17 political experts share Election Day result predictions

So far, this election has been unpredictable. After all, who could have foreseen two assassination attempts , a sitting president dropping out after he'd all but secured the nomination and, well, pretty much everything else ?

But Election Day is here, and it will be hours until we learn who won, and perhaps days before we find out why.

Until then, we've asked some MSNBC analysts to weigh in on the predictions that they are willing to put their names behind before the results are in. Here's what they said.

Rotimi Adeoye, Pennsylvania journalist My prediction: Vice President Kamala Harris will win Pennsylvania. For years, Democrats have lost touch with rural Pennsylvania, prioritizing globalization over local economic realities. In places like Wilkes-Barre and Johnstown, communities devastated by disappearing factories and coal mines felt abandoned. Harris is breaking that pattern. Her campaign isn't just showing up in these forgotten regions; they are simultaneously energizing classic Democratic strongholds like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and the suburban blue-collar counties. By building a comprehensive strategy that speaks to rural economic revitalization and urban political mobilization, she's crafting a nuanced approach that could fundamentally reshape Pennsylvania's political landscape.

Billy Ball, North Carolina journalist It's a small sample size, but since Roe v. Wade fell to a Republican-dominated Supreme Court in June 2022, the polls and the pundits have consistently underestimated women voting to protect reproductive rights.

In other words, women are going to fight harder to protect the rights that some men (and conservative women) are trying to take from them. Women will turn out in extraordinary numbers. Their votes, combined with Donald Trump's alienation of moderate conservative voices, will help Harris become the first woman president of the United States.

Brian Tyler Cohen, No Lie podcast host Trump will declare victory early — perhaps even on Tuesday night, well before all of the votes have been counted, surfacing baseless claims of fraud to justify his position. His hope is that by announcing it as some grandiose proclamation from behind a podium, it'll carry weight. His hope is that right-wing media will uncritically spread his claims in an effort to further cement his lie as truth. His hope is that Republican lawmakers and Senators will use the fact that their voters believe Trump won (merely because he said it) as a predicate not to certify the election results. They will all amplify each other, creating a feedback loop. Do not fall for it. Ballots will be counted until the states certify. The certification process will be transparent and accurate. Trump will lie, but the numbers won't.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, historian My prediction: Harris will win. Her campaign has affirmed the core principles of democracy: unity, solidarity, the power of positive emotions and optimism (joy and hope), empowering people to express themselves through their votes, and showing the promise of America as a multiracial and multifaith democracy. Her campaign, which made space for Republicans who no longer identify with a party that has become anti-democratic, has laid the basis for a pro-democracy movement to flourish in America regardless of the results of this election.

Trump bet on making racism and extremism and the cultivation of violence the core of his campaign. As a skilled propagandist whose lies are backed up by Fox and the GOP, he still has plenty of followers, but demeaning so many groups with dehumanizing language has alienated many from his campaign. Repeating over and over that America is failing, that the American dream is dead , and insulting your compatriots is not a platform. American voters will respond accordingly.

Steve Benen, editor of MaddowBlog My prediction: Trump's appeal won't be transferrable. In the 2022 midterm elections, a variety of Republican candidates thought that if they emulated Trump and stuck to his bombastic and conspiratorial playbook, the former president's base would embrace them and propel them to victory. As Pennsylvania's Doug Mastriano , New Hampshire's Don Bolduc and Arizona's Blake Masters came to realize, Trump's qualities — I'm using the word loosely — are unique and nontransferable. In the 2024 cycle, I predict that others will learn the same lesson. There's no shortage of candidates who embody all that is MAGA — North Carolina's Mark Robinson and Arizona's Kari Lake , I'm looking in your direction — who are seeking statewide offices in states where the former president might yet prevail. But they're going to lose anyway, because for much of the electorate, there might be some appetite for Trump, but there's far less for his imitators.

Brendan Buck, Republican strategistTrump is going to comfortably sweep the Sun Belt states, by 2 percent or more in each, putting intense pressure on Harris' Midwest firewall. In Arizona and Nevada, Trump's inroads with Hispanic voters and painfully high housing costs there will put those two states out of reach. Georgia, my home state, has not been kind to Trump in the past, but it remains a red state at its core. The anti-Trump fire in the suburbs has subsided mildly, and Republican voters there who don't care for Trump are itching to be back with the red team. This leaves all eyes up north.

Katelyn Burns, freelance journalist based in New England Polls are close but poll responses aren't votes. In an election this close, polls are less reliable because of the statistical calculations pollsters have to make to parse the data. I think turnout among women will be higher than pollsters are anticipating driven by anger over abortion access, and Harris will be the next president of the United States. I also don't think Democrats will end up doing anything to move the needle on abortion or other culture issues if elected because they are afraid of right-wing backlash.

Eric Garcia, senior Washington correspondent and bureau chief for The Independent We may finally be seeing polarization by education changing how we think of the map in the West and the Southeast. Democrats have dominated in the West, particularly in Nevada, for two decades on the presidential level. Conversely, Democrats have not won North Carolina since Barack Obama's 2008 victory.

