What Time Do Polls Close? Florida Is in the First Big Wave at 7 p.m., and the Night Runs to 1 a.m.
The closing map moves west in waves from 6 p.m. Eastern to Alaska after midnight — and the Associated Press, tabulating nearly 7,000 races, will not call a race until a trailing candidate has no path left.
Election Night does not end at one moment; it ends in waves. The first polls close at 6 p.m. Eastern in parts of Indiana and Kentucky, covering 15 House districts, and the first big wave follows at 7 p.m. Eastern — Florida's hour — when voting ends for Florida's governor's race, Georgia's Senate and governor's races, New Hampshire and South Carolina contests and 63 House districts. Miami-Dade's own results begin posting at approximately 7:15 p.m., starting with the mail and early-voting totals, so South Florida will know its local shape early even while the national night is just beginning.
The map then rolls west. North Carolina's Senate race and Ohio close at 7:30 p.m. Eastern; the 8 p.m. wave is the night's largest, carrying Kansas, Maine, Michigan and Texas — including the Michigan and Texas Senate races — and 163 House districts. Arkansas follows at 8:30, then Arizona, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin at 9, Nevada and Oregon at 10, and California, Idaho and Washington at 11 p.m. Eastern. Alaska closes last, at midnight to 1 a.m. Eastern, which is why a Senate majority may not be knowable before South Florida's morning coffee.
Behind the waves sits the machinery that turns counts into calls. The Associated Press will tabulate results for nearly 7,000 races on Tuesday, with about 4,000 AP journalists collecting returns from precincts and election offices and around 1,000 vote-entry clerks entering candidates' totals, matched against county and state postings. A race is not called until a trailing candidate no longer has a path to victory. "Our certainty is our standard," the AP's vice president for U.S. election services, David Scott, said in the AP's published explainer. The AP's new Voter Poll, surveying about 100,000 voters with six broadcast networks, can indicate direction but cannot be used to call a race — a distinction worth remembering when early survey numbers flash across screens before the counts do.
For Miami-Dade voters, the practical order of the night is simple: polls close at 7 p.m. at assigned precincts — anyone in line at 7 p.m. may still vote — the county's first totals post about 7:15, Florida's statewide picture forms inside the 7 p.m. wave, and the fight for Congress resolves district by district until the western waves close. Close races can take hours or days to call, and the desk will report calls as the AP makes them, not before.
