The NPR Politics Podcast - What To Watch For On Election Night

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

More than 40 million Americans have already cast ballots in the 2022 midterms, but be prepared: results may not come quickly Tuesday night. We take a look at what races could serve as bellwethers for either Republicans or Democrats. This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, voting correspondent Miles Parks, and senior political editor & correspondent Domenico Montanaro.Support the show and unlock sponsor-free listening with a subscription to The NPR Politics Podcast Plus. Learn more at plus.npr.org/politics Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Thomas from Atlanta, and I'm on my way to my mom's house in Alabama to celebrate her 70th birthday with her this weekend. This podcast was recorded at 1.36 p.m. Eastern on Monday, the 7th of November. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but one thing's for sure, my mom is going to be surprised by this watermelon cake I have dreamed up for her. Let's just hope it turns out the way that I imagined. All right, here's the show. Well, that took a turn. Watermelon cake? Does it taste like watermelon or just look like a watermelon? Is it a cut watermelon?

Is it a piece of watermelon? Is it a whole green watermelon? We're going to need follow-up. Hey there, it's the NPR politics podcast on this election eve. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And tomorrow is election day. It is here, but already 41.1 million people have voted, according to the U.S. Elections Project. But just to set expectations here, even though voting ends tomorrow, we might not know the final results, at least in some races, for quite a while, which is to say that like pumpkin spice, election day is now a season.

That's pretty good. Pumpkin spice isn't a season. That's your opinion, Domenico. Keep that to yourself. Pumpkin spice comes in the season. Nope, it's a full season. It extends from late summer to early winter. So we will get to the pure politics in the second half of the pod. But first, Miles, let's talk about voting. You know, it's something that most of us didn't think all that much about, but has now in itself become extremely contentious. It has. And I mean, it's also happening more often earlier than it ever has before in a midterm. You know, I just want to be clear. I feel like we say

unprecedented a lot, I feel like on this podcast the last few years. But, you know, the early vote landscape has changed and probably has changed forever. You know, this is you know, you think about 10, 20 years ago, it used to be more than 70 percent, more than 80 percent of voters voted in person on Election Day. And we're probably never going to see that again. And what do we know about the people who are voting early? Yeah, I mean, we definitely are still seeing what we saw in 2020, which is that former President Trump spent a lot of time pushing misinformation, frankly, about vote by mail security and telling Republican voters that they needed to vote in person and in some cases needed to vote in person on Election Day. And so we're seeing we saw a result of that in 2020 when we saw a massive divide in Democrats voting by mail, whereas Republicans generally prefer to vote in person.

And we're still seeing that, you know, to a lesser extent this year, but we are seeing it in a number of states. Pennsylvania is a good example where Democrats are outnumbering Republicans in the mail vote by more than three to one. Domenico, we often hear these terms blue shift or red mirage related to what it looks like when the votes are being counted. So what do those mean? Early on in the night in some places, Pennsylvania, for example, you might see some early vote that comes in that shows Democrats slightly ahead. Then you're going to have the red mirage where you get a lot of the in-person voting because Republicans are expected to more overwhelmingly vote on election day, where it looks like Republicans are expected to more overwhelmingly vote on Election Day where it looks like Republicans are ahead.

And then the margin could shrink more so later in the evening because of some of the mail-in vote that's come in and takes longer to count. So there's nothing unusual about that. There's nothing nefarious about that. That's exactly how things are supposed to go because of the different ways and ballots and things to count. Also, Philadelphia County takes a lot longer to count their results. It's a big point to make to remind people that every state has different laws about the vote counting process, which is I think people can be really confused when they see, you know, very quickly, all the mail ballots will be counted in Florida almost right after polls close,