But plenty of factors have changed. For one, Democrats have largely lost non-college-educated voters, including non-college-educated voters of color. Trump expedited this process focusing on the economy. As of 2023, only 28.7% of Nevadans have a degree. On top of that, Harris and Trump are tied for Hispanic male voters . Republicans have also engaged in an aggressive early voting outreach operation.

The opposite dynamic has happened in North Carolina. In recent years, an influx of highly educated Yankees have moved into the state. Combine that with Harris likely being able to maximize Black voter turnout, she has a legitimate chance at turning North Carolina the lightest of Carolina blue.

My prediction: Trump wins Nevada, and Harris wins North Carolina.

Nayyera Haq, former White House senior director Despite the nauseous optimism around this election, we won't breathe a collective sigh of relief until the oath of office is taken on Jan. 20. Our anxiety levels aren't high just because a new president is about to be elected; it's the blatant public racism, Nazi-style gatherings and effort to stack the courts against public sentiment that has people worried about our future. And given we've already experienced one insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, it's hard to imagine any relief from this constant vigilance of "what will happen next?" until a new president is sworn-in and safely ensconced in the White House. May there be enough Lexapro and Xanax to last us until then.

Kali Holloway, political journalist I predict that far fewer Black and Latino men will cast ballots for Trump than the media and Republican propagandists have projected. Most of those men — and by most, I mean 85 percent or more — will vote for Harris. But you know who will give the plurality, if not more, of their votes to Trump? White women. I'd love to be proven wrong on that last count, but it's the one prediction I feel most confident about. History has been nothing if not depressingly and repeatedly instructive on that issue.

Molly Jong-Fast, 'Fast Politics' podcast hostIf Harris wins American women will have saved American democracy and likely the country itself. Harris has campaigned magnificently, but even more important than that, she has reached across the aisle to create a broad coalition of women (and men but women more than anything). None of us know what's going to happen, but we know that early voting has a huge gender divide.

Olivia Messer, The Barbed Wire editor in chief The balance of power in the U.S. Senate is on the line. Thirty-four seats are up for election in 2024, and battleground states include Michigan, Arizona, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin. But it's increasingly looking like there's a tied race in Texas between Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Colin Allred . My prediction? The party that wins the Texas race for U.S. Senate will win majority control of the chamber in 2025. If Cruz wins, the Senate will flip red. But if Allred wins Texas, Democrats will maintain control of the upper chamber.

Dean Obeidallah, SiriusXM radio host My prediction: Trump's "bro vote" strategy will be a loser. Trump is banking his election prospects on young men coming out to vote in big numbers — as we've seen with his appearances on "bro" type podcasts shows like Joe Rogan — and that tells us that Trump doesn't understand the power of women voters. In 2020, young women (aged 18-29) voted at a rate of 11% higher than young men — and that is across all races. When you add that this is the first presidential election since Roe was overturned, we will very likely see that gap grow.

Kavita Patel, health policy researcherWomen will turn out in unprecedented numbers this election cycle, driven by the urgent need to safeguard reproductive rights. With nearly 79% of women of reproductive age believing this election will significantly affect abortion access, the stakes have never been higher. This surge in engagement reflects a collective determination to reclaim autonomy over their bodies and assert their influence in shaping policies that affect their lives and futures.

The youth vote is set to explode onto the political scene like never before, potentially igniting a seismic shift in this election's outcome. We're likely to witness an unprecedented surge of young voters, fired up and ready to flex their political muscle on issues that hit close to home. This wave of Gen Z and millennial engagement could be the game-changer that flips the script in crucial swing states, leaving traditional political playbooks in shambles.

Communities of color will also be a game changer for this election particularly on Election Day itself for several reasons: less trust in early voting or process related to mail-in as well as a psychological desire to participate in a more national, visible way.

Susan Del Percio, Republican strategist I'm not expecting a blue wave on election night. But I do think that next year we'll be calling New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries "Mr. Speaker." With just a four-seat majority, Republicans are holding on by a thread. There are 16 congressional seats where Biden won in 2020 and Republicans then won in 2022. The majority of those are in the bluest of states: California and New York.

In these states it will come down to three things. The first is math: Turnout is higher in presidential years, which will benefit Democrats. The second is money, as the best-planned campaign is nothing without the funding and Democrats have been significantly outraising Republicans.

The third thing is Trump, who will weigh down Republican candidates in the must-win areas.

Julio Ricardo Varela, founder of The Latino Newsletter This is my stone-cold mortal lock prediction for 2024: Time to retire the phrase "Latinos are not a monolith." As a journalist who has been writing about Latino voters since the first Obama campaign, Latinos have never been guaranteed Democratic voters. Ronald Reagan knew. So did George W. Bush. Now, the truth has finally become mainstream, and any future coverage of Latinos in electoral cycles will shift to what I said in 2020 : "It's like we're swing states." Welcome all non-Latino political journalists who are now saying the same thing in 2024. Time to think of new phrases.

Paul Waldman, author of 'White Rural Rage'