It’s hard to believe, but Election Day is finally here. After spending some $16 billion and months campaigning all over the country and in battleground states, Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican nominee former President Donald Trump are now at the finish line.
Though it is unlikely we’ll have a clear winner after the polls close Tuesday—results could still take days, possibly weeks—what we do know is that voters in seven swing states will likely determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. Those states are Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, and Nevada.
Of the 538 electoral votes needed to win, Harris or Trump will need a majority, or 270 votes, to become president. Among the swing states, 88 votes are up for grabs. Here’s what’s at stake, and when the polls close, in each of those battleground states.
Pennsylvania
We start in what could be the most contentious of the battleground states, Pennsylvania, where Harris and Trump were campaigning down to the wire for the state’s precious 19 electoral votes.
The candidates are tied neck-and-neck at 48% in the final New York Times/Siena poll (with a margin of error of 3.5 points) and a Morning Consult poll (+/-3 point margin). FiveThirtyEight has Trump leading Harris by 0.2 points.
At the time of this writing, in excess of 1.78 million Pennsylvanians have voted, according to the University of Florida Election Lab tracker.
On Election Day, polls in Pennsylvania open at 7 a.m. ET and close at 8 p.m. ET. One reason it takes so long to count the votes in Pennsylvania is that counties aren’t allowed to start opening ballot envelopes and preparing them to be counted until Election Day at 7 a.m. Once that process begins, it can’t be interrupted. Counties must also start tallying mail and absentee votes at 8 p.m. without interruption. Each county has a different number of mail ballots to count and varying staff and equipment, so result times will surely vary from county to county.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Pennsylvania may count back-up votes when mail ballots are rejected, leaving in place a Pennsylvania court ruling. The decision should ensure Pennsylvania voters whose mail-in ballots are rejected for technical reasons that their votes will be counted. Unfortunately, Republicans see this as a defeat.
Georgia
Georgia played a pivotal role in the 2020 election. President Biden was the first Democrat to carry the state since Bill Clinton in 1992, defeating Trump by a nail-biting 11,779 votes, or less than one-quarter of a percentage point. Harris is hoping to pull off another Democratic win.
Georgia has 16 electoral votes, and vote-counting could extend beyond Election Day if margins run as close as they did in 2020.
Harris is ahead 48%-47% in the latest NYT/Siena poll, while Trump is up 50%-48% in the Morning Consult survey (+/-2 point margin). Trump leads by 1.4 points in FiveThirtyEight’s poll.
Georgia has seen a swell of more than 4 million people early voting, signaling a potentially heavy turnout also for Election Day. Polls open at 7:00 a.m. ET here and close at 7:00 p.m. ET.
Arizona
Polls open at 8 a.m. ET and close at 9 p.m ET in Arizona. The state does not release votes until either one hour after all polls are closed or all precincts have reported.
More than 2.2 million Arizona residents have already cast their ballots. The state has 11 electoral college votes.
Trump is edging out Harris 50% to 46% (+/-3 point margin) in the latest NYT/Siena poll. While President Biden took Arizona in 2020, Trump won Arizona in 2016. Trump is up 2.5 points in FiveThirtyEight’s polling average.
Arizona’s Election Day results could be delayed because of a new state law requiring poll workers to initially count the number of mail-in ballots dropped off at the polls before delivering results to the central facility, where they are again counted and verified. This could take extra time, especially given the number of mail-in ballots this year.
Wisconsin
Harris is leading in Wisconsin by .08 points in FiveThirtyEight’s polling, and ahead 49% to 48% in the New York Times/Siena poll. According to New York Times chief political analyst Nate Cohn, “the longstanding gap between the Rust Belt and Sun Belt battlegrounds has narrowed considerably” and doesn’t necessarily improve Harris’s position in the Electoral College. Wisconsin has 10 electoral votes.
At the time of writing, more than 1.5 million Wisconsin residents have cast their ballots. Polls here open at 8 a.m. ET and close at 9:00 p.m. ET.
President Biden won Wisconsin in 2020 by less than 1%.
Michigan
Also in the Midwest, Michigan is seeing a surge of early voting with more than 3.1 million Michiganders hitting the polls before Election Day. The Great Lakes State has 15 electoral college votes at stake.
Harris and Trump are tied here at 47% in the New York Times/Siena survey, though Harris is up 49% to 48% (+/-3 point margin) in a Morning Consult poll. Harris is up by 0.7 points in FiveThirtyEight’s polling average.
Polls open at 7 a.m. ET here. Most polls close at 8:00 p.m. ET, with a few outliers closing at 9:00 p.m. ET as the state includes two time zones.
Trump won Michigan in 2016 after three decades of the state going to Democrats in the presidential election. In 2024, Biden won it back by a nail-bitting 154,000 votes (out of 5.5 million), according to AP.
North Carolina
A record-breaking 4.4 million North Carolinians have already cast their ballot for president, the highest of any swing state. The state has 16 electoral votes up for grabs.
Polls here open early at 6:30 a.m. ET and close at 7:30 p.m. ET, making in-person voting highly accessible on Election Day. Trump won North Carolina in 2020 by about 1%, and Democrats have had a hard time taking the state in the last few decades.
Harris is hoping to turn that around for the Democrats; she’s leading 49% to 48% in a New York Times/Siena survey (margin of error 3.5 points), though a Morning Consult poll has Trump ahead 49% to 47%. Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight’s average shows Trump with a 1.2-point advantage.
Nevada
Nevada has only 6 votes, the smallest of the battleground states, but it has been a good predictor in the past of how the election will go. This bellwether state has voted for the winning candidate 27 of 30 times.
Polls here open at 10 a.m. ET and close at 10 p.m. ET, but it’s important to note that the state will not release the results until the last person in line has voted, so expect some delay between the time the polls close and the official results.
More than 1 million people in Nevada have voted already. The New York Times/Siena poll has Harris leading Trump 49% to 48% and FiveThirtyEight’s polling average has Trump ahead 0.6 points. (Morning Consult did not poll residents in Nevada.)
Final note
One final note: Although it’s not considered a battleground state, there’s an outlier poll that predicts Iowa, and its 6 electoral votes, could now go to Harris.
A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows Harris leading former President Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters, picking up support from women.
