Weather forecasts are predicting rain this Election Day in the middle of the country, from the Great Lakes south to Louisiana. That includes two key swing states — Michigan and Wisconsin. Will it keep voters away?

Whether the weather can influence election results has been studied a lot. There's some evidence that rain might slightly depress in-person turnout, but not really swing the outcome of elections. On top of that, most states in recent years have increased alternative options, like mail-in and early voting, potentially offsetting the impacts of any dreariness that might inspire people to stay snuggled up inside instead of lining up outside busy polling places. A study from North Carolina from 2012-2020 found that turnout decreased about 1% on rainy election days. In a close election, that could be enough to make a difference, but close elections are also more likely to motivate more voters to get to the ballot box no matter what.

Weather disasters might be a different story, however. North Carolina, which Trump won by only 1.3 percentage points in 2020, is still reeling from Hurricane Helene. Almost all of the counties affected by Helene voted for Trump in 2020, meaning low turnout there could cost him some votes — though it's unlikely they'd be enough to impact the statewide outcome in anything but the closest of contests. State officials there have made efforts to adjust polling places and hours to accommodate people, and the state set a turnout record for the first day of early voting.

Georgia is a new battleground in the post-2000 "red state, blue state" era. While statewide races had not really been highly contested before then, it has since trended left compared to the country as a whole. In 2016, Trump carried the state by 5 percentage points, which was the state's closest margin in a presidential race over the past two decades until Biden won it by just 0.2 points — becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to win there since Bill Clinton in 1992.

Trump really needs to capture Georgia's 16 electoral votes to give himself a good shot at hitting the magic majority number of 270 nationally. Without knowing how other states will vote, 538's forecast suggests that Trump would have about a 4-in-5 shot at winning the presidency if he ends up carrying Georgia. But if Harris claims it, she would have about a 9-in-10 chance of becoming the next president.

And polls once again show an extremely close race in Georgia. Trump leads slightly less than 1 point in 538's polling average of the state. Although Trump holds a slight edge, his standing against Harris is significantly closer than it was against Biden, who trailed Trump by about 6 points when he stepped aside in late July.

Like Biden, Harris will need overwhelming support from Black voters in Georgia. At nearly one-third of the population, the Peach State has the largest population and proportion of Black Americans of any of the seven main swing states. In 2020, about 30% of Georgia voters identified as Black, according to exit polls, and nearly 90% backed Biden. Yet recent polls suggest that Harris may be running shy of Biden's 2020 support level, while Trump is running a bit ahead of his roughly 10% haul in 2020. Taken together, these potential shifts would notably improve Trump's chances of winning the state in 2024.

Trump can once again expect to win a sizable majority of white voters in the South, which has a higher degree of racially polarized voting than any other part of the country. Still, it's possible he might lose a little ground in Georgia, specifically: In 2020, Trump won about 70% of Georgia's white voters, but he's garnering a little less than that in recent polls, while Harris is polling right around the 30% that Biden carried.

Now, Georgia saw a sizable education split among its white voters last time around, with white voters without a four-year college degree going overwhelmingly for Trump (80% to 20%) but those with a degree only preferring him slightly (55% to 44%). How much Harris can recreate Biden's coalition among college-educated voters in particular will be pivotal to the Georgia outcome. Recent polls in the state that have data for college-educated voters have found Harris running a little behind Biden's 57% among the group as a whole (including voters of color).

Harris will be at Howard University, her alma mater, for a watch party. If elected, she would be the first president in history to be a graduate of a historically Black college.

Before the party, Harris said she will have dinner with her family, many of whom are staying with her in Washington.

Trump's watch party is taking place at the Palm Beach Convention Center in Florida. Earlier Tuesday, after casting his ballot, Trump visited his campaign headquarters to thank staffers.

As with any presidential cycle, there have been a staggering number of polls published in the last 6 months: We've had 1695 polls of the presidential race this year, including 1315 state polls and 380 national polls. But even those astonishing numbers are less than we've seen in some previous cycles.

According to a 538 analysis in late October, while we have somewhat fewer polls than in previous cycles, the polls we do have may be of slightly higher quality. For one thing, more 2024 polls come from pollsters with a pollster rating, meaning that we know how much we should trust them based on their past performance. Plus, for polls that do have a pollster rating, the average pollster rating is higher than in previous cycles, meaning higher quality pollsters are conducting a large share of surveys.

In addition, we're seeing a higher proportion of polls come from nonpartisan organizations, like media outlets and universities, than we have in past cycles. Media organizations and universities are usually more rigorous, transparent and nonpartisan than other kinds of pollsters and sponsors. Just take a look at our pollster ratings — eight of the top 10 ranked pollsters are news organizations or universities. The fact that these groups are making up a large share of the polling this year is a good sign.

We also have a lower percentage of congressional polls coming from partisan sources, which means our read of the House and Senate may be more neutral than in past years. And while the percentage of presidential polls coming from partisan sources is higher than it was in 2016 or 2012, it's also decreased since 2020.