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I have a confession to make: As a political journalist, I hate Election Day. It’s a day when it’s too late to report or write anything that will inform readers or illuminate the campaign, but it’s also too soon to have the results and analyze them. That leaves me with nothing but nervous energy and nowhere to channel it. Perhaps you feel some of this anxiety too—especially given how high-stakes elections feel for Americans of all political views. (STAT reported last week that hospitals see more heart-attack cases right after Election Day.) Having a plan for how to absorb the news this evening is one way to soothe your nerves.
First, don’t try to follow everything. Leave the Magic Walls, Big Boards, and comprehensive tracking of House races to John King and Steve Kornacki. You don’t need to worry about what’s going on in, say, Florida’s Twenty-Seventh District with 17 percent of the vote counted. The first polls close at 6 p.m. eastern today, but many of the states with pivotal elections won’t stop voting until 8 or 9 p.m. eastern; Alaskan polling locations close at 1 a.m. eastern. Pick just a few races that are of particular interest to you—either because you live somewhere with a contested race or because you’re especially interested in some candidate. You can also stay focused on the big ideas and stakes by watching The Atlantic’s livestream, featuring Tom Nichols, David Frum, Anne Applebaum, and more. That starts at 9 p.m. eastern on TheAtlantic.com and on our app.
Several races might be good indicators of where the rest of the election is headed. (I hope needless to say, but don’t pay attention to the early exit polls, whatever you do.) The first of the major Senate polls to close will be at 7:30 in Ohio, where the GOP incumbent Jon Husted—he of the supposedly callipygian physique—is facing off against the Democratic challenger Sherrod Brown. Maine and most of Michigan, also pivotal Senate races, close at 8, though Democratic hopes will ride on turnout in Detroit, where vote counting was very slow in 2020 and 2024, so don’t bet on an early call there.
But we might get hints from other races. In New Hampshire, Democrat Chris Pappas is favored over Republican John Sununu, but if the result is close, it might be a reason for Democrats to temper hopes. The same is true in Minnesota, where Democrat Peggy Flanagan is expected to hold off Republican Michele Tafoya. (If either Democrat loses, expect panic left of center.) In South Carolina, the short-term Republican incumbent, Darline Graham, seems to have the edge—major forecasters rate the race as leaning Republican—but if Democrat Annie Andrews is close, that would suggest strong Democratic results elsewhere. (If Andrews wins, it will be Republicans panicking.)
Second, remember that there’s no such thing as a final result on Election Night. Unfortunately, reporters and anchors tend to discuss results coming in from local officials as though the votes are being cast in real time, saying that a candidate is “pulling ahead” and the like. Race calls from networks or the Associated Press are merely judgments about who will win, not binding in any way.
In fact, races are complete only when officials certify them, and the order in which votes are counted is irrelevant to the outcome. This is especially important because of a phenomenon known as the “blue shift”: For a variety of reasons, including the prevalence of Democratic voters in urban centers that have more votes and count more slowly, Democratic votes tend to be fully tallied later. The result is that an election that looks more favorable to Republicans based on early returns may turn out to be less so. Although President Trump has claimed blue shifts are evidence of fraud, this is not true.
The idea that no outcome is valid until all votes are counted might seem intuitive, but it is lost even on some members of the Supreme Court. Justice Brett Kavanaugh has worried about a scenario in which “thousands of absentee ballots flow in after election day and potentially flip the results of an election.” But this isn’t the case at all—there’s no result to flip until those ballots have been tallied. Nonetheless, his colleague Samuel Alito wrote in a June dissent in Watson v. Republican National Committee that “allowing absentee ballots to pour in over the days and weeks after election day, by which point preliminary election returns are being publicly reported,” might risk “undermining the public’s confidence in election integrity.” Maybe these misunderstandings would be rarer if Supreme Court justices weren’t encouraging them.
Finally, and relatedly, keep in mind that we may not really know how the election turned out for days, or even weeks. In 2018, polling predicted a “blue wave” for Democrats, but on the night of the election, their victory seemed modest—certainly short of some of the most favorable predictions. Not every race was counted, though. Over the following 10 days, more and more races were called for Democrats, eventually producing the party’s biggest gain since Watergate.
The outcomes of some races will not be clear tonight or tomorrow, and when they eventually are, they may not break entirely or even predominantly for either party. The fact is that we don’t know. That uncertainty may feel uncomfortable, but it beats putting a lot of emotion into a result that isn’t real.
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