We know a lot of you will be plugged into the news today, and until results start to roll in this evening, there will be plenty of election anxiety to go around.
We can’t make 7 p.m. come any faster, but we can call in an expert to talk about what to be on the lookout for throughout the day.
Mark Hand is a professor of political science at the University of Texas at Arlington, and he said before the polls close he will be keeping an eye on allegations of voter fraud.
“I’m not so much watching for voter fraud itself. That’s really rare. But I’m watching to see what claims of fraud Republicans make,” Hand said. “Elon Musk, a recent immigrant to Texas, has really the world’s largest megaphone on X, and he’s been amplifying claims of fraud that have been proven untrue. That could lead to slowdowns in many counties, maybe in red states, maybe in blue states.
There’s also the possibility of violence. And I don’t expect that to happen until later tonight, if it does. But I’ll be watching to see – particularly on right wing news sites, conservative news outlets – what narrative develops, and how the narrative develops over the course of the day.”
» LIVE ELECTION RESULTS: Keep up with the latest numbers after polls close
After polls close, Hand said he will turn his attention to early voting returns in key swing states.
“I’ll be watching for early returns in the first swing states. Georgia is at 6 p.m. central time, and North Carolina closes at 6:30. I’m also interested in watching Virginia at 6 p.m., and then Florida at 7 p.m. Florida in particular counts votes really quickly,” he said. “And so I’ll be watching to see how Donald Trump and Kamala Harris do relative to expectations there.
So the polling averages have Trump up about six. But I’ll be curious to see, does he overperform or underperform? That is a clue and I’ll be watching it in the same places everybody else — the Fox News decision desk and The New York Times live updates, The Associated Press and the Texas Tribune.”
Hand said he also has a special interest in the results coming out of Tarrant County this election cycle, since he feels Tarrant County is something of a bellwether for the rest of Texas.
“A lot of Texans vote really early and so we might get some results sooner than some other states. So we may have a good sense of where the Senate race between Colin Allred and Ted Cruz lands. And then if Allred really outperforms expectations, his coattails could extend down into the Supreme Court and the court of appeals, which are elected statewide,” he said.
“Tarrant County actually looks a lot more like a battleground state than Texas does. So it’s going to be a very close race. It’s gone back and forth in the last couple of cycles at the presidential, the gubernatorial and the senatorial level. And the trends in Tarrant County will reflect and shape where Texas is headed in future election cycles.”
» RELATED: When will Texas election results come in? Here’s how the process unfolds.
In addition to the Senate race in Texas, Hand is curious to see what the breakdown of the Texas state House will be next session.
“The Republicans will, in all likelihood, control the Texas Senate and the Texas House. But Democrats are hoping to peel off just enough seats to stymie Greg Abbott’s push for his school vouchers plan in the legislative session in 2025,” Hand said.
“By some estimates, the Democrats need to peel off at least three or four seats in order to have enough votes to align with mostly rural Republicans that are against school vouchers in order to stop that push. And so whether or not the Democrats down ballot can do that will really shape the next Texas legislative cycle and how conservative it becomes.”
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Lastly, Hand said he expects voting returns to follow a pattern sometimes called the “red mirage” and the “blue shift.”
“States count votes in different ways, but in many states, what happens is that smaller counties will be able to get their returns in early just because there are fewer voters there. And so because smaller counties tend to lean Republican, it should look at the beginning like Republicans have a pretty commanding lead,” he said.
“That then sort of evaporates as large, more Democratic-leaning counties come in. And so pundits have started calling that the ‘red mirage’ and the ‘blue shift.’ It caught a lot of people by surprise in 2020. And I think we should expect to see that again.”
