WSJ What’s News - U.S. Presidency, House and Senate Up for Grabs as a Divided Nation Votes

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

P.M. Edition for Nov. 5. A closer look at what could be the most surprising presidential election ever. WSJ reporters Siobhan Hughes and Katy Stech Ferek tell us about the U.S. Senate and House races to watch. Dante Chinni explains how votes in seven counties might offer some clues to the election result. Plus, markets reporter Sam Goldfarb discusses how the markets moved as the ballots rolled in. Tracie Hunte hosts. Here’s our hour-by-hour guide to Election Day. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Snakes, zombies, public speaking, the list of fears is endless. But the real danger is in your hand when you're behind the wheel. Distracted driving is what's really scary and even deadly. Eyes forward, don't drive distracted. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. American voters head to the polls in what might be one of the most surprising presidential elections ever. We're in the middle of a realignment. Voters are moving from one party to another.

And we're not really sure of even what the composition of the electorate's going to look like tonight. And control of the House and Senate is also hanging in the balance. Plus, the stock market moves as the ballots roll in. It's Tuesday, November 5, Election Day. I'm Tracy Hunt for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

We're just a few hours from polls closing in the US, as a turbulent, narrowly divided election season is nearing a conclusion. The heavily divided election season is nearing a conclusion. Abortion, immigration, and inflation dominated the talking points of Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump in a race that also featured a candidate swap and two assassination attempts. attempts. Trump casts his ballot midday in Palm Beach, Florida, not far from where he'll watch election results tonight.

Shortly before he voted, reporters asked the former president if he was feeling anxious. I feel very confident. I have felt, you know, we went in with a very big lead today and it looks like Republicans have shown up in force. Harris cast her ballot in California, voting by mail, and she did a series of radio interviews in battleground states. Speaking on The Big Tigger Morning Show on V103,

Harris said the election comes at an inflection point for America. This is a moment where we have two very different visions of the future of our nation. And mine is focused on progress. Mine is focused on investing in the ambitions and the aspirations and the dreams of the American people. Harris is set to host a watch party tonight at her alma mater, Howard University in D.C. With voting underway, there have been a few issues at polling sites. The Federal Bureau of Investigation indicated that Russia may be responsible for a wave

of non-credible bomb threats at polling locations in several states. Georgia Governor Brad Raffensperger accused Russia of trying to undermine the election. They're up to mischief, it seems, and they don't want us to have a smooth, fair and accurate election. And everything they can get us to fight among ourselves, they can count that as a victory. So that tells you a little bit about the Russians. They're not our friends. Anyone that thinks they are hasn't been reading the newspapers. Elsewhere, long waits were reported at some polling stations, and one Pennsylvania county extended voting by two hours after scanners malfunctioned. It's not only the race for the White House.

Also up for grabs today? Control of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Democrats have a slim 51- 49 majority in the Senate, but our congressional reporter Siobhan Hughes says Republicans believe they can overtake them. It's a very favorable map for Republicans. They have far more pickup opportunities than Democrats. Democrats do have a pathway to victory, and while confident would be overstating it, there is a sliver of hope here. Both parties view the Senate races as moving very much in tandem with the presidential races, especially in battlegrounds

like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, for sure. And so whoever wins the presidential contest is likely to drag the contestant of their own party across the finish line. Also, it's worth watching in that subset of states, the Blue Wall states, the Michigan, the Wisconsin, the Pennsylvania, because those are real barriers for Republicans and they are guardrails for Democrats who are trying to really keep a Republican tide from washing over them. In the House, it's Republicans who have a slight majority, 220 to 212. My colleague Katie Stachverk says the races to watch are in New York and California.

There are a ton on the map. There's more than two dozen races that political analysts have been looking at for the last few months that are really tight. A lot of them are clustered in New York and California, though. That's where we have a handful of vulnerable Republicans, especially some freshmen who've only been there for two years. In California, we're looking at the Republicans to see whether Dem challengers get a bump from the enthusiasm for Harris in her home state. New York was really surprising two years ago. A handful of Republican lawmakers won their seats in a big surprise.

So we're watching to see if voters who've seen them take votes on whether or not to impeach Biden administration leaders or hold them in contempt, whether they were happy with the way that they voted in Congress and whether they've pulled further to the right than what they anticipated. Wall Street, meanwhile, is placing its final bets over who will take over the White House. Sam Goldfarb is a WSJ Markets reporter and he joins us now. who will take over the White House. factors beyond just the election. but maybe especially look under the hood of the broader stock market, certain sectors might be election-sensitive, such as clean energy stocks could do better if Harris wins, worse if Trump wins.

