Explainer-Why we may not know the winner of the US presidential election on Nov. 5

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

51% : That created a "red mirage" on election night, when the state's early counts of Election Day votes favored Trump.
49% : Harris may appear to lead early thanks to mail ballots, while Trump could close the gap as Election Day votes are counted.
45% : In 2020, media outlets did not call North Carolina for Trump until Nov. 13, 10 days after the election.
43% : Biden eventually surpassed Trump on the strength of mail ballots, which took longer to tally.
39% : The initial results on election night should be mostly early votes, which could favor Harris, before the numbers shift toward Trump as Election Day votes are tallied.
37% : With more Democrats than Republicans voting by mail, the early results - based on in-person Election Day votes - will probably show Trump ahead, but his lead will likely shrink as more mail ballots are counted.
27% : In 2020, Trump and his allies falsely claimed fraud after Milwaukee, the state's largest city, reported nearly 170,000 absentee ballots around 3:30 a.m.
23% : Trump falsely claimed he was the victim of fraud.
19% : In 2020, some states experienced a "red mirage," in which Trump was leading on election night, before a "blue shift" saw Democrat Joe Biden overtake him, a phenomenon Trump used to amplify his false claims that the election was stolen.
19% : Trump has both encouraged and criticized early and mail-in voting in 2024.
19% : That pattern in 2020 prompted Trump to falsely claim fraud.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.