whereas in Pennsylvania, it's going to take days and people can be really confused by that. But it's because in Pennsylvania, election officials legally can't even start processing those mail ballots until on Election Day, whereas in a lot of other states, including Florida, they could do a lot of that work before Election Day and have those ballots kind of just ready to go. And the reason for that is because states run elections and sometimes local jurisdictions running their elections below that. So you end up with different rules in different places. So we have vote by mail. We have in-person early voting. Domenico, is there anything that we can gather about voter enthusiasm, I think we can gather from a lot of different data points. I think that we've seen it in polling throughout the year that people are more enthusiastic about this election than they have been in past years, especially on the Republican side. Then Democrats got a huge boost on enthusiasm post the Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe in this country, where Democrats were much further down than they are now enthusiasm-wise. And all of that has led to the potential for record-setting turnout this election season. And then now you look at the early voting data, which is actual votes, votes coming in, and you can see that these are surpassing margins in past years. And that's all, again, pointing to record-setting

midterm turnout. The one caveat I would put into all of this is to not read into the results of early voting that we're seeing because not only is it that Democrats have been overwhelmingly voting early or have been indicating that they would, but this is the first election post-pandemic where mail voting and early voting, a lot of these processes for voting are new or more widely accepted. So we just don't have a lot of history on the voting trends for this. And I would just tell everyone to pump the brakes. Don't expect you know what's going to happen and wait for the results to come in. All right, we are going to take a quick break. And when we get back, what to watch for as election results come in.

And we're back. And Miles, as I understand it, already there are lawsuits out there related to absentee ballots or vote by mail. This election is already being litigated. Yeah, and I think it's worth saying, Tam, that, you know, it's not unusual. Every election cycle, there are arguments over the rules leading up to the election. We saw a lot of lawsuits in 2020 because rules were shifting so quickly around that election. And we've seen that our voting team here is watching, is a legal battle in Pennsylvania about mail ballots, where basically the question is, Pennsylvania law says that your ballot needs to have a date on it. You need to sign it and date it. And there are a number of people, thousands of people, who've turned in their mail ballots on time, but did not include the date. And so there is a question going back and forth through the courts right now over whether these ballots, these mail ballots that were turned in on time but don't

include dates, should they count or not? Republicans generally have been arguing, no, do not count these ballots, whereas Democrats are arguing, yes. These are ballots that are literally received before Election Day, so they're not late. No, they're not late, but they just don't follow the law to a T. The law specifically says that the mail ballots need to be signed and dated, and they don't kind of follow the law to the T. And that may look like, you know, Republicans are trying to discount a lot of votes that may lean Democratic, for example. But I would say that there's a difference between what the RNC is doing in these lawsuits, which is they're perfectly able to do. And then if a judge decides, you know, they have to accept that result. There's a difference between that and then some of these other election denying candidates and former

President Trump saying that the election had been stolen, for example, with absolutely no evidence. And when courts have overturned those things or said that that's actually not the case. So, you know, I think there's a fine line and a difference between, you know, going to court, you have every right to go to court, look for recounts, look for some of these technicalities, let's say, but accepting what a judge might say is all part of the natural process. And Miles, I want to turn to something that you will be watching on election night, I believe you will. It's something that has featured prominently in President Biden's closing argument as this election draws near. As I spoke about a few days ago, democracy is literally on the ballot. I've been making this

case since I ran. You know, there are more than 300 Republican candidates for state, local and federal office who are election deniers, who say that I did not win the election, even though the hundreds of attempts to challenge that have all failed, even in Republican courts. So Miles, he's talking about election deniers. There are a lot of them running for office that you are paying attention to, in part because they are, in some cases, running for jobs that would have them overseeing election administration. Yeah. And there's specifically three states that I'm going to be watching closely tomorrow and through the rest of the week because

there are election deniers running to oversee voting in critical swing states, Arizona, Nevada, and Michigan. These are people who are closely aligned with former President Trump's ideas about the 2020 election, have all said that they think the 2020 election was stolen, and that they want to make changes to the voting system. Okay, let's turn to the politics. Here's what we know about the election. There are not that many competitive House and Senate races, but those that are competitive are really competitive. And several key races that could decide control of the Senate certainly are true toss-ups. So it could truly come down to a single seat.

