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Graphic of exit poll data
Graphic Truth: US voting shifts from 2020 to 2024
The votes are still being tallied following Donald Trump’s win in the US presidential election, but looking at preliminary voter data gives clues to what happened in the American electorate last week.
The final vote numbers for Democrats are expected to continue to rise, especially since California is still being counted, and pollster Nate Silver projects that Kamala Harris will win around 75.7 million voters and Trump will win 77.9 million. But it is clear that Harriswill not match Joe Biden’s Democratic turnout in 2020. A large portion of this can be attributed to Democrats having control over the White House this time around. History shows us that voters turn out at higher numbers when they are voting their opposing party out of office.
This is disheartening for Democrats considering they upped this spending from 2020, shelling out $1.51 billion compared to the GOP’s $1.03 billion. Breaking that down by cost per vote, Democrats spent $7 more than the Republicans did for each vote in 2024, and a vote for Harris cost $9 more than for Biden in 2020.
Exit polls also show that the Democrats lost votes among Black and Latino voters. Trump gained 19 points among Latino men and 8 points among Latino women. Among Black voters, three out of 10 men under age 45 went for Trump, roughly double the share he got in 2020.
How AI could still impact the US election
Americans in 50 states and Washington, DC, are headed to the polls today to vote for the next president of the United States. While neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor former President Donald Trump has given much attention to artificial intelligence on the campaign trail — and AI hasn’t completely disrupted the election process as some experts feared — there are still important questions surrounding AI and the election.
For one, could AI-generated disinformation or deepfakes sow chaos that affects the results of the election? The hours and days ahead — both as Americans vote and as local officials count the vote — are crucial.
Earlier this year, election security experts and officials warned that AI-generated information could flood the campaign trial. While some has surfaced — including a fake Joe Bidenrobocall during New Hampshire’s primary and when Elon Musk shared an AI-generated video mocking Harris on his platform, X — its impact hasn’t been widespread.
Meanwhile, the US intelligence community has been proactive in identifying when foreign actors used AI to carry out influence operations. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a statement in September noting that foreign countries such as China, Iran, and Russia have used AI to target voters about the election and political issues, such as immigration and the US-Gaza conflict.
But the most sensitive time for disinformation may still be ahead. “If it's extremely close, that gives more license for disinformation to run around because it’s easier to believe,” said Scott Bade, a senior geo-technology analyst with Eurasia Group. While fake information might not be AI-generated, he said, there could be something that tricks people and goes viral, such as an AI-generated video or image purporting to show fraud at a polling station.
Further, voting rights groups have issued warnings that Spanish-language voters are seeing more AI-generated misinformation about the election than are English speakers. This language gap could cause additional confusion at a time when the Latino vote has become a central point of intrigue in the election, especially after a comedian at a recent Trump rally made racist comments about Puerto Rico.
The election results will also impact how AI policy is shaped for the next four years — a critical time for this emerging technology. Trump’s approach has emphasized deregulation. Trump has criticized the CHIPS Act, under which the US has given subsidies to foreign companies like TSMC and Samsung to build in the US and cement America’s chip advantage over China. Trump wants to be seen as tough on China but prefers tariffs rather than subsidies.
“Under Trump, funding for AI research would likely prioritize military applications and national security, reflecting his America First agenda,” said Esteban Ponce de León, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, “whereas, Harris aims to direct funding toward societal challenges like health care disparities and climate change.”
Harris would likely continue Biden’s legacy on artificial intelligence, continuing to roll out incremental rules to rein in the tech industry if she becomes president, but her ability to push through a more serious AI agenda depends on the makeup of Congress — and, if polling is to be believed, Democrats are longshots to take the Senate even if the House and presidency are within reach.
Even if artificial intelligence hasn’t been front and center thus far this election cycle, there’s no guarantee it won’t still be. And the dam has broken, which means AI will be an unavoidable consideration of election security officials for years to come.
US Capitol building at in the morning sun. Washington DC, USA The US Capitol building in the early morning at sunrise.
