On Politics: Your guide to our election coverage

We're watching the polls closely, and will tell you what we know as quickly as possible.

View in browser|nytimes.com November 5, 2024 Voting in Woodstock, Ga., on Tuesday. Georgia is the first battleground state where polls will close, at 7 p.m. Nicole Craine for The New York Times Your guide to our election coverage By Jess Bidgood The latest, on Election Day Voters across the country are deciding control of the White House, Congress and more, with few problems reported at the polls so far. Former President Donald Trump and his allies are hurling insults at women as the race comes to an end. The country is bracing for foreign election threats, especially in swing states. It's here. It's time. The first battleground state polls are going to close in an hour. And while I don't know what is going to happen, I do know this: We are all going to figure it out together. I'm writing from the New York Times newsroom, where my colleagues have been working around the clock to bring you timely and accurate information about the election results. This morning, I explained what I'll be watching for. And now, I want to guide you through what you'll be seeing from us. We'll have a results map that will tell you when a state is called for former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris. And if you want to go deeper, we'll have a live coverage page where you can turn for real-time updates and analysis. Tonight, we'll have journalists on the ground in about 20 states. They'll be covering presidential battlegrounds and key down-ballot contests, and watching for complications or disruptions at the polls. We'll also have a team of nearly 100 journalists, engineers, statisticians, data experts and researchers working to deliver up-to-the-minute coverage of the results. That's where my colleague Wilson Andrews, the Times editor who oversees our presentation of election results, comes in. This morning, I called Wilson to ask him what to expect after polls close. Below are three key takeaways from our conversation. We'll bring you the early results — and the context you need to know. We'll start getting information from key battleground states early in the night. Polls close at 7 p.m. in Georgia and 7:30 p.m. in North Carolina. And we'll be reporting those results, and those from each and every state, as soon as we have them. But we want to do more than simply report the results, because a tranche of ballots from a deeply red or blue county might make one candidate momentarily appear way more likely to win a state than they actually are. We'll provide context, too, about what votes are still outstanding, where the candidates are under- or over-performing expectations and how that could change the picture. "The reported vote count has always been only a partial picture of what's happening in an election," Wilson told me. Will there be a Needle? If you are reading this, you're probably familiar with the Needle, a statistical model and visual display that analyzes both what we know about reported results and what's left to count, and offers a sense of what might be coming. We're planning to publish the Needle tonight. But the Needle relies on data from an array of local jurisdictions, as well as computer systems maintained by engineers across the company who are currently on strike. So, we'll publish when we know the data is flowing smoothly and our technical systems are stable. And whether the Needle is live on the home screen or not, Times journalists will be looking at the data we collect and using the statistical model to publish frequent updates about what we learn. We'll tell you what we know, when we know it. A national election is an enormous undertaking, one that unfolds across several time zones and thousands of jurisdictions. It can be very confusing, and all sorts of actors — from domestic partisans to foreign adversaries — want to stoke confusion. That's why we believe in putting out as much information as possible, as quickly as we can. Our live results page is a reflection of what we know in real time. "It's really important to us that our readers can also learn that with us," Wilson told me. So join us tonight, where my colleagues and I will bring you coverage of every twist and turn as this unpredictable election draws to a close. MORE POLITICS NEWS AND ANALYSIS Michelle Gustafson for The New York Times Despite Rampant Anxiety, Voting Begins Relatively Smoothly Early reports of problems at the polls on Tuesday were sparse and represented a mix of routine glitches and newer-style, foreign disinformation. By Nick Corasaniti and Jim Rutenberg Nick Hagen for The New York Times How Many Swing State Voters Are Turning Out for Election Day? Margins are expected to be slim, and in-person votes could be the key to a victory. Some polling places had long lines, while others moved voters quickly. By Vimal Patel and Stephanie Saul The New York Times Times Insider Election Night at The Times, Through the Decades The first presidential election The Times covered was in 1852. Things have changed a lot since the days of typewriters and motographs — see how, in archival images from decades past. By Emmett Lindner Kenny Holston/The New York Times Harris's Plans for Black Men Aim to Avoid the Setbacks Biden Faced In the fine print, Vice President Kamala Harris's agenda for Black men "and others" is an effort to avoid political and legal obstacles if she is elected. By Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Alan Rappeport Nick Hagen for The New York Times These 8 Counties Could Hint at Where the Election Is Headed While the nation awaits statewide results after the polls close on Election Day, a number of counties could offer insight into whether different demographic groups are voting for Kamala Harris or Donald J. Trump. By Maggie Astor and Nate Cohn Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you're enjoying what you're reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. Try four weeks of complimentary access to The Tilt Nate Cohn, The Times's chief political analyst, makes sense of the latest political data. Get it in your inbox Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for On Politics from The New York Times. To stop receiving On Politics, unsubscribe. 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