Election 2024 updates: With Arizona, Trump sweeps all 7 swing states

In the 2016 presidential race, Trump won 52% of men but just 39% of women, a 13-point gender gap, according to Pew's analysis of validated voters from their American Trends Panel. (Meanwhile, Clinton won just 41% of men but 54% of women, a 13-point gap in the opposite direction.) In 2020, that gap was smaller, largely because Biden did better with men than Clinton, winning 48% of men and 55% of women.

In every presidential election since 1980, women as a bloc have been more likely than men to vote for the Democratic candidate. They've also been more likely to turn out to vote than men, making them decisive. But as 2016 proved, winning women isn't enough to win the presidency.

This fact may explain why so much media attention has been paid to Trump's potential gains among young men this cycle. Young voters typically favor Democrats by wide margins, but several pre-election polls showed a gender gap among 18- to 29-year-olds that was much larger than gender gaps within other age cohorts. These and other polls suggest that Democrats' lock on young men is uncertain; a Data for Progress poll from early October showed a presidential tie (48% each) among men under 30. On the other side of that gap, what is near-certain is young women's support for Harris. In October, a Harvard Youth Poll showed Harris up 30 points among women under 30, and a SurveyMonkey/NBCNews poll showed Harris up 33 points.

Encouragingly for Harris, this group is also motivated to vote. According to a recent Pew survey, among voters ages 18 to 29 who plan to support Harris, 50% are extremely motivated to vote, compared to just 34% of young voters who say they support Trump. And this cycle, the abortion issue may further spur young women. According to a KFF panel, as of September, abortion is the top election issue for women under age 30. The same poll found that Democratic women are now more motivated to vote with Harris at the top of the ticket, compared to their responses in June, while Republican women are less motivated.

Like so many things in elections, whether a big gender gap in 2024 would be a major problem for Harris will come down to turnout: If high turnout among these Democratic-leaning female voters under 30 materializes and men make up a smaller portion of the overall vote share, even a larger-than-average gender gap might not spell doom.

By jumping into the race 107 days before election day, Harris had to define her platform quickly. A major concern for Harris was to separate herself from the Biden campaign and make inroads on economic messaging. One month after launching her bid for the presidency, 45% of likely voters said Harris would do a better job at handling the economy than Trump, while 51% said Trump would do a better job, according to a Suffolk University/USA Today poll.

As far as where she has an advantage, Democrats and the Harris campaign see abortion as a winning issue, and she's made reproductive rights a core focus of her campaign. Revisit our poll quiz on Harris' policies to see what else Americans think of her platform.

The 538 Politics podcast recently posed this question to a group of experienced pollsters and analysts in an attempt to sift through the data on this upcoming election. From swing voters to economic sentiment, everyone's got their eyes on a different metric that could be key to understanding where things are headed.

Republican pollster Adam Geller is watching "Trump bros," a notable portion of the swing group of young men drawing both candidates to popular podcasts. The New York Times Polling Editor Ruth Igielnik is focused on whether voters feel that Trump or Harris' economic policies "help or hurt people like you." Lenny Bronner, senior data scientist at The Washington Post, is curious about the gap between presidential and Senate polling this cycle and what that could tell us about voters in key swing states. And J. Ann Selzer, known for her Iowa polling expertise, is wondering whether the low-propensity voters that helped Trump win back in 2016 will turn out this time around.

To hear more of the data points that seasoned election-watchers are following to unpack the 2024 election, check out this podcast.

The first election results will come in tonight shortly after 6 p.m. Eastern, but we will likely have to wait until Wednesday or even later to know who won. This is for two reasons: First, this is a really close race, and media outlets won't project a winner until they're absolutely certain that one candidate has an insurmountable lead. Second, it takes time for states to count the millions of ballots expected to be cast.

Each state counts votes on a different timeline. To help you get a sense for when to expect a projection in each state, we at 538 created this interactive that shows how quickly states counted their votes in 2022 and information from official sources about when to expect results this time around.

Roughly speaking, the seven main presidential swing states fall into three categories in this regard. First, Georgia and North Carolina are expected to count the quickest. Both of these states are expected to release a large chunk of their results shortly after polls close. Then, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin count at a moderate pace. They will probably be counting all through the night but should be done by Wednesday morning (although Pennsylvania could take longer). Finally, Arizona and Nevada always take days to count their votes, so if the presidential race comes down to those states, don't expect a projection until late in the week.