Election Countdown: The 6 congressional races to watch
While eyes around the globe will be on the US presidency this Election Day, there are consequential races further down the ballot that will determine how much power Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will wield. A handful of Senate and House races will decide which party has the power to advance or stymie the next president’s agenda.
Going into election night, 538 forecasters give Republicans a 92% chance of winning the Senate, but experts say the House could be anyone’s game. The Senate is likely to be called on election night, but because of slow counting in California, the results in the House are unlikely to be called before the end of the week at the earliest.
Here are the key races to watch.
Senate
Democrats currently hold a narrow 51-49 majority but are facing an almost certain loss in West Virginia. That means that Republicans only need to capture one more race to win the majority. This is a pretty comfortable spot for the GOP to be in. Meanwhile, Democrats rely on dramatically outperforming in the polls or performing miracles and expanding their map by winning states like Texas or Florida.
Thirty-four seats are up for grabs, and 10 races are expected to determine the balance of power: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Montana, Nebraska, Maryland, and Texas.
Arizona offers a race of political extremes. Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is stepping down, and progressive Rep. Ruben Gallego and Trump-darling Kari Lake are vying to take her spot. Lake, who lost the governor’s race in 2022 and continues to insist the election was “stolen,” has been encroaching on Gallego’s lead in the polls in recent days. Gallego’s slight edge is being attributed to his popularity among Latino voters, who make up 25% of the electorate.
Michigan, meanwhile, is a competition between centrists. Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow is retiring, and mainstream Republican Mike Rogers – a former Trump critic who has since embraced him – is facing outgoing Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who is using her national security background to win over centrists in and around Detroit.
The race has been tied in the final weeks of the election, and some of the biggest issues are reproductive rights and the candidates’ support for electric vehicles – a hot topic in a state that is home to the Big Three auto manufacturers.
In Ohio, Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Democratic incumbent, is fighting to keep his seat in the solidly red state against Trump-backed Bernie Moreno. Brown has lost what was once a commanding lead in recent weeks and is now polling behind Moreno by one point. The race has drawn $500 million in ad spending, more than any Senate race in history.
Control of the Senate could very well hinge on this state, which has voted twice for Trump and is likely to do so for a third time this year. Brown has held on to power in the past by focusing on local issues and evading questions about national political figures but has suffered from attack ads framing him as being far-left on transgender issues. But Democrats need this state if they have any chance of keeping their majority.
House of Representatives
Control of the House, like everything in this election, is expected to be incredibly close. All 435 seats are on the line, and, likely, whichever party wins control will do so by just a few seats. The Republicans are on the defense and need to control their slim majority, while Democrats need to gain four seats to flip the chamber. Democrat’s lead has declined as the election approached, with their margin slipping to just 0.5 points over the Republicans, down from 2.6 in early September.
New York’s 19th district is one of the most expensive House races in the 2024 election, with Democrats seeing flipping the seat as key to their efforts to regain control of the House. Republican incumbent Marc Molinaro faces a rematch against Democrat Josh Riley in this swing district that stretches across all or parts of the 11 upstate counties. It is expected to be a bellwether for how the parties are performing in the suburbs of New York and New Jersey, where Democrats saw disappointing turnout in the 2022 midterms, which led to them losing the seat.
Molinaro, once known as one of the most bipartisan members of Congress, has veered to the right this cycle, with his campaign drawing on fears about immigration and crime, while Riley has focused on abortion and reproductive rights.
Virginia’s 7th district is worth watching because it is expected to be an early bellwether of how the parties are fairing in a mixed district that spans from the DC suburbs to the rural Piedmont region. Republican Derrick Anderson is currently down four points against Democrat Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman, who led the whistleblower account of the quid-quo-pro phone call between Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky that became the basis of the first impeachment case against Trump.
In Nebraska’s 2nd district, incumbent Republican Don Bacon is currently beating Democrat Tony Vargas by just two points. That's the same margin the GOP won by in 2022, and the Dems have had their eyes on winning it back ever since.
