What to watch for on Election Day

It’s decision day in America’s battle for the White House and control of Congress — even if the results could take days or weeks to sort through.

It’s decision day in America’s battle for the White House and control of Congress – even if the results could take days or weeks to sort through. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are battling over seven swing states: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the three Great Lakes states that make up the “blue wall” that Trump cracked in 2016 but President Joe Biden carried in 2020, and Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, the four Sun Belt battlegrounds. If Harris wins, she would make history, becoming the first woman, first Asian American and first Black woman to win the presidency. A Trump victory would also be historic: He’d join Grover Cleveland as the only presidents to serve non-consecutive terms. He would do so after becoming the only president ever impeached twice, and the only former president ever convicted of felony crimes. There is much more being decided Tuesday, including five states – Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota – voting on whether to turn back abortion bans with constitutional amendments. Republicans hope to take advantage of a favorable Senate map, with Democrats defending seats in the red-leaning states of Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. The party’s hopes of holding onto its narrow House majority winds from the coast of Maine through New York’s Hudson Valley, the rolling hills of Virginia’s Piedmont, a “blue dot” in Nebraska and into California’s Orange County, where the political ebbs and flows of the Trump era have been on vivid display. The initial results in the hours after polls close might not be determinative. States decide their own election procedures, and the order in which states count early, mail-in and Election Day votes varies across the map – as does how quickly certain cities, counties and regions report their results.