The US presidential election is next week, with Americans heading to the polls on 5 November to decide whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris will replace Joe Biden in the White House.
Results will trickle in state by state with some declaring much quicker than others, while certain swing states can heavily impact who wins the race to the Oval Office.
As well as the next US president, voters will also be electing congressional candidates for seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Here are all the important timings for the US election, including the key states to look out for on the night, how votes are counted, when we could know the result and the date from which the new president takes office.
When will the first results be declared?
After the majority of voters across the US have gone to cast their ballots on election day (Tuesday 5 November, 2024), polling stations will start to close in each state largely from around 7pm local time – meaning the likes of Alaska and Hawaii will be among the last to shut up shop and begin the count.
Some counties in Indiana and Kentucky will be among the first to close their polls, doing so from 6pm Eastern Time (10pm UK time) on 5 November.
Early forecasts and results from those two states, the majority of which could come in before midnight, will therefore present some of the first indications as to the level of support for the former president compared to the Vice-President.
Indiana, for example, has voted Republican in 13 of the last 14 presidential elections, and done so resoundingly in every campaign since that exception in 2008 – meaning Trump (who beat Biden there 57 per cent to 41 per cent in 2020) stands the best chance of securing the state’s 11 electoral college votes on offer, but any narrowing of that gap or an upset victory for Harris could hint at more widespread success for the Democrats.
Kentucky, meanwhile, has favoured Republicans in the last six presidential elections and backed Trump by an even greater margin (62 per cent to Biden’s 36 per cent) than Indiana in 2020. It has eight electoral college votes up for grabs.
Many millions of Americans have also been casting early votes ahead of election day. That number stood at 42 million on Monday 28 October, before jumping up to more than 47.5 million by the following day, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab.
However, many states – including key battlegrounds like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – don’t even start counting these mail-in and absentee ballots until election day itself.
When could we know the result?
While it’s possible that we find out the result of the presidential election by the morning of 6 November, recent history and the closeness of this contest so far suggest the world may be kept waiting for up to a few days for every state’s votes to be reported.
Even if the majority of states declare their respective winners on election night or the following day, the fact that others take longer means the official result is far from certain until one candidate passes the 270 electoral college votes required to win.
In 2020, for example, election day was 3 November but it took nearly four days for all votes across the country to be counted. With the race close and neither candidate having passed the 270 mark, it meant Biden did not declare victory until 7 November, after the pivotal Pennsylvania results had been announced.
By contrast, the 2016 result was called in favour of Trump in the early hours of the morning after election day.
The timing of when the 2024 presidential election result is likely to be finalised, then, could depend largely on the pace at which several of the crucial battleground states declare their votes.
Which are they key states to look out for?
There are generally accepted to be seven important battleground states – where each major candidate could conceivably win and thereby swing the overall momentum of the race in their favour – in this election.
They are:
- Arizona
- Georgia
- Michigan
- Nevada
- North Carolina
- Pennsylvania
- Wisconsin
As of a week before election day, the website 538’s tracking poll had Trump leading the first pair of those (Arizona and Georgia) by about one to two points, while Harris was ahead in Michigan by half a point.
Trump was also fractionally ahead in Nevada and Pennsylvania, and a point up in North Carolina, while the pair were inseparable in Wisconsin.
It’s worth noting that all of that polling falls within the margin of error.
Nationally, polls suggest the race between Trump and Harris is one of the closest on record, with 538’s tracking poll scoring it 48.1-46.6 in favour of the Vice-President as of 28 October.
Arizona (which has 11 electoral votes on offer) closes its polls at 9pm EST (1am UK time) and does not release votes until at least an hour later, unless all precincts have reported earlier than that. Biden narrowly flipped the state in his favour with an historic win in 2020, helped by victory in the populous Maricopa County.
Biden also defeated Trump by a tiny margin in Georgia – where there are 16 electoral college votes to be won – to become the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since Bill Clinton in 1992. Polls there will close at 7pm EST (11pm UK time) on 5 November, with Georgia state law allowing officials to start gathering mail-in ballots (which have typically favoured Democratic candidates) from 7am local time on election day.
In Michigan, Biden won a tight majority back in 2020 following Trump’s upset 2016 victory. Polls will close across most of the state (which covers two time zones) at 8pm EST (12am UK time) on election day, so the first results will begin coming in while some Michiganders may still be voting over the following hour. The state has also changed its laws since 2020 to allow mail-in ballots to be processed sooner, so results may well come in in bulk earlier than they did four years ago.
Nevada‘s six electoral college votes make it the smallest prize of the seven swing states – but every one could matter. It has been won by Democrats in the last four elections, but 2016 marked only the third time in the last 30 campaigns that Nevada has voted for the losing candidate (Hillary Clinton) overall. In 2020, Biden beat Trump by two percentage points.
