For more 2024 election coverage from the NPR Network, visit our live updates page.

How much could happen in such a short time?

The month between the first presidential debate and the Democratic National Convention was perhaps the most jaw-dropping in modern American politics — from President Biden’s disastrous debate performance, to an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, to Biden’s departure shortly after the Republican convention and Vice President Harris is quickly consolidating support among Democrats.

For the better part of a year, perhaps longer, this was a race between two very well-known candidates: Trump and Biden. But Harris’ arrival turned all that upside down. Enthusiasm among Democrats shot through the roof, based in part on relief that Biden was no longer running and the sense that they had a fresh start.

But after a brutal month of attacks from Trump, his campaign and outside groups supporting him, the race has tightened, according to the polls. Democratic strategists worry that Trump will win — possibly easily — if the election mistakes of 2016 and 2020 are repeated.

There were also voting errors in 2022, but they underestimated the support of the Democrats rather than that of the Republicans. Trump, of course, was not present during the midterm elections, and his most ardent supporters usually show up in much larger numbers when he is.

No one knows exactly what will happen. More than 70 million people have already voted early, and more than double what is likely yet to be released and counted. If the states are as close as expected, it could take days before a winner is declared. Only in 2020 did the Associated Press, which follows NPR for calls, make the call Saturday after election day.

In that void before a race call, Trump will likely declare victory and call out fraud. He has actually been doing that for four years, and he set the stage for it in the final days of the campaign.

The uncertainty reflects a resulting election, not just for it the president, but also for those who control Congress.

Republicans are favored to win the Senate, while the House is up for grabs

A president without full control of Washington’s political power has virtually no chance of passing major legislation, so the outcomes of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives are all critical.

Democrats are facing one of the worst Senate plans for any party in modern political history. Republicans are expected to gain control of the House, needing to win only two seats if they lose the White House, and one if Trump wins (because a vice president would cut ties). Republicans are already favored to flip two seats — in West Virginia and Montana, Republicans said Cook political report.

Loading…

There are another half-dozen competitive seats that could reflect how the presidential election is going in those states, including Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada. Democrats hope to make Texas and Florida competitive, but that’s still too far.

How many Senate seats Republicans can capture could be critical to how long Democrats remain in the minority — and whether they have a chance of winning back the chamber in two years.

According to forecasters like Within elections.

For control, the Democrats need a net gain of four seats. Within elections sees a possible set of Democrats gaining a net nine seats, while Republicans gaining a net one seat. So for the first time this cycle, the Democrats have a small advantage.

It would be unusual for the House of Representatives and the Senate to move in opposite directions, especially in a presidential year. Yet it happened. Four times since 1934The party of a winning presidential candidate lost seats in the Senate and gained in the House of Representatives, but that hasn’t happened since 1984.

During that same time frame, the to lose party in the presidential elections won twice in the House of Representatives, but lost seats in the Senate. In fact, Republicans did just that in 2020, gaining thirteen seats in the House of Representatives but losing three in the Senate when Biden won the White House.

In the presidential election, who most represents “change” could be a decisive factor

Change is a powerful force in politics, but according to pre-election polls, Americans appear divided over which candidate represents the most change in this election.

Trump has the advantage of not being president at a time when people are pessimistic about prices, immigration and American foreign policy.

Harris is the sitting vice president, but she represents change for many people, in part because she is younger than Biden and not Trump; she would also be the first woman, the first black woman and the first person of South Asian descent to become president.

Americans are in a bad mood – and have been for a while

Winning the mantle of “change” is especially important when people are so pessimistic about the country’s direction.

Every month for the last 15 yearsAmericans have said the country is led on the wrong track. That has had a profound effect on the American elections. People are more jaded about politics – and their effectiveness – than ever before.

Americans have almost all-time low levels of trust in the government and its institutions, including health agencies, law enforcement agencies, the Supreme Court, and the media.

It’s happening at a time when Americans are also more socially and politically sorted — in the neighborhoods they live in and in the information they consume. “Place,” where a person lives, can be even more influential than race, gender, and ethnic identity in how people vote.

