From the swing states to Arab voters, here are the major elections storylines to know.
Good morning, and welcome to election week! Tens of millions of people have already cast their ballots early, with tens of millions more bound for the polls tomorrow as Americans decide whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump will be the next US president.
Between the presidential election, congressional races, and ballot measures, there’s a lot at stake in this election, from the economy to women’s health care to civil rights to the future for immigrants and their families. If you’re feeling particularly unnerved going into the week, be sure to check out our story on the unique dread that is political anxiety and how you can cope with it. This story was first featured in the Today, Explained newsletter
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And follow Today Explained all week as we bring election results and analysis straight to your inbox, and our writers break down what the news means for the nation and for you.
But first, we’re setting the stage with a preview of the themes, races, and storylines that our politics and policy team will be looking at closely throughout the week.
Andrew Prokop, senior politics correspondent
I’ve been watching with growing alarm how Trump and the people around him are voicing certainty that he will win — and that, if he loses, it will mean the election was rigged. What I wonder is just how mobilized his supporters would end up being in the event of a narrow Harris win, just how far they’d go. As I wrote last week, there are some procedural and legal reasons to expect a Trump electoral challenge would be even less successful in 2024 than it was in 2020, but there is a real risk that ends up mattering less than force and partisanship.
Patrick Reis, senior politics and ideas editor
I’m curious to see how the vote breaks down among young men, particularly young men who are voting in their first election. While Kamala Harris does better with younger voters overall thanks to a massive advantage among young women, the New York Times/Siena College polls have found Donald Trump winning among young men overall (58 percent to 37 percent). There’s a reason Trump and JD Vance both went on Joe Rogan’s podcast — which is massively popular, especially among young men — and why Tim Walz appeared on a World of Warcraft Twitch stream. The campaigns are trying to find these voters where they are.
