Snapshots of Democracy: 2024 US Election Day Moments You Won’t Want to Miss

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[Watch China, November 6, 2024](Watch China reporter Gao Yun compiled) Today is the US election day. Polling stations across the United States opened on Tuesday (November 5), and voters will participate in voting in the 2024 presidential election. In a country increasingly politically divided, the race between Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Trump is uncertain. It is forbidden to create mirror websites on Chinese websites. Return to the genuine Chinese website.

According to the Associated Press, if there are no major surprises, the outcome of this election will be decided by seven swing states. However, there are still many important unresolved issues, including when the vote counting results will be announced, the composition of the electorate, the widespread dissemination of false information, and even possible political violence. Meanwhile, both camps are bracing for the possibility of a lengthy legal battle that could further complicate the situation.

Here are a few important aspects to watch on Election Day 2024:

Whoever wins will make history

Despite the volatile situation in recent months, the historic significance of this election should not be overlooked.

If Harris wins, she will become the first female president in the 248 years since the founding of the United States, and will also create history as the first black woman and South Asian president. Although Harris and her team deliberately downplayed gender and racial issues to avoid alienating some voters, the historical significance of her election will be remembered by historians.

If Trump wins the election, another historical record will be set. He would be the first person in the United States to be elected president after being convicted of a felony. Just over five months ago, he was convicted of 34 felonies in a hush money case in New York. Although Trump currently faces at least two criminal prosecutions, he has always argued that he is a victim of political persecution.

When will the vote counting results be announced?

In the United States, Election Day has effectively turned into “election week” as each state has its own rules and processes for counting votes, plus possible legal challenges. The timing of the announcement of the results of this election is even more unpredictable.

Looking back at the 2020 election, the Associated Press declared Biden the winner on Saturday afternoon, four days after voting ended. Even so, results in North Carolina and Georgia came later, with the Associated Press not confirming Trump’s victory in North Carolina until 10 days after Election Day, and Georgia not until 16 days after a manual recount. Biden wins.

In contrast, the results of the 2016 general election were released relatively quickly. The Associated Press declared Trump’s victory within hours of polling stations closing, at 2:29 a.m. ET.

In this election, unless there are major changes, both camps believe that the competition in seven key swing states is extremely fierce. These states are: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Due to the vast electoral landscape and fierce competition, it is difficult to predict when the final results will be announced.

How to glean election trends from early results?

Two battleground states on the East Coast, North Carolina and Georgia, are worth focusing on because their vote counts are likely to be released earlier. Although the final results in these states still need to wait in the case of a close election, they can provide us with an important reference for predicting the overall direction of election night.

Specifically, special attention should be paid to urban and suburban areas in the industrial North and Southeast, where Democratic support has increased since 2020.

In North Carolina, Harris’ vote share in Wake County, where the state capital Raleigh is located, and Mecklenburg County, where the state’s largest city Charlotte is located, will determine how many votes Trump needs to win in rural areas, his traditional vote base. win.

In Pennsylvania, Harris not only needs to gain a landslide in Philadelphia, the Democratic stronghold, but also needs to expand her lead in the suburban counties surrounding Philadelphia. She is actively campaigning in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties, where Biden has surpassed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 vote share. The Philadelphia metropolitan area (including the four surrounding counties mentioned above) accounted for 43% of the total votes cast in the state.

Trump faces similar challenges in other key “blue wall” states. He needs to chip away at the Democratic advantage in key suburbs around Detroit, Michigan, especially Oakland County. In Wisconsin, he faced the same dilemma in Waukesha County, a suburb of Milwaukee.

Election day schedule of the two candidates

Trump plans to spend Election Day in Florida after wrapping up a late-night campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the early hours of Election Day. Although he had previously expressed his intention to vote in advance, he finally decided to vote in person on the same day. That night, he will attend a viewing party for his campaign team in Palm Beach.

Harris chose to attend election night events at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington, DC. The prominently black university saw her earn a degree in economics and political science in 1986 while she was an active member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

In addition to activities at Howard University, Harris has no other public schedules scheduled for Election Day. She revealed on Sunday that mail-in ballots had been completed and were on their way to California.

Election Day Voter Turnout Forecast

It is currently difficult to accurately predict in-person voting numbers on Election Day.

More than 82 million voters have voted in advance or by mail. The number of early voters is so high that some officials predict there may be “empty towns” at polling stations in places like Georgia.

An important reason for this situation is that Trump has changed his position. Unlike in 2020, when he called on supporters to vote in person only on Election Day, this time he actively encouraged supporters to vote early. Judging from the data, millions of Republican voters did respond to his call.

The key question, though, is whether Republican enthusiasm for early voting will lead to a sharp drop in in-person voting on Election Day.

Voting patterns have also changed on the Democratic side. Affected by the epidemic four years ago, the vast majority of Democratic voters chose to vote early. But now that public health risks are no longer a major consideration, more Democratic voters are expected to choose to go to the polls in person on Election Day.

Understanding changes in this voting pattern is critical to interpreting early vote counts. The top priority for each campaign team is to pinpoint the target voters who need to be mobilized on election day. In this regard, Democrats appear to have an advantage.

The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee largely outsourced get-out-the-vote efforts to outside groups, including one funded by billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk. In contrast, Harris’s campaign team adopted a more traditional operating model, deploying more than 2,500 full-time staff and setting up 357 campaign offices in swing states alone.

Will there be social unrest?

There is still a risk of violence this election season. In addition to requiring the installation of bulletproof glass, officials at some key polling locations also specifically requested police support and set up emergency buttons that allowed polling station administrators to connect to the local 911 dispatch center with one click.

Police in several cities, including Washington, have prepared for possible riots on Election Day.

source:look at china

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