When will we know who won the 2024 presidential election?

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Two experts weigh in on when we might know whether Trump or Harris has won the race “But it could also lead to these scenarios where we could not know for days or weeks.” While Tucker said we are likely to know “very quickly” who has won 43 states and the District of Columbia, “the margins in are razor thin, and so there are a number of different options for election night.” The two experts, who stressed no one can know for sure what will unfold, walked The Independent through those possible scenarios: Scenario 1: The race is called on election night If the polls turn out to be wrong and the race is not that close after all, we could know the projected result as early as election night. “One option for election night is that the polling has been off in a way that favors Donald Trump and it becomes apparent that he wins enough of these states that, even on election night, we’re able to see he’s probably going to win.” On the flip side, Tucker hypothesized that if pollsters have underestimated the “strength of the Democratic ground game” in the swing states, a result for Harris could also, in theory, be called on election night. If Trump blitzes the swing states, a projected result could be called on election night “ it becomes apparent that pollsters have overestimated based on 2016 and 2020 where they missed too many Trump voters, they’ve underestimated the strength of the Democratic ground game, this rally in Madison Square Garden seems to have a disproportionate effect in Pennsylvania, and all of a sudden it looks like Harris is coming in with comfortable leads in enough of these swing states that she’s won…. “I think it’s entirely possible that we could know on election night or sometime in the next morning, but both of those factors are likely going to drag things out,” he said.