And here's another little bit of information. Historically, the party out of power does well in the midterms. This year, that would be the Republicans. In 17 of the 19 midterm elections that have happened in President Biden's lifetime, the sitting president's party has lost seats during the midterm elections. But this has not been an entirely normal year. Domenico, let's start with the House of Representatives. What are you watching to give you a sign early in the night about how things are going?

Well, we know Republicans only need five seats to flip to pick up the House. And there are some seats early on in the evening with states that close early, places like Indiana and Virginia, that have a couple of key House races that I'm going to be watching. Indiana's first congressional district, for example, Frank Mervan is the incumbent Democrat there, and he is facing a difficult challenge. This is a race that leans toward Democrats. Biden would have won it in 2020 after redistricting. But if he's really having a difficult time and seems down, that could be an indication of a fairly sizable wave coming. Also looking at three districts in Virginia, Virginia's 2nd, 7th, and 10th districts. The 2nd district has Elaine Luria in it. She's on the January 6th committee.

And if she's going down pretty close to poll close time, it's also probably going to look like a bit of a GOP wave. All right. And on the Senate side, there are these states we just keep talking about, and there's a reason. Those races are close. So which states are you watching to see whether it's like an ocean wave or a bay wave or some other kind of disturbance of the water kind of night? Interesting you mentioned bay because we might be going up toward New England with one of the races that I think we should probably be keeping an eye on for the Senate. And that's the New Hampshire Senate race, which has been a little sleepy of late because Republicans did not get

the candidate that they wanted to run against Democrat Maggie Hassan. They've got retired Brigadier Army General Don Baldock. And if Baldock is ahead, it is likely pointing to a big night for Republicans in the Senate because all the expectations have been leading up to election night that Maggie Hassan would be winning re-election. So that's one to look for. Pennsylvania is obviously the key election that everyone's looking at, but we're probably not going to know the result early on. That's probably going to go on for quite some time. Philadelphia, as we said earlier, takes a long time to count their votes. So probably going to be heading late into the evening. But that is really Pennsylvania is

really the key race. Democrats really need to win three of four races in Pennsylvania and Georgia in the east and Nevada and Arizona out west. Let's, as we close out, just talk about what it'll be like for regular voters, people who are voting on Election Day tomorrow. What is Election Day going to look like in America? Do you want the good news or the bad news? Where do you want to start? Let's start with the bad news. Bad news is that there probably tomorrow on Election Day is going to be an air of suspicion over a lot of polling places.

We have moved into a place where many Republican voters do not trust their local election officials. Pew Research Center found 39 percent of GOP voters say they have a lot of confidence in their local poll workers. That's compared to 60 percent of GOP voters who said the same thing just four years ago. So there's going to be an air of suspicion in a lot of precincts just for your local election officials, which is going to create something of a powder keg. The good news, though, I would say that we are going to see a very busy election day tomorrow. You know, more than half of Republican voters say they want to vote on election day, And more than a third of Democratic voters say they want to vote on election day. And

I think part of that is because COVID took all of these very community oriented events away from society for the last two and a half years. And I think a lot of people are really hungry to get back out there and show that this is kind of a civic act of importance for Americans. People out there getting their I voted stickers, seeing their neighbors. I mean, this really is the first election where people are really largely going to be able to do that. I mean, there was such a cloud over the 2020 election from an ability to vote standpoint, because of how much people had to scramble with mail voting and getting those votes in. So being able to kind of go out there, be able to do that on election day, and it's going to take a long time to count.

So just be patient out there. Which leads me to our close today, which is that we will be back in your feeds late tomorrow night, East Coast time with our big takeaways from the early returns on election night. And then we will have more coverage all throughout the week as things become even clearer as days go on. You should also listen to us on the radio. You can tune in at NPR.org, use an old-fashioned radio, or ask your smart speaker to play NPR. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank

you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.