When will we know who won?

Be prepared to wait (but maybe not as long this time)

If you remember anything about 2020, you might remember that it took four long, excruciating days for the presidential race to be called. With this year’s election just a week away, you’re probably wondering: Will it take that long again?

Long story short: maybe. But there are a lot of reasons to think we could know the (unofficial*) outcome sooner than we did in 2020.

(*This is a really important distinction: We’re talking here about the unofficial race call made by news outlets, not the official state canvass and certification process. News outlets typically call a race when there are not enough ballots left for the trailing candidate to catch the leading candidate, but there is no official winner until the whole process is complete.)

Before we get there though, some caveats: This race is as tight as a coin flip. And the closer the race, the longer it will take to know who won, as more votes have to be counted (and potentially recounted) for news outlets to feel confident in calling the winner. 

As an example, in 2020, Biden won Michigan by a margin of 2.8%, and the race was called there Wednesday evening. In Georgia, where he won by just 0.2%, the race wasn’t called until 16 days after the election, after a hand audit of the results was completed.

That’s not even accounting for all of the other things that could happen, whether it’s surprise weather events, broken water mains, or a deliberate election subversion strategy that seeks to disrupt the process in some way.

Read more: Subverting 2024: The coming election subversion strategies and how to defuse them

There are an incredible amount of unknowns in a race this tight. The most important thing anyone can do is recognize that accurate vote counting takes time, appreciate our election workers who will be working night and day, and be patient.

Ok, but when will we know? 

With all that being said, there are a few reasons we could get results faster than we did in 2020, assuming the margins are similar or even slightly larger:

1. Far fewer mail ballots are expected: Comparing mail turnout in 2022 to 2020, mail ballot usage is down significantly in all of the swing states except Arizona and Nevada. If that holds in 2024 (which we expect it will), there will be millions fewer mail ballots to process, verify, and tabulate.

2. Expanded pre-canvassing: Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan have expanded the time allowed for pre-canvassing (when election workers can prepare mail ballots for tabulation, including taking them out of envelopes and verifying signatures).

3. Earlier mail ballot deadlines: Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Nevada have moved up their deadlines for mail ballots to arrive. In PA and NC, they now must arrive by Election Day. In NV, they must arrive 4 days after Election Day, down from 7 days after in 2020.

These factors all add up to quicker counting of mail ballots this year compared to 2020, when workers had to handle an unprecedented volume of pandemic-fueled mail voting.  

Here’s a very rough breakdown of how this looks across the seven most likely swing states. 

Since the counting of mail ballots is what delayed results in several states (Pennsylvania, Nevada, and North Carolina particularly), it’s realistic to think the races in those states may be called sooner.

Faster mail ballot counting also means we’re less likely to see the extended “blue shifts” we saw in 2020. While mail ballots still generally favor Democrats, we won’t get the slow drip of returns that led to Biden not taking the lead in Georgia and Pennsylvania until Friday. Instead, any blue shift we see will be relatively fast and potentially driven more by small “red” counties reporting results quicker than large “blue” counties, as they have in the past.

Here’s our best guess of what sort of shifts we might see. 

If you want to go deep state-by-state, see our full analysis here: 

Still, it could take longer than we hope

Of course, this is all assuming things are close, but not too close. Tight margins could trigger a recount, either automatic or requested. Typically, if a race goes to a recount and the margin is small, news outlets will hold off on projecting a winner until after the recount is completed. This could delay a race call by over two weeks, as it did in Georgia in 2020.

And if things really come down to the wire, we’re also going to have to wade into the world of provisional ballots, military and overseas ballots, ballots that arrive after Election Day, and ballots that are eligible to be cured. These categories of ballots all take longer to count, due to extra steps that must be taken or later deadlines, and they’re also the subject of several “zombie lawsuits” that the Trump campaign and RNC have filed. If who wins or loses depends on these ballots, expect some high-stakes legal fights and a long wait.

Past all of the “ifs” and “maybes”, there is one thing we can be reasonably sure of: We will probably not know who won the presidential election when we (try to) go to sleep on election night. It’ll be at least a day or two.

One other thing we know: A certain candidate is very likely to declare victory long before then, regardless of what the results are. 

Don’t believe him. 

Read more: Deceive, Disrupt, Deny - 2024 election subversion strategies and how to defuse them