The district is one of 16 Republican-held seats in places that voted for Joe Biden in 2020. It is also known as the “blue dot” because it often sends one of Nebraska’s electoral votes to the Democrats even as the rest of the states’ votes go to Republicans.
Check out more of our recent election coverage:
- Everything you need to know about the 7 swing states
- The 15 counties to watch on election night
- The Disinformation Election: How conspiracy theories are impacting the vote
- How the 2024 presidential election could define the future of the Supreme Court
- Each presidential candidate needs at least 270 electoral votes to win the election. As the results come in, keep track of them with our handy map! Download it here
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On Jan. 6, 2021, pro-Trump supporters and far-right forces flooded Washington, DC, to protest Trump's election loss. Hundreds breached the US Capitol.
Americans are on edge as voters head to the polls
As Election Day unfolds across the United States, law enforcement agencies warn that well-organized groups supporting Donald Trump may disrupt Tuesday’s vote and could carry out acts of violence. In particular, one chapter of the Proud Boys, a far-right movement that played a pivotal role in the pro-Trump riot at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, posted a message on social media that its members “will either stand with the resistance or take a knee and willingly accept the yoke of tyranny and oppression.”
In fact, the New York Times reports that an investigation of more than one million messages posted on Telegram “question the credibility of the presidential election” and threaten to “interfere with the voting process and potentially dispute the outcome.” Some of these messages included images of violence. A so-called “election integrity” movement urges Telegram users to help “audit” the vote and to share news related to election rigging. Governors in Oregon, Washington, and Nevada have National Guard troops on standby in case of election-related violence.
Media coverage of the threat of trouble has Americans on edge. A new study from the American Psychological Association, an industry group, finds that more than 70% of Americans fear that today’s election will trigger violence.
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump dances during a rally at Mullett Arena in Tempe, Arizona, U.S. October 24, 2024.
Election Countdown: 15 key counties that could determine the outcome
With four days to go before Election Day, both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were in Nevada and Arizona on Thursday to shore up support in the critical western swing states. At dueling rallies, the candidates made bids to win over Latino voters and focused on border security.
In Nevada, home to a large number of service workers and an economy that has struggled to rebound from COVID, Trump and Harris touted their plans for exempting tips from taxes.
In Arizona, both candidates are banking on ballot initiatives to boost turnout. Republicans are rallying around a ballot initiative making illegal border crossings a state crime, while Democrats are hoping a measure enshrining the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution will spur pro-choice voters to the polls.
Arizona is likely to come down to just one county: Maricopa.
There has been no shortage of attention paid to the seven swing states that are likely to decide this hyper-close election. But within those states, there are counties that are key indicators of how each state will end up.
“The counties to watch in the election are a mixture of bellwethers that tend to go the way of their states, big counties that have an outsized impact on state results, and counties that will provide key information on how the candidates are performing among particular demographic groups,” explains Eurasia Group’s Noah Daponte-Smith.
So, without further ado, here are the counties to watch as the results roll in on Tuesday night.
In Arizona, whoever wins Maricopa, which encompasses Phoenix and its surrounding areas, is likely to win the state’s 11 Electoral College votes. The whole election could hinge on this county because of how long it is expected to take to tally all of its votes.
Maricopa has a population of over 4.5 million residents, more than the populations of nearly half of the states in the US, and Republican-pushed voting laws are going to slow down the count. Because of this, election officials are warning that it could take up to 13 days to count all the ballots, which, if the election is close, could mean the winner isn’t known for nearly two weeks.
Pennsylvania has four bellwether counties that will serve as signals for whether the state – which has a 90% chance of determining the election – is going red or blue. Harris needs to excel in democratic stronghold Philadelphia, at least outpacing Biden’s 2020 performance, if she is going to win the Keystone State. Erie, Pittsburg, and Scranton are also key indicators of how the winds are blowing.
Pennsylvania is unlikely to be decided for a day or two because of rules that forbid counting absentee ballots before Election Day.