Bank stocks are seen as maybe benefiting from a Trump win versus a Harris win. So what are the other outcomes that investors are also looking at, besides just the race between Harris and Trump? This election goes beyond just the White House. The control of Congress is also up for grabs. So if there were one party control, so if Trump were to win and Republicans were to maintain control of the House and take control of the Senate, every Trump trade would just get an extra bit of juice there, likely. On the flip side, if there were a Democratic sweep, that could also lead to higher deficits than if there was a split between Harris winning the White House, but

Republicans having control in Congress. If Republicans had control of Congress, they could maybe block some of her legislation, spending increases and the like. Sam Goldfarb is a markets reporter for The Wall Street Journal. The stock market turns in a buoyant performance on Election Day. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite closed at 1.4%. The S&P 500 added 1.2%, while the Dow moved percent, or 427 points higher. Coming up, a closer look at how we will be tallying the votes tonight, and the counties to watch as the results roll in.

That's after the break. The polls will start closing in a few hours, but the beauty and agony of election day is that the polls will actually close nine times tonight, depending on the state. The first big batch of states—Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia—close their polls at 7 p.m. Eastern. The very last poll—Adak, Alaska, which closes at 1 a.m. Eastern. Pace yourself. It's gonna be a long night. But you can keep up with the results on wsj.com.

We've left in the show notes a link to an hour-by-hour guide to election night. We'll be relying on the Associated Press for vote counts tonight and in the days and weeks that follow. That means when the AP declares a winner in a race or a state, we will too. So how does the AP do it? We asked our reporter, Jack Gillum. Voting reporters manually record in many cases the current vote count and send it into the AP. On the other end, the AP employees take that data, compare it with what these different

county websites are saying, just to error check it. And then that data goes to a group of analysts who then look at how close those voting numbers are. They'll use modeling, they'll use other sorts of data to be able to say, is there a path that this candidate can win? And is there any other way in which their opponent could possibly catch up in the vote count? And if the answer is no for the latter, then they're able to call a winner.

This can be a very slow and frustrating process. That's by design in many ways, because while we all want to be able to see who the winner is going to be, we also want to make sure that it's the correct call. While many news outlets also rely on the AP, some television networks have their own process. So you might see different vote counts at slightly different times. Of course, you can follow the state of the presidential race in our live blog on wsj.com.

And although we might not know the results of the presidential race for some time, some counties may offer clues. Our reporter, Dante Chinni, has been looking closely at Hernando County in Florida, Cobb in Georgia, Anson in North Carolina, Fayette in Pennsylvania, McComb in Michigan, Milwaukee in Wisconsin, and Travis County in Texas. So Dante, what do these counties have in common that makes them interesting? It's really what they don't have in common, right? Each one of these counties kind of represents

a different slice of the electorate that we're really interested in watching on election night. So for instance, Hernando County is a way for us to watch a big 65 plus population, so a lot of seniors in that community. Cobb County is kind of a wealthy urban suburban area, so well-educated, diverse, and a densely populated suburb of Atlanta.

Anson is kind of the rural black vote, which goes around throughout the South, but we're looking at it specifically in North Carolina right there. Fayette is a way to measure Trump's kind of support among rural whites, which is a crucial part of his voting block. McComb in Michigan is a way of looking at the other really important block for Donald Trump, which is blue collar suburban vote around the industrial Midwest. That's how he wins in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. Milwaukee is a way to look at the big city vote and see if Harris is hitting her numbers

there. And then Travis is way of looking at the college vote. So Travis is home to Austin and University of Texas. And we're trying to get an understanding if Democrats are hitting their margins in those college towns and if they're getting the turnout they need. So what will you be watching tonight? A lot of people like looking at bellwethers and swing counties, and I do too, and I'm going to look at those tonight.

I think they're very important. But this election has been very strange. It appears when we look at some of the data from these polls that we're in the middle of a realignment, voters are moving from one party to another. And we're not really sure of even what the composition of the electorate is going to look like tonight. So these things that are normally thought of as swing counties may swing one way, but those votes are actually made up for what really are base votes coming out of these different places.

That's why I'm going to be watching the swing counties too. But just as important is Trump hanging his numbers in Macomb, is Harris hitting her numbers in Milwaukee. Those things could be more telling than what we think of as the swing counties. That was WSJ reporter Dante Chinni. And finally, in other news today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fired his defense minister, Yoav Galant. It comes after months of public disagreement between the two over how to fight the wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Galant has publicly challenged Netanyahu for not making a plan for Gaza's long-term

governance and for not prioritizing a deal to free the hostages held by Hamas. His ouster could have broad effects on the wars and U.S. efforts to end them. In response to the news, thousands of protesters flooded into streets in Israel, gathering outside Tel Aviv's military headquarters and in other cities across the country. And that's what's news for this Tuesday afternoon. Today's show was produced by Anthony Bansi and Pierre Bienneme with supervising producer Michael Kosmitis. Additional sound today courtesy of the Associated Press and Reuters.

I'm Tracy Hunt for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.