The state’s polls close at 10pm EST (2am UK time), but no results will be announced until the last person in line has voted, which could be after the official closing time. In 2020, the first votes were reported just before midnight local time. The majority of voters in Nevada also tend to vote by mail, and ballots postmarked by election day will be counted if they are received by 9 November – meaning if the race is particularly close, the final outcome may not be decided for several days.
Though North Carolina has only voted for a Democratic presidential candidate twice since 1968, the state represented Trump’s smallest winning margin over Biden in 2020. Polls will close at 7.30pm EST (11.30pm UK time) on election day this year, and while North Carolina typically leaves less than 1 per cent of votes unannounced by midnight, there’s a chance counting efforts could be slower than normal in some parts as the state recovers from Hurricane Helene.
Two of the state’s counties, Nash and New Hanoover, were among a select few from the seven battleground states to flip from Trump to Biden in 2020. They are both expected to complete their vote counts before 11pm local time.
Pennsylvania has 19 electoral college votes and is therefore the largest prize of these seven states. Polls close at 8pm EST (12am UK time) on election day, but election laws limiting when the processing of mail-in ballots can begin meant the final results weren’t clear until several days later in 2020. Then, just over half of total votes cast were reported by midnight on election day, with the first of those (typically mail-in ballots, which again tend to favour Democrats) coming in soon after polls closed.
The last of the three historically Democratic states – alongside Michigan and Pennsylvania – which flipped to Trump in 2016 and back to Biden four years later, Wisconsin closes its polls at 9pm EST (1am UK time) on 5 November. It had reported about 70 per cent of its overall votes by midnight on election day in 2020, but faces similar restrictions in processing mail-in ballots prior to election day itself, meaning early votes could be skewed.
Among the nation’s more than 3,000 counties, only one has a flawless record of predicting the winning presidential election candidate since the days of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
So, i‘s Andrew Buncombe went there to speak with residents and find out what has them stumped this year – click here to read.
How are the votes counted?
How votes are counted depends on the method by which people have submitted their ballot.
For example, if paper ballots are used at voting centres, ballot boxes are sealed and delivered to a vote-counting centre, where election staff begin the process of counting them.
At polling stations where digital voting machines are used, election officials send voter data – either electronically or by hand – to the counting centre, where the results are processed.
Some states allow votes cast during early voting periods to be counted prior to election day, but results will not be published until polls close. However, other states only begin counting any early votes alongside those cast on election day itself.
Things vary similarly on a state-by-state basis for mail-in ballots, which again influences how quickly the overall results of an election can be declared and certified.
Mail-in ballots must go through processing to ensure all requirements were followed. For example, the outside envelope of every mail-in ballot must be signed by the voter, with some states requiring additional verification such as the signature of a witness or a notary.
This processing is permitted before election day in many states, but not all.
Ballots are then counted, with votes tallied up. Some states allow mail-in ballots to be both processed and counted before election day as long as results are not published until after polls close, with the majority allowing the counting to commence only on election day itself.
Voters casting ballots in the US election are actually informing the designated electors from their states how to vote.
That’s because the candidate who wins the popular vote is not necessarily the person who wins the election. In fact, two of the five elections in American history where the popular vote winner did not end up becoming US president have happened this century: 2000 and 2016.
Instead, the victor is the candidate that wins the electoral college – a system that has been in place in one form or another since the US Constitution came into effect in 1788.
It consists of 538 electors, the majority – 270 – of whose votes is needed to win the presidency.
How many electors does each state get?
The number of electors per state is tied to the size of each state’s congressional delegation, with one electoral vote for each senator and member of Congress.
The smallest states – Alaska, Delaware, the two Dakotas, Vermont and Wyoming – each get three, while each additional member of Congress another state has adds one more elector. The most populous states are California (54 electoral votes), Texas (40 electoral votes) and Florida (30 electoral votes).
Voters in Washington, DC, also get three electoral votes thanks to the 23rd Amendment, despite having no voting representation in the House or Senate.
Read more here.
Guided by the votes of the American people, every state’s electors cast votes for president and vice-president on 17 December, at a meeting of the Electoral College.
It involves a winner-takes-all system (the candidate with the biggest share of the popular vote in each state receives all of the available electoral college votes) in all but two states: Nebraska and Maine, which both split their electoral vote between candidates according to a proportional system based on who won the congressional districts within their respective states.
These votes are counted and certified in the chamber of the House of Representatives on 6 January, with the new president taking office later that month.
When will the new president take office?
The new US president will take office on 20 January, 2025.
This is the date of their inauguration, when they take the oath of office and officially begin their four-year term as president of the United States.
