HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) – Barring any major surprises, the United States likely won’t know the outcome of the presidential election by Tuesday night.

Marty Cohen, a political science professor at JMU, said there are a few key factors that will determine when we know whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump will be the next president.

Cohen said the biggest factor in how long it will take to determine a winner is how close the race is. He said the closer the race is in key states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada — the longer the wait will be.

Another factor that could swing results is that the key state of Pennsylvania does not allow early and absentee ballots to be counted until after Election Day. With those things in mind, Cohen said it could be several days, or even a weekend, before the winner of the presidential election is determined.

“Based on 2020, it was Saturday afternoon that we officially learned that President Biden was going to win and had won the election, so it’s going to be just as close, if not closer,” Cohen said. “It could be the weekend. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the weekend, unless this somehow breaks more decisively. In that case, we might find out in a day or two.

Cohen said presidential elections in the 1980s and 1990s were not as close as those in the 2000s and the winner could usually be announced much earlier. Cohen noted that in the closest election in recent memory – the 2000 race between George W. Bush and Al Gore – the winner was not determined until December.

Although Cohen has no prediction on who will win the race, he said that because the race is so nationalized, he thinks it’s likely that one candidate will win six or seven of the key states. He also said he would keep an eye out to see if there would be any surprises from the other 43 states. Cohen noted the possibility of Iowa flipping blue or Virginia flipping red as potential surprises.

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