In Georgia, all eyes will be on Atlanta’s Fulton and DeKalb counties, as well as its surrounding suburbs of Gwinnett, Henry, and Cobb. The key thing to look for is Harris’ margins with Black voters, which not only are likely to determine whether she wins the state but will also shed light on how she is tracking with Black voters nationwide.
Wisconsin is anyone’s game and may depend on whether the margins in Milwaukee and its surrounding suburbs of Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington are closer to 2016, when Trump won, or 2020, when Biden took back the state.
North Carolina is expected to be the first swing state to be decided. As early results roll in, look at the Charlotte suburbs of Union and Cabarrus, which will show how Harris is faring among suburban voters.
Republicans have held the state in every election since Obama in 2008, when he won in large part because of high Black voter turnout. Harris needs to drive similar volumes of Democratic turnout, which is likely to come from the suburbs outside of cities like Charlotte, to offset Trump’s dominance in rural parts of the state.
Trump in a garbage truck.
Election Countdown: Kamala Harris blitzes three swing states as Trump targets Biden’s “garbage” comments
On Wednesday, Donald Trump pulled up to his rally in Wisconsin in a garbage truck to hammer Joe Biden for calling his supporters “garbage” in response to racist comments made at the rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Trump is latching on to the quote as evidence that Democrats demean and demonize his voters.
At his rally earlier in the day in North Carolina, he told the crowd, “You can’t be president if you hate the American people, and there’s a lot of hatred there.” Kamala Harris is trying to distance herself from Biden’s comment, saying “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.” Her campaign likely fears that a backlash to the comment could rally Trump supporters to the polls.
Meanwhile, one day after making the last major speech of her campaign in Washington, DC, Harris raced back to the campaign trail on Wednesday, hitting three swing states in a single day. She began in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and then visited Raleigh, North Carolina, before heading to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a rally and concert with Mumford & Sons.
Trump finished his day with an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News. He and Hannity were expected to focus on the border and the problems in the American economy. However, despite inflation continuing to keep prices high, the US economy increased at a 2.8% annual rate in the third quarter, down slightly from the 3% growth earlier this year, but still signaling that consumer spending remains strong ahead of next week’s election.
Graphic Truth: America's podcast boom
Is 2024 the Podcast Election? For the first time, US presidential candidates are sitting for lengthy interviews on popular podcasts, while doing fewer traditional spots with mainstream media.
Donald Trump, for example, has appeared on pods hosted by, among others, controversial gaming streamer Adin Ross, YouTube influencer Logan Paul, pro-wrestler The Undertaker, comedian and actor Theo Von, computer scientist Lex Fridman and, of course, Joe Rogan, who boasts the largest podcast audience in America.
Those all cater chiefly to young men – no accident given Trump’s focus on that demographic in an election increasingly shaped by notions of gender.
Kamala Harris, meanwhile, has appeared on Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy,” the top women-focused podcast, as well as “Club Shay Shay,” hosted by pro Football hall of famer Shannon Sharpe; “All the Smoke,” hosted by two former NBA champs; and “The Howard Stern Show.”
Whether the vice president too will appear on Rogan is unclear. As of Tuesday, Rogan said she hadn’t met his terms, a striking illustration of the podcaster’s power: Most traditional media would leap to accommodate a sitting VP.
Why the pod? One answer is: In a polarized environment where the credibility of traditional media has cratered, podcasters reach large subcultures of American voters who see them as authentic and trustworthy. And the conversational podcast setup is generally friendlier to candidates than traditional media interviews.
Another answer is: Because lots of people listen to podcasts now. Here’s a graphic showing the staggering growth in podcast listenership since the medium first arose in the mid-2000s, and a breakdown of listenership in 2024 alone.
How will the podcast shape the election? That remains to be heard, as it were – but we, like nearly half of America these days, are listening more closely than ever.Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, are seen in a combination of file photographs taken on the campaign trail in October.
Eagle Claw and the death of the October surprise
Is there an October surprise that might make or break a president?
