World News: OnPolitics: Election week? Eh, maybe not!

Tuesday, October 13

Monday was the first day for advance voting in Georgia and people showed up by the hundreds to cast their ballot early at the Bell Auditorium in Augusta, Ga., Oct. 12, 2020.

OnPolitics: Election week? Eh, maybe not!

Will we still stay up really late and drink too much coffee? We will.

As you probably have heard, experts have warned for months that it might take days - weeks, even! - to know who wins the presidential election.

But, dear reader, we have some good news: It might not.

Several battleground states - some accustomed to high-volume mail-voting and others that start processing absentee ballots weeks before Election Day - are expected to have a big portion of their votes counted and reported that night or by the next morning.

"I think the conventional wisdom of this thing taking weeks or many, many days is probably wrong," said Thomas Volgy, a political science professor at the University of Arizona.

Recent polling shows Democratic nominee Joe Biden has built a double-digit lead nationally and has widened his leads in most swing states. Election night numbers in some states could indicate whether the former vice president is on track for a decisive win over President Donald Trump or whether the outcome remains in doubt.

"The most likely scenario is that we know who wins Florida," Michael McDonald, associate professor of political science at the University of Florida, told us. He added that if Biden wins Florida, it "greatly restricts Trump's pathway to an Electoral College victory. If Biden wins North Carolina and Texas on top of that, or Arizona, these pathways become virtually nonexistent for Trump. So there's a good chance on election night we will know who the president is."

Wouldn't that be something.

Here's what else is going on today.

•	Day 2 of Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination hearing is still happening and you can follow along live.
•	Court-packing? Joe Biden says he's not a fan.
•	As these swing states become less white, voter suppression could keep them from turning blue
•	Martha McSally's attack puts spotlight on Gabrielle Giffords shooting, Mark Kelly's gun-safety advocacy