Georgia for Biden 16 days later after a hand recount.

Four years earlier, the 2016 election was decided just hours after most polling stations closed. The AP declared Trump the winner on election night at 2:29 a.m. (it was technically Wednesday morning on the East Coast).

This time, both campaigns believe the race is extremely close between the seven key states that should decide the election, barring any major surprises: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The size of the card and the narrowness of the race make it difficult to predict when a winner might be declared.

Where can I find early clues about how the competition might play out?

Look at what’s happening in two key East Coast states, North Carolina and Georgia, where results could come relatively quickly. That doesn’t mean we’ll get the final results in these states quickly if the returns are close, but these are the early swing states that could give a sense of the kind of night we’re heading into.

To dig deeper, look at urban and suburban areas in the industrial North and Southeast, where Democrats have made gains since 2020.

In North Carolina, Harris’ margins in Wake and Mecklenburg counties, home respectively to Raleigh, the state capital, and Charlotte, the state’s largest city, will reveal just how much Trump will have to oust less populated rural areas that he dominated. .

In Pennsylvania, Harris needs strong turnout in blue Philadelphia, but she also seeks to solidify Democrats’ advantage in the arc of suburban counties to the north and west of the city. She campaigned aggressively in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties, where Biden improved on Clinton’s margins of victory in 2016. The Philadelphia metro area, including the four pass counties, accounts for 43 percent of the voice from Pennsylvania.

Elsewhere in the Blue Wall, Trump must curb Democratic growth in Michigan’s key suburban counties outside Detroit, particularly in Oakland County. He faces the same challenge in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, outside Milwaukee.

Where are the candidates?

Trump will likely spend the very first hours of Election Day in Michigan, where he is scheduled to hold a final nighttime rally in Grand Rapids, as has become his tradition.

The Republican candidate plans to spend the rest of the day in Florida, where he is expected to vote in person, although he previously said he would vote early. He is scheduled to host a campaign watch party in Palm Beach Tuesday night.

Harris plans to attend an election night event at Howard University in Washington, a historically black college where she earned a degree in economics and political science in 1986 and was an active member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Aside from Howard, no public schedule has been announced for Election Day.

Harris said Sunday that she had just “filled out” her absentee ballot and that it was “on its way to California.”

Who is left to show up on Election Day?

On the eve of Election Day, it’s unclear which voters will show up to vote on Tuesday.

More than 77 million people participated in early voting, either in person or by mail. So many people have already voted that some officials say polls in states like Georgia could be a “ghost town” on Election Day.

A key reason for the uptick is that Trump has generally encouraged his supporters to vote early this time around, a reversal from 2020, when he called on Republicans to vote only in person on Election Day. Early voting numbers confirm that millions of Republicans have responded to Trump’s call in recent weeks.

The key question, however, is whether the influx of Republicans who voted early this time around will end up cannibalizing the number of Republicans who show up on Tuesday.

There are also changes on the Democratic side. Four years ago, as the pandemic persisted, Democrats mostly voted early. But this time, without risk to public health, it’s likely that more Democrats will show up in person on Election Day.

This balance on both sides is essential as we try to understand early returns. And it’s up to the campaigns to know which voters they still have to represent on Tuesday. On this front, Democrats may have an advantage.

The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have outsourced much of their get-out-the-vote operation to outside groups, including one financed largely by Trump’s billionaire ally Elon Musk, who is facing new questions about its practices. Harris’ campaign, by contrast, runs a more traditional operation that brings together more than 2,500 paid staffers and 357 offices in battleground states alone.

Could there be trouble?

Trump has aggressively promoted baseless claims in recent days questioning the integrity of the election. He falsely insists he can only lose if Democrats cheat, even though polls show the race is a toss-up.

Trump could claim victory again on election night regardless of the results, as he did in 2020.

Such rhetoric can have serious consequences, as the nation saw when Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, one of the darkest days in modern American history. And unfortunately, there is still potential for additional violence this election season.

The Republican National Committee will have thousands of “election integrity” poll watchers in place Tuesday looking for any signs of fraud, which critics fear could lead to harassment of voters or election workers. At some key voting locations, officials have requested the presence of sheriff’s deputies in addition to bulletproof glass and panic buttons that connect poll officials to a local 911 dispatcher.

At the same time, Trump’s allies note that he has faced two assassination attempts in recent months, raising the possibility of new threats against him. And police in Washington and other cities are preparing for the possibility of serious unrest on Election Day.

As always, it is worth noting that a broad coalition of senior government and industry officials, many of whom are Republicans, deemed the 2020 election to be “the most secure” in American history. »