Watch these seven counties on election night. They will tell you who is likely to win

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Well, here it is: Election Night 2024. Millions of Americans have already cast their votes and it could take a few days to find out who the next president will be. But tonight the polls will be closed for one of the most unpredictable elections in recent history. An election that was intended to be a rematch between two older men who had faced off in 2020 turned into one marked by assassinations and a surprising change at the top of the Democratic candidates.

As always, it is impossible to decipher what exactly will happen and who will win and by how much. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. But there are always indicators.

A few weeks ago, In Washington I broke down the House races to see who wins the whole thing. Because of the Electoral College, both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump must focus on specific districts in each of the seven swing states.

Without further ado, here are the seven key counties to watch on election night if you want to know early who will win overall.

Maricopa County, Arizona

Of all the swing states, Arizona could be the state where Trump has the best chance. Even though he destroyed his favorite son, John McCain, his numbers still look good. But if he wants to win Arizona, he needs to make sure he matches Harris' lead in Maricopa County.

Maricopa, home to Phoenix, is McCain country. In 2016, Trump narrowly won, but in 2020 the election went to Joe Biden.

It's full of old-school Republicans and Independents. There are also many high earners in places like Paradise Valley, where the median income is $221,333.

Since the Democrats are becoming the party of high-earning white voters, Harris has to be at the forefront here. But also expect this district to decide the Arizona Senate race between Ruben Gallego and pro-MAGA election denier Kari Lake.

Erie County, Pennsylvania

All eyes are on Pennsylvania. Harris held her final rally Monday night in Philadelphia, where she needs to maximize turnout among black voters. She also campaigned in Allentown, home to a large Puerto Rican population, after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made a joke at Trump's rally calling it a “floating island of trash.”

But both Harris and Trump ran strong campaigns in Erie, a classic white working-class district that had been hollowed out by factory closings in recent decades. Trump's insanely populist rhetoric resonated with voters there, but “Scranton Joe's” pro-worker approach won over Erie's voters last time.

John Fetterman and Josh Shapiro performed well there in 2022. Trump's Vice President JD Vance, meanwhile, comes from Ohio, which is right on the county border.

Waukesha County, Wisconsin

When Harris held a series of events at the Blue Wall with Liz Cheney, her decision to hold an event in Waukesha didn't come from heaven. Waukesha is one of the “WOW Counties,” along with Ozaukee and Washington County, and has historically been a bastion for white conservatives. However, because it is a heavily suburban county, it is slowly losing Republican voters.

In 2008, John McCain won around 62 percent of the vote. But in 2020, Trump won 59.7 percent of the vote. In a state where Biden won by just 20,682 votes, these small margins matter.

Other places to watch include Milwaukee, where Harris needs to stay ahead among black voters; Dane County, home to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and therefore numerous college students; and Brown County, where the Green Bay Packers play and where Trump pulled off his garbage truck stunt.

Oakland County, MI

Many people have wondered whether Michigan's Arab-American population will hand the state to Trump given the Biden-Harris administration's unconditional support of Israel during Netanyahu's war in Gaza. While that may be the case, Arab Americans make up a fraction of the population.

Whether that happens or not, Harris — or Trump, for that matter — will have to do well in Oakland County.

Oakland includes some of Detroit's upper-class white suburbs. In 2016, Hillary Clinton barely got a majority of the vote there when Trump won Michigan. Biden extended their lead when he returned Michigan to the Democratic column.

Nearly a third of voters voted for Nikki Haley over Trump in the 2024 Republican primary. If Arab Americans actually sit out this election or even vote for Trump, Harris will have to make up for it in places like Oakland and Macomb Counties or she'll be on the hook.

Clark County, Nevada

Follower of The Nevada Independents Editor Jon Ralston may also know Clark County as the Democratic firewall. That's because Democrats, aided largely by the work of the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, have geared their party machine to maximize voter turnout in the district that includes Las Vegas.

The state's Culinary Union Local 226 is engaging in an aggressive door-knocking and voter turnout effort. By contrast, many of the state's remaining, more rural counties are vote banks for Republicans.

Republicans have done a better job of maximizing turnout among early voters this year. The Covid-19 pandemic has hit the state's economy hard, and it has the second-highest unemployment rate in the country, behind the District of Columbia. There is also a large Latino working-class population — exactly the kind of voter Trump has courted in recent years.

Forsyth County, Georgia

When Fox News held the women's town hall with Trump last month, they chose to hold it in Forsyth County for good reason.

The heavily white county has long been a Republican stronghold. It also has a darker history, having displaced its black residents after Reconstruction and the Ku Klux Klan operating openly there as late as 1987.

But in recent years the party has slowly diversified, and while it remains firmly Republican, Democrats have moved into the Republican fringes.

Other places worth seeing include the Black Belt of Georgia in the southern part of the state, which helped elect Raphael Warnock, and the suburbs of Atlanta.

Union County, North Carolina

Just as Republicans have wanted to flip Nevada for years, Democrats haven't quite figured out how to win North Carolina again since Obama won in 2008. But when it finally works, it will be in places like Union County.

He is a bulwark Daniel McGraw recently shared some fascinating statistics about Union. North Carolina saw an influx of Northerners from other states, and Union embodies that change. Located east of Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is located, it had a population of just 201,292 in 2010. According to the US Census Bureau, that number is approximately 256,452 in 2023.

In 2016, Clinton only received about 32 percent of the vote. In 2020, Biden won around 37 percent of the vote.

In addition to Union, watch Cabarrus County, north of Charlotte, which shifted significantly to the left in 2020. And keep an eye on the Piedmont Triad, where Trump campaigned heavily, and Robeson, which he won twice after voting Democratic for more than a century.

Look at how well Harris is doing not only in the Triangle, which is home to colleges like the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University and Duke, but also in northeastern Black counties.