WASHINGTON — Election Day is almost around the corner. In a matter of hours, the final votes in the 2024 presidential election will be cast.

In a deeply divided nation, the election is a true face-to-face between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.

We know there are seven states in contention that will decide the outcome, barring one big surprise. But major questions remain about the timing of the results, the makeup of the electorate, the influx of misinformation and even the potential for political violence. At the same time, both sides are braced for a protracted legal battle that could further complicate matters.

Here’s what to watch ahead of Election Day 2024:

History will be made either way

Given all the twists and turns of the past few months, it’s easy to overlook the historical significance of this election.

Harris would become the first female president in the 248-year history of the United States. She would also be the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to hold the position. Harris and her campaign have largely downplayed gender and race for fear of alienating some of her supporters. But the importance of a Harris victory would not go unnoticed by historians.

A Trump victory would represent a different kind of historic achievement. He would become the first person convicted of a felony to be elected to the US presidency, after being convicted of 34 felonies in a hush money case in New York just over five months ago.

Trump, who still faces felony charges in at least two separate criminal cases, argued that he is a victim of a politicized justice system. And tens of millions of voters apparently believe him, or are willing to overlook his extraordinary legal baggage.

How long will it take to know the winner?

Election Day in the United States is now often considered election week, as each state follows its own rules and practices for counting votes (not to mention legal challenges) that can delay results. But the truth is that no one knows how long it will be until the winner is announced this time.

In 2020, The Associated Press declared President Joe Biden the winner on Saturday afternoon, four days after polls closed. But even then, the AP picked North Carolina for Trump 10 days after Election Day and Georgia for Biden 16 days later, after hand recounts.

Four years earlier, the 2016 election was decided just hours after most polls closed. The AP declared Trump the winner on election night at 2:29 a.m. (technically it was Wednesday morning on the East Coast).

This time, both campaigns believe the race is extremely close in the seven swing states expected to decide the election, barring one big surprise: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The size of the map and the closeness of the race make it difficult to predict when a winner might be declared.

Where can I find early clues about how the contest might play out?

Let’s look at two battleground states on the East Coast, North Carolina and Georgia, where results could come relatively quickly. That doesn’t mean we’ll get final results in those states quickly if the results are close, but they are the first swing states that could offer a glimpse of what kind of night we’re in for.

To dig deeper, look at the urban and suburban areas of the industrial north and southeast, where Democrats have made gains since 2020.

In North Carolina, Harris’ margins in Wake and Mecklenburg counties, home to the state capital, Raleigh, and the state’s largest city, Charlotte, respectively, will reveal how much Trump will need to squeeze out less populated rural areas. that has dominated. .

In Pennsylvania, Harris needs a big turnout in deep blue Philadelphia, but she is also looking to increase Democrats’ lead in the arc of suburban counties north and west of the city. He has campaigned aggressively in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties, where Biden improved on Clinton’s margins of victory in 2016. The Philadelphia metropolitan area, including the four collar counties, accounts for 43 percent of the Pennsylvania vote .

Elsewhere on the Blue Wall, Trump needs to curb Democratic growth in key suburban Michigan counties outside Detroit, especially Oakland County. He faces the same challenge in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, outside Milwaukee.

Where are the candidates?

Trump is likely to spend the early hours of Election Day in Michigan, where he plans to hold a final nighttime rally in Grand Rapids, as has become his tradition.

The Republican candidate plans to spend the rest of the day in Florida, where he is expected to vote in person, despite previously saying he would vote early. He plans to hold a campaign viewing party in Palm Beach on Tuesday night.

Harris plans to attend an election night party at Howard University in Washington, a historically black university where she graduated with degrees in economics and political science in 1986 and was an active member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Aside from Howard, he has not announced any public schedule for Election Day.

Harris said Sunday that she “just completed” her mail-in ballot and was “on her way to California.”

Who is left to show up on election day?

Ahead of Election Day, it is unclear which voters will show up to cast their ballots on Tuesday.

More than 77 million people participated in early voting, either in person or by mail. So many people have already voted that some officials say polls in states like Georgia could be a “ghost town” on Election Day.

One of the main reasons for the increase is that Trump has generally encouraged his supporters to vote early this time, unlike in 2020, when he asked Republicans to vote only in person on Election Day. Early voting numbers confirm that millions of Republicans have heeded Trump’s call in recent weeks.

The key question, however, is whether the increase in Republicans voting early this time will ultimately cannibalize the number of Republicans who will show up on Tuesday.

There are also changes on the Democratic side. Four years ago, as the pandemic persisted, Democrats overwhelmingly voted early. But this time, without the public health risk, more Democrats are likely to show up in person on Election Day.

That balance on both sides is essential as we try to understand the early results. And it’s up to the campaigns to know which voters still need to turn out on Tuesday. On that front, Democrats may have an advantage.

The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have outsourced much of their get-out-the-vote operation to outside groups, including one largely funded by billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk, which is facing new questions about its practices. Harris’ campaign, by contrast, is running a more traditional operation that has more than 2,500 paid employees and 357 offices in the battleground states alone.

Could there be riots?

Trump has been aggressively promoting baseless claims in recent days questioning the integrity of the election. He falsely insists that he can only lose if Democrats cheat, even though polls show the race is a real toss-up.

Trump could claim victory again on election night regardless of the results, just as he did in 2020.

Such rhetoric can have serious consequences, as the nation saw when Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 on one of the darkest days in modern American history. And unfortunately, there is still the potential for more violence this election season.

The Republican National Committee will have thousands of “election integrity” poll watchers on Tuesday looking for any signs of fraud, which critics fear could lead to harassment of voters or poll workers. At some key polling places, officials have requested the presence of sheriff’s deputies, along with bulletproof glass and panic buttons that connect election administrators to a local 911 dispatcher.

At the same time, Trump’s allies point out that he has faced two assassination attempts in recent months that raise the possibility of new threats against him. And police in Washington and other cities are preparing for the possibility of serious unrest on Election Day.

As always, it is worth noting that a broad coalition of senior government and industry officials, many of them Republicans, found the 2020 election to be the “most secure” in American history.”