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Election Day 2024 live results: Polls now closed in more than half the states

We're tracking races for president, Senate, House and more across the country.

By538 and ABC News via five thirty eight logo
Last Updated: November 5, 2024, 6:00 AM EST

Polls have closed in some states and the first results are coming in in the high-stakes presidential match-up between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. According to 538's forecast, both candidates have a roughly equal chance to win.

Voters are still at polling places around the country, casting ballots to decide who controls not only the White House, but also Congress, state and local governments.

Reporters from 538 and ABC News will be following along every step of the way with live updates, analysis and commentary on the results. Keep up to date with our full live blog below!

Geoffrey Skelley Image
2 hours ago

538's shorthand guide for watching election night results

On election night, information overload is almost unavoidable. With this in mind, 538 is here to offer you a guide for knowing whether a state might be in play as votes are tallied. We estimated county-level benchmarks for every state (save Alaska, which doesn't report votes by county) to offer a back-of-the-envelope gauge for how the election is going.

The benchmarks estimate what percentage of the vote Democrats or Republicans would need in each county for a statewide race to be roughly tied. That means if a candidate is performing consistently better than their party's benchmark as we get a meaningfully large number of returns (keeping in mind that the partisan split from early returns may shift significantly as the count continues), it's a decent sign that contender is on track to come out ahead in the final results. In the interactive, you can look for any state or county in the search bar above the map.

538's benchmarks estimate how well candidates need to do in each county.
Katie Marriner and Amina Brown for 538

To explore how to use the benchmarks, let's take a look at one of the key swing states, Pennsylvania. On its state page, you'll find a county-level map and a table with benchmark figures, along with the share of the statewide vote that each county contributed in the 2020 presidential race. Above the map, you can toggle between the statewide races, choosing among president, Senate and governor (where applicable). And above the table, you can toggle between viewing benchmarks by margin (how much a candidate leads by) or by party vote share (what percentage of the vote each candidate has).

How to tell who's on track to win Pennsylvania on election night.
Katie Marriner and Amina Brown for 538

The map displays both the benchmark margin and the 2020 share of the vote from each county. The bluer a place, the more Democratic it would be in the case of a statewide result that's about tied, and vice versa for red and more Republican. And, the larger the bubble over a county, the more votes it contributed in the 2020 presidential election.

Take Philadelphia. Heavily Democratic, it contributed nearly 11% of Pennsylvania's statewide vote in 2020, so it's represented by a big, blue bubble. Based on our benchmark, we can expect the statewide result to be very close if Harris is leading in Philadelphia by about 62 percentage points (80% to 18%). If she's doing a bit better than that, it could signal that she's running ahead of where she needs to be in order to win; if she's doing a bit worse, it could be a sign that Trump has an edge in the state.

Of course, you should never rely on just one data point as determinative. Instead, you'll want to consider what the returns are saying across a large number of counties, and only once a large portion of the vote has come in from each of those places. Additionally, you might look at a place like Erie County in the state's northwest corner, which has a reputation for being one of the state's bellwethers. Tellingly, our benchmark there is basically a tie, so if one candidate is running a few points ahead, that is probably a good sign for them.

We hope these numbers prove to be a helpful shorthand for who might be leading in close races as the returns come in. And even in the uncompetitive states, they could provide a hopeful Republican a sense of what it would take for their party to carry California in this day and age, and a hopeful Democrat a clue as to what their party would need to compete in South Dakota!

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2 hours ago

The first polls of the 2024 election have closed

It's 6 p.m. Eastern, which means the first polls of the evening have closed! Voting is now over in most of Indiana and in the eastern half of Kentucky. We should see initial results shortly ...

2 hours ago

Error in Milwaukee leads to a recount

Milwaukee will be recounting every absentee ballot that has been recorded so far, over 30,000, according to Alexander Shur of VoteBeat. This took place after election officials discovered an issue with a voting tabulator. Out of an abundance of caution, all 13 of the machines involved are being reset.

Milwaukee is one of the slowest reporting areas in Wisconsin, reporting the bulk of the votes early in the morning during the 2020 election. This hold-up nearly assures that the final count in the swing state will stretch late into the night.

Milwaukee will retabulate approximately 30,000 absentee ballots following a human error at the city’s central ballot processing location, according to the mayor's office.
2:31

Milwaukee will rerun 30,000 absentee ballots

Milwaukee will retabulate approximately 30,000 absentee ballots following a human error at the city’s central ballot processing location, according to the mayor's office.
WISN
2 hours ago

Exit polls 2024: Fears for American democracy, economic discontent drive voters

Americans are going to the polls Tuesday to cast their ballots in the historic election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Surveys ahead of Election Day found the two candidates in a virtual dead heat nationally and in several key swing states.

Broad economic discontent, sharp divisions about the nation's future and polarized views of the major-party candidates mark voter attitudes nationally in ABC News preliminary exit poll results. The state of democracy prevailed narrowly as the most important issue to voters out of five tested in the exit poll.

Read the full analysis here.