While the presidential contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris still remains too close to being announced, several winners in down-ballot races have already been declared — just as polls close in those states.

FOX television stations rely on the Associated Press race call for elections. The AP provided US election results long before the internet, smartphones or social media. He did this for the first time in 1848 when he called the White House for Zachary Taylor, and he continues to do so in 2024.

How does the process work?

The AP says determining a winner before votes are counted may seem counterintuitive, but close-of-the-poll race calls in uncontested or landslide races have been a routine part of election nights for decades.

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Hotly contested races are the ones that can take hours, days or even weeks to decide – and therefore tend to be the most memorable and garner the most attention.

Before determining whether a winner can be declared when polls close in a particular state, the AP said it considers several factors and analyzes all available data.

Importantly, the organization says it will never declare the result in a competitive race before counting enough votes to make a clear winner.

Many races called at the close of the polls are uncontested races

Many of the races that are called right as the polls close are uncontested elections, where only one candidate appears on the ballot and is therefore the only possible winner of the race.

In the 2024 general election, the PA previously said it would declare winners in nearly 2,000 uncontested races, compared to about 4,500 contested races.

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Voters in some parts of the country live in multi-member districts for offices such as the state legislature, where more than one candidate is elected in a district. In those districts, an uncontested race is one where the number of candidates on the ballot is equal to or less than the number of seats available in that district.

How AP calls non-competitive contests

It is sometimes possible to declare winners at closing time in uncompetitive multi-candidate races in areas where a political party has an established history of lopsided victories, according to the AP.

In these cases, the organization looks at multiple available data sources, including results from AP VoteCast, a comprehensive survey of both voters and nonvoters that determines who voted, how they voted and why, to confirm the result.

The AP will not call a race when the polls close if the AP VoteCast results indicate a departure from the state’s long-standing political trends and voting history. AP VoteCast results are available for all 50 states, though only a small number are considered possible close poll calls.

There is no AP VoteCast poll in the District of Columbia, so no contest is called when the polls close, although the nation’s capital has a long history of landslide victories for Democratic candidates.

For example, AP polls in the 2020 presidential election included Wyoming, a state that last voted for a Democrat in 1968 and which Donald Trump won over Joe Biden by 44 points; and Massachusetts, which last voted for a Republican in 1984 and that Biden won by 34 points over Trump.

What if a state has multiple time zones?

A handful of states and districts have multiple poll closing times because they are in more than one time zone. In these cases, the AP does not declare a winner before the final closing time of the polls in that state or district.

Florida, Texas and others begin releasing voting results from most states shortly after polls close in the previous time zone. Votes that are already counted from areas in previous time zones will also be taken into account to determine whether a winner can be declared when the last polls close.

Other election data the AP considers includes an area’s voting history since the recent election, voter registration statistics and polls leading up to Election Day.

When the above data confirms the expected result in a state where either major party has a history of dominating elections, AP says it could call the race as soon as voting closes.

When will we know who won the 2024 presidential election?

With a slim race between Harris and Trump, it’s been said for weeks that it’s very possible we won’t know who won the presidential contest come election night.

Different states have different counting rules, and with early voting and mail-in voting now a regular part of the process, returns in swing states could take longer.

“My only prediction going into election night was that we won’t know on election night who won this race,” said Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha. previously told FOX 5 DC.