index 134, 2016 Election Night Live Blog/Open Thread

Here’s the timing: Most of the US will have to wait for polling stations to close – typically between 19:00 EST (00:00 GMT) and 20:00 EST (01:00 GMT) – for state projections. As for the final result? Stay glued to your phone or TV or set your alarm for 23:00 EST (04:00 GMT). That’s when West Coast polls close and history suggests a winner’s declared. It was bang on the hour in 2008, and 15 minutes later in 2012. Of course, if you go further back in history, 2004 was a nailbiter. I remember very well going to bed after the Kerry campaign said they’d challenge the result based on Ohio, and getting up in the morning to find out they’d caved. And of course election 2000 was what it was. There will be many sites tracking the results as they come in; here’s Politico’s for the presidency (they also have the House and the Senate). It’s impossible to know which one is the best until data actually appears; I prefer maps with results as they come in by county. And speaking of counties… The final RCP averages put Clinton ahead in the national popular vote by 3.3%. However, with Trump ahead in Florida (0.02%), North Carolina (1%), and Clinton only ahead by 0.5% in New Hampshire, it still looks like a horse race, to me. (Of course, I may have become counter-suggestible to the idea that Clinton has it in the bag because almost the entire political class is yammering that she does.) Anyhow, if indeed this is a horse race — and if our famously free press doesn’t simply decide to call it — we’ll be up late waiting for county data in the states that are close (presumably swing states like Florida, North Carolina, and New Hampshire). So here is a table of the counties that various sources regard as key: