What time will the president be announced?
Millions of Americans are going to be on the edge of their seats Tuesday night as election results start to roll in and we get closer to finding out who will be the next President of the United States.
It was a tight race between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton heading into Election Day. On Monday, Clinton held a narrow 4-point lead over Trump, according to the final CBS News poll of this long and hard-fought campaign.
Now voters want to know: When will we finally know the winner?
For the past two presidential elections, the winner has been called in the 11 p.m. ET hour. The last time a presidential election was called before 11 p.m. ET was in 1996, when Bill Clinton was promptly named victorious at 9 p.m. ET.
But in 2004, anxious voters had to wait until the following morning — 11:19 a.m. ET on Wednesday — due to a close race in the battleground state of Ohio, before the Associated Press finally reported George W. Bush was the winner.
And in the extreme case of 2000, a dispute over the Florida recount meant George W. Bush didn’t officially defeat Al Gore until more than a month after Election Day.
Here are some things that have to happen before we’ll know who won this time around:
You have to wait for polling stations to close:
The closing times of polling places vary from state to state; times range from 6 p.m. to as late as 9 p.m. local time.
Keep in mind, time zones matter. It’ll be 11 p.m. on the East Coast before polls in 5 Western states — California, Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon and Washington — close. The last state to close is Alaska, where polls are open until 1 a.m. ET.
Networks tend to make projections shortly after polls close in a state if one candidate has a sizable lead. However, if the race is close, as many battleground states are likely to be, it can take many hours of ballot counting before the winner is clear.
Check the polling place hours in each state with the interactive version of this map online — where you can click on each state to find out what time polls close.
It all comes down to the battleground states:
In order to win the presidency, a candidate must win 270 electoral votes — a majority of the 538 electors.
CBS News will be keeping a close eye on 13 battleground states: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
With tight races in many of these states, the night has the potential to be a long one.
When networks called the election over the years:
2012: 11:15 p.m. ET (CBS News)
2008: 11 p.m. ET (Average)
2004: 11:19 a.m. ET the next day (AP)
1996: 9 p.m. ET (AP)
1992: 10:48 p.m. ET (Average)
1988: 9:17 p.m. ET (CBS News)
1984: 8:02 p.m. ET (CBS News)
Source: Adweek, Washington Post