The October surprise dates back to President Jimmy Carter, who turned 100 this month and, surprising many, managed to cast his vote for Kamala Harris.
During his 1980 campaign against Ronald Reagan, Carter believed a daring rescue of the 52 hostages that Iranian revolutionaries held after storming the American Embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, would turn things around.
So Carter launched Operation Eagle Claw. On April 24, 1980, eight helicopters and a C-130 plane secretly landed in the desert outside of Tehran to start the rescue operation. It was a colossal failure. Several choppers malfunctioned in a sandstorm and one crashed, killing eight US servicemen. Their bodies were later recovered by the Iranians and used in a sickening public display in Tehran.
Years later, I traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, to interview Carter, and he told me that, in his unequivocal view, had that helicopter not crashed, the hostages would have been rescued, and he would have won the election.
Still, even after Eagle Claw failed, the Reagan campaign feared an “October surprise,” where, at the very last moment, Carter would announce a dramatic arms-for-hostages deal with Iran. It never happened, and the hostages were released under Reagan, but since then, campaigns have braced for a late-breaking event that might change the course of an election.
There have been other examples of October surprises since then. In October 1992, former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was indicted, derailing George H.W. Bush’s reelection bid. And, of course, in October 2016, FBI Director James Comey dropped the news that he was opening up an investigation into Hillary Clinton, helping Trump win that election.
Will there be an October surprise this year?
The answer is likely no, and that’s one of the biggest mysteries of this campaign: Why not?
First off, the most consequential surprises this year came much earlier than October — Biden was pushed out in favor of Harris, while Trump was convicted of 34 felonies and survived two assassination attempts. Few things can top those.
What about this week’s revelation that Trump’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired Marine general, alleges that Trump wanted to have generals like Hitler’s and that he’s an “authoritarian” who “admires people who are dictators”? The Trump campaign has denied this, but for all the press it’s getting, it’s hardly a surprise. Kelly and other former disgruntled Trump folks have long said all kinds of nasty things about the GOP nominee, and none of it has made a bit of difference to the campaign.
Trump remains slightly ahead in most national polls. Harris has run a solid, billion-dollar campaign, and while she can be vague and tends to serve up word-salad answers without any policy protein — as she did last night on CNN — Trump has had a far more ragged, rant-filled road, with significantly worse blunders, lies, and outbursts. And yet, it is still a coin toss, with the odds slightly favoring him.
That’s frustrating to Democrats, who think Trump has made a litany of disqualifying errors and statements, but none of them have stuck. Why not?
One reason may be that Trump’s main issues — when he stays on message — are the economy, immigration, and security, and those are proving to be more salient than the ones the Democrats focus on, such as democracy, abortion, and their record. They carry the weight of incumbency, and in 2024, that’s a drag.
A second, deeper reason is that Trump has become, essentially, surprise proof. He has so normalized personal character flaws and institutional distrust that it makes an October surprise impossible.
That merits a moment of reflection. The inherent assumption supporting an “October surprise” is that there are widely accepted conventions of behavior and social norms. When those are undermined or contradicted by a “surprise,” it will destroy a campaign. In past campaigns, that has been the exposure of lies, infidelities, corruption, a spelling error (the bar was so low for Dan Quayle), or a financial scandal. But we have had all of those in this run and … bupkis. Nothing moves. Harris might be more susceptible to a surprise because she is less well-known, but even her supporters don’t care about allegations of plagiarism or her policy flip-flops on fracking.
In 2024, the October surprise just doesn’t exist anymore. Polarization has so ossified the USA that partisans are shockproof. That may be a good thing as it means avoiding a cheap, manufactured scandal changing an election outcome, but it is also a sign that a healthy democracy is losing some of its early warning signals. Pain and surprise are signals to your body that something is wrong or threatening. It looks like today, the body politic feels no pain and, so, no surprise.
No matter what new story emerges in the final 12 days, don’t think for a moment it will make any difference. The biggest surprise will be on Nov. 5.