Voters in both parties see threats from the other side to their way of life and to what it means to be American. Conservatives see a culture that is too liberal, weak and encouraging. They see a country whose best days are behind it and whose culture and way of life have deteriorated since the 1950s.

In contrast, people on the left see the rights of women, the marginalized, and democracy itself as threatened by leaders who have given permission for intolerance and conspiracy.

When people are in a bad mood, they tend to blame those responsible, and that has certainly been the case with the economy and immigration. Despite strong signs of economic recovery since the pandemic, Americans are feeling the pressure of food prices and interest rates that are higher than before the pandemic. The cost of living has risen and housing has become less affordable.

Many Americans are also concerned about the number of migrants crossing the U.S. southern border. All of that has presented challenges for Harris — just as it did before Biden. It has led to a clear advantage for Trump on these two issues.

Harris, on the other hand, has a bigger advantage on women’s reproductive rights, and the gender gap in this election could be the largest in US history.

Trump faces significant character challenges

Trump has turned American politics upside down over the past decade. Things that Republicans would never have pushed for in recent decades, Trump has convinced his followers are the way forward: less intervention abroad; a reduced commitment to allies; more trade barriers; a softer line towards Russia; praise for dictators and strongmen.

His inflammatory rhetoric and race-based grievances have polarized the country. Views of Trump have changed little since he burst onto the political scene. For years, more than half the country has said it has an unfavorable opinion of him.

But he has a loyal – and seemingly unwavering – base of support. He has what is known in politics as ‘a high floor and a low ceiling’. He received about 46% of the vote in 2016 when he won, and 47% of the vote in 2020 when he lost.

His presence in Republican politics has meant that anyone seeking a party nomination for almost any office must get his blessing, but negative views of him among many suburban and swing voters have resulted in Republican losses in election cycle after election cycle.

He lost the popular vote by 3 million votes in 2016 and by 7 million in 2020. It is possible that Trump wins this year and becomes the first person to win twice while losing the popular vote twice. (He could win the popular vote this time, however, as Harris’ lead in national polls is much smaller than Hillary Clinton’s in 2016 or Biden’s in 2020.)

Because the Electoral College — and swing states that are more conservative than the country as a whole, with higher percentages of Republican-leaning white voters without college degrees, especially in the Blue Wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — Trump was able to win. 2016 and only narrowly loses in 2020 by only tens of thousands of votes.

Loading…

These elections are again expected to be very close and decided by only a handful of states. In addition to these Blue Wall states, four Sun Belt states take center stage: North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. The reality of the map is that Trump cannot win without winning any of the Blue Wall states, and Harris cannot win without winning any of the states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina or Georgia.

The crossroads between their paths is Pennsylvania, which explains why the campaigns have spent $600 million on political ads since the start of the 2024 cycle to try to win there. As much as $1.2 billion has been spent in the state on ads for all races combined, including for the Senate, House of Representatives and down the ballot. It’s the most money ever spent on one state.

The polarization will not end with election night

Harris has tried to make Trump’s words and actions part of her own message this campaign — to remind voters of what she sees as a threat to democracy.

While that may convince the moderate Republicans she is courting, Trump’s base is locked down, despite his baseless claims that the criminal charges against him are politically motivated, or his insistence that the 2020 election was stolen, a lie that has helped fuel the violent siege on the Republican Party. US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Republicans are now more likely to say the country needs a “strong leader,” compared to Democrats, who say it is paramount to have a leader who is “honest and trustworthy,” according to a recent poll from NPR/PBS News/Marist.

Republicans are also more likely to say that the country needs a leader who will break the rules to make things right, and 1 in 3 believe that “patriots may have to resort to violence to save our country.” That alone has increased since the January 6 attack.

All of that has led to a divisive and polarizing presidential election that could have gone either way — and a post-election period when many worried about the path forward, especially as the integrity of U.S. elections has set the country apart from others. all over the world.

Copyright 2024 NPR