With polls tight heading into election day, everyone will be intently looking for early clues as to which way the U.S. electorate will swing tonight. Even if the race turns out to be a blow out, which the online bookies seem to be predicting, the networks likely won’t officially call the race until around midnight EST. That said, there are a couple of helpful clues that will emerge earlier in the evening that could indicate which way the presidential race will swing.
The first thing to watch for is exit polling data, which according to The Hill, should start to emerge around 5pm EST. While exit polls have serious limitations in predicting the ultimate outcome of a state, they can provide very helpful insights into the demographic mix of voters. As we’ve written numerous times in the past, the key for Hillary tonight will be whether or not black voters will turn out at the same levels they did in 2008 and 2012 to support Obama. Certainly, as we recently pointed out, the early voting data coming out of Florida and North Carolina would indicate that she’s in trouble on this point.
Clinton has performed best among women, the college educated, minorities and young voters, so her campaign will be hoping for strong numbers among those groups. Trump, meanwhile, is strongest with men, white voters and older voters.
Election analysts will be focused most intently on Hispanic turnout in states like Arizona, Nevada and Florida. Democrats have talked up the early-vote totals among the group, arguing they point to a “surge” among that demographic that could doom Trump.
But Democrats have also long worried about turnout among African-Americans and young voters, particularly in states like Ohio and North Carolina, and have leaned on President Obama to try to energize them.
Still, exit polls should be viewed with a healthy amount of skepticism. They are often wrong and could miss out on voting surges in the final hours.
The first official results will start to roll in at 7pm EST as polls in the key swing state of Virginia close, followed by North Carolina and Ohio at 7:30pm and Florida and Pennsylvania at 8pm. While polling data suggests that Trump will win Ohio, he will also have to take North Carolina and Florida if he has any hope at victory. To the extent either of those two states break toward Clinton early then it could be a very short night.
Trump has to win North Carolina and Florida. If early returns are poor for him in either state or if a projection is made quickly, then it will be a short night for Republicans and people will not have to stay up into Wednesday morning for results.
“Trump has zero path if he loses both North Carolina and Florida. Losing either might be the ballgame for him too,” University of Virginia political analyst Geoffrey Skelley told The Hill.
Skelley noted that both North Carolina and Florida had robust early voting, so the first returns from both states will include large portions of the vote. In the past, candidates with the edge in early voting often triumph.
In North Carolina, Trump’s goal is to drive up his numbers among white voters near Appalachia and the eastern part of the state and avoid a blowout in the more urban areas that make up the “Research Triangle” around Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill.
In Pennsylvania, the outcome is likely to be decided in the “Collar Counties” surrounding Philadelphia. Trump has to perform well there and has sent surrogates like Ivanka and Melania Trump to campaign for him in hopes of winning over suburban women.
If Trump can hold North Carolina and Florida then eyes will turn to states like Pennsylvania and Michigan to see whether upsets are possible in traditional democratic strongholds. If the race is close in the beginning then swing states like Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico will also come into play later in the evening.
If Trump holds his own in the early battlegrounds, he’ll be looking to pull off an upset in a blue-leaning state like Michigan, Wisconsin or Minnesota.
Michigan has been a focus of both campaigns in the closing days of the race, with Trump claiming momentum in the state and holding a flurry of campaign appearances. Democrats made a late effort to hold the state, sending Obama to Ann Arbor on the final day of the campaign.
Polls close in Michigan at 8 p.m., with early results likely showing whether Trump has a chance at pulling off an upset win.
Trump will also be looking at the results in Wisconsin and Minnesota, where polls close at 9 p.m., to see whether the Upper Midwest could propel him to victory.
In battleground Colorado, where the vote is conducted exclusively by mail, the results could come quickly after 9 p.m. Clinton is favored heavily in the state.
Then there’s Arizona, a state Republicans are confident of winning despite active campaigning by Clinton and her surrogates. One Republican strategist in the state told The Hill to watch the Hispanic vote as a percentage of the total — if it stays close to 12 percent, the level it was in 2012, Trump should be safe.
Democrats are bullish on holding Nevada, where the final polls close at 10 p.m., after strong turnout in early voting among Hispanics. Analysts will be keeping a close eye on Washoe County, seen as one of the best predictors of the state’s overall result.
Then there’s Iowa and Utah, two red-leaning states that Trump hopes and needs to win. Polls in both states close at 10 p.m., with independent candidate Evan McMullin hoping to pull off an improbable win in Utah.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg provided the following helpful guide to how the market will likely interpret the election results tomorrow.
While these two candidates have created the most divisive electorate in the history of the U.S., we can probably at least all agree that we’re looking forward to this bizarre election cycle finally coming to an end.
via http://ift.tt/2eAJlOI Tyler Durden