Projections for the 2024 US election: When will the first forecasts and results come?

Once all polling stations in each state close, the major US television networks publish their forecasts. They rely on voter surveys after voting, initial vote counts at polling stations and telephone surveys. Because of the different time zones in the USA, the first forecasts will be available for the states on the East Coast and the last for Hawaii.

The major broadcasters usually announce the election winner around midnight US Eastern Time based on their projections. In Germany it is between 5 and 6 a.m. on Wednesday mornings.

Harris or Trump? The results of the 2024 US election can be read here.

However, it is questionable whether this will also work in the 2024 US election: Since a large number of US citizens – more than 60 million as of Thursday morning – have cast their votes early, voter surveys in front of the polling station are less informative than before. In addition, counting postal ballots takes longer than counting votes cast at the polling station.

Given the expected close election outcome, many legal disputes are to be expected – especially in the swing states: Pennsylvania in the northeast of the USA, with its 19 electoral votes, is considered a state that a candidate must win in order to win overall – conversely, a defeat there means that It will be very difficult to catch up again. The other six important swing states are North Carolina (16 voters), Georgia (16), Michigan (15), Wisconsin (10) and, in the west, Arizona (11) and Nevada (6).

In 2020, it took four days in Pennsylvania until the result was counted and Joe Biden was declared the winner. However, four years ago there were also a record number of postal votes due to the corona pandemic.

This year, fewer voters in Pennsylvania have requested mail-in ballots – and election workers have a little more routine after 2020. Given the expected close outcome, the result from Pennsylvania will probably not be known immediately after the polls close (8 p.m. local time/2 a.m. CET), but it will probably not be as long in coming as in 2020.

Networks will be extremely cautious about when to declare a winner in a swing state with a close race – and when to declare the overall winner of the presidential election. This could only happen on election night if the outcome of the election was very clear.

However, possible legal disputes in individual states over the outcome of the election must be resolved by December 8th – otherwise the US Congress can reject the result. This rule, set forth in federal law, is called a “safe harbor.” So it could take more than a month until it is finally determined who will move into the White House in the future.