When polls close in battleground states on Election Day
WASHINGTON — The results on Election Day will amount to seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump visited them the most. Together, these states are likely to provide the Electoral College votes needed for the winning candidate to achieve a 270 majority.
It becomes a hopscotch game to keep track of the key times in each of the states, which span four different time zones.
A look at the Election Day timeline for the seven, with all entries in Eastern Standard Time:
The polling stations open at 8:00 am Arizonawhich Joe Biden carried in 2020 by 0.3%. He was only the second Democratic presidential candidate in nearly seventy years to do so. The polls close at 9 p.m
Arizona will not release votes until all precincts have reported or an hour after all polls close, whichever comes first.
In 2020, The Associated Press first reported Arizona’s results at 10:02 PM ET on November 3, Election Day, and declared Biden the winner at 2:51 AM ET on November 4.
In Georgia, polling stations open at 7 a.m played a key role in 2020. Biden was the first Democrat in a race for the White House to capture the state since Bill Clinton in 1992, beating Trump by less than a quarter of a percentage point, a margin of 11,779 votes.
Since then, Trump’s efforts to overturn these results have taken center stage a criminal case in Fulton County. The case is on hold while his legal team appeals to have District Attorney Fani Willis removed the case and the charges were dismissed. The Georgia Court of Appeals will do that hear those arguments after the elections.
Polls in Georgia close at 7 p.m
In 2020, the AP first reported Georgia’s results at 7:20 PM ET on November 3 and declared Biden the winner of the state at 7:58 PM ET on November 19, more than two weeks after Election Day.
Polls open at 7 a.m. ET in Michigan, one of the “blue wall” states that narrowly won for Trump in 2016 after almost thirty years of voting for Democratic candidates. Biden won it back four years later. His margin was about 154,000 votes out of more than 5.5 million votes.
Michigan spans two time zones, but polls close at 8:00 PM ET in most of the state, and at 9:00 PM ET in the rest.
In 2020, the AP first reported Michigan’s results at 8:08 PM ET on November 3 and declared Biden the winner on November 4 at 5:58 PM ET.
Polls open at 10 a.m. ET in Nevada, the smallest selection price of the battlefields. But it has one of the best presidential whistleblowing records. The candidate who won Nevada has won the White House in 27 of the past 30 presidential elections.
Polls close at 10pm ET. The state doesn’t release results until the last person in line has voted, so there’s usually a wait between the close of the poll and the first results.
In 2020, the AP first reported Nevada’s results at 11:41 PM ET on November 3 and declared Biden the winner on November 7 at 12:13 PM ET.
Polls open at 6:30 a.m. ET in Democratic-carried North Carolina only twice in presidential elections since 1968. But the state has remained competitive for both major parties. Trump’s victory in North Carolina in 2020 was his smallest margin of victory in any state, by about 1 percentage point.
Polls close at 7:30 PM ET.
In 2020, the AP first reported results at 7:42 PM ET on November 3 and declared Trump the winner on November 13 at 3:49 PM ET.
Polls open at 7 a.m. ET in Pennsylvania, another “blue wall” state. Biden’s margin in Pennsylvania in 2020 was about 80,000 votes out of more than 6.9 million votes. This year it is the place where Harris and Trump met for the first time during their only debate in September in Philadelphia.
Polls close at 8pm ET in a state with more electoral votes, 19, than any other battleground.
In 2020, the AP first reported the results at 8:09 PM ET on November 3 and declared Biden the winner on November 7 at 11:25 AM ET.
Polls open at 8 a.m. ET in Wisconsin, the third “blue wall” status in this group. Wisconsin is no stranger to close elections; the state’s margin of victory was less than 1 percentage point in 2020, 2016, 2004 and 2000.
Polls close at 9:00 PM ET.
In 2020, the AP first reported Wisconsin’s results at 9:07 PM ET on November 3 and declared Biden the winner on November 4 at 2:16 PM ET.
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP