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It's election day! You've probably heard a lot of confusing things about the election tonight, including that we're not likely to know the results for days and weeks. But as this short bonus episode explains, that's not necessarily true. If you know how to interpret the results like a pro, then there's a good chance that we can be almost certain who has won before dawn. Even if the results do get drawn out for days, we can still tell a lot by what goes down tonight. This episode gives you five tips for how to watch the results - covering topics like how not to be fooled by early returns, how much attention to pay to Donald Trump's tweets, and much more. Enjoy!

Here are some useful links for understanding the results:

Counties to watch out for: Miami-Dade and Pinellas in Florida; Union and Wake in North Carolina; Westmoreland, Chester, Erie, and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania; and Maricopa in Arizona.

Battleground counties: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/politics/battleground-states-trump-biden.html

Build your own swing state scenario: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/politics/battleground-states-trump-biden.html

Poll closing times in each state: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/28/1988730/-Daily-Kos-Elections-Nov-3-2020-poll-closing-times-map

Wikipedia 2016 breakdown in Florida (substitute the name of any other state): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election_in_Florida

Credits

Host - Andy Gawthorpe

Designer/advisor - Janice Killion

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If you have any questions or comments, you can email the show on producer@america-explained.com.