While We Await Results

Eight clusters of questions to think about as we twiddle our thumbs through what is bound to feel like an interminable Election Day 2024

Left: Former president Donald Trump hosted a campaign event at Windham High School in Windham, New Hampshire on Tuesday, August 8, 2023. (John Tully for The Washington Post via Getty Images) Right: Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event at Resorts World hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 9, 2024. (Photo by Bridget Bennett for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Journalists often talk about July and August as the “summer doldrums,” a reference to the ocean near the equator, where the weather is often calm-to-stagnant, with light breezes and few large storms. The idea being that lots of people are on vacation at the height of the summer, leading the news cycle to be abnormally quiet.

But this, my friends—the roughly 12 hours before the first election results start pouring in—is the true doldrums for political analysts like myself.

Tuesday will be a difficult day for me. I’ll get up, vote, workout, and then sit staring at my laptop for hours, knowing full well that no one knows anything about how the day is going to end. Then, around 5pm, the first early exit polls will be released, and I will know that they will be almost completely worthless because their results won’t include people who haven’t voted yet, they will be dominated by those who voted early in the day, and they won’t yet be weighted to the full results of the election—and yet I will pour over them like tea leaves for the next hour or so, because I will have nothing else to do and be craving knowledge I don’t and can’t have until a few hours later.

It's silly, I know: What will be will be. The outcome is out of my hands. I should just distract myself for the day with some other activity to pass the time. But for those of you like me, who will find it difficult to put political thoughts out of your mind, here are a few questions, on top of the $64,000 question of who will become president at noon on January 20, 2025, that I will be extremely eager to answer once we have reliable results. Perhaps spending Election Day pondering the temporarily imponderable mysteries listed below will serve as an effective distraction for some of my loyal subscribers.