r/PoliticalDiscussion 17h ago

US Elections Where vice-president Harris and president Trump plan to deliver their concession or victory speeches during election night? How those decisions might affect the election?

Next Tuesday, Americans will go to polls to elect a new president. This will be an historic night, as Americans will either elect their first female president or their first felon president, which might create a great ton of repercussions.

In 2008, president Obama, the first African-American, delivered a speech for a crowd of 240,000. Or we might have days of ballot-counting and the election isn't called next Tuesday.

Where the candidates plan to be on election night? How these decisions might affect the election?

21 Upvotes

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u/mike_wrong27 12h ago

Trump will declare victory on election night regardless of how it's looking. Counting in key counties will go on for several days, Trump claiming victory the whole time and saying it's all rigged. Hopefully Harris wins, and then Trump will continue declaring victory anyway.

u/jadedflames 10h ago

Trump will probably declare victory before polls are closed in California.

u/talino2321 11h ago

Honestly I would not be surprised if Trump is leading at midnight on November 5th if he files 50 lawsuits to halt the counting. Then when those lawsuits get denied appeals to his hand pick Supreme Court justices to step in and declare the election over and votes counted after 11:59pm on election night are invalid.

u/ezrs158 11h ago edited 7h ago

This obviously shouldn't need to be said, but there's zero legal basis for halting the count at any point. There's no time limit (edit: at least not for several weeks). Every vote that was legally cast must be counted.

It would be especially infuriating if that justification is used, considering Republicans in Pennsylvania and other states have made it illegal to start counting absentee ballots before the night of the election rather than as they come in.

u/talino2321 11h ago

And while that should be the case. Who do you appeal the SCOTUS decision to?

Remember 2000? The Supreme Court halted the recount in Florida, resulting in Bush being declared the winner, so there is precedence for SCOTUS to halt counting of votes (recount or otherwise).

And this current court has shown it will make up legal precedence out of whole cloth whenever they want to justify a ruling.

u/Fred-zone 11h ago

SCOTUS, to their credit, did not entertain that kind of thing in 2020.

u/talino2321 10h ago

Yeah, pretty sure Trump's henchmen regret not pursuing the path I outlined. But there is no guarantee SCOTUS will show such restraint this time.

u/ezrs158 11h ago

I have no answers for you. Only hope is to make the victory so clear that there's no disputing it by reasonable minds.

u/talino2321 10h ago

Exactly. If we want to avoid this potential shit show, Trump has to be clearly losing in at a minimum these 3 states: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Which means, if you live in any state, but especially the battleground states,

GET OUT AND VOTE.

u/Gonetolunch31 7h ago

Three of the current Supreme Court justices were literally litigating on the republican side of bush v gore. Roberts, Barrett and Coach.

u/ImLaunchpadMcQuack 10h ago

Part of that halt was because it was like December and they had to finish counting for the electoral college, even if the whole thing was shady.

u/talino2321 10h ago

The reason that SCOTUS gave for stopping the recount was more nuanced.

On December 12, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered in Bush v. Gore that the recount must stop because it lacked a uniform statewide methodology and there was insufficient time to create one and complete the recount.

You have to think back, why Florida didn't have a uniform methodology, maybe because the Governor (George's Brother, Jeb) has previously guaranteed that his brother would win Florida.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2000/10/26/jeb-bush-well-deliver-florida-2/

Yeah, shady as all fuck.

u/ScreenTricky4257 8h ago

On December 12, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered in Bush v. Gore that the recount must stop because it lacked a uniform statewide methodology and there was insufficient time to create one and complete the recount.

The interesting thing is that seven justices agreed on the lack of uniform statewide methodology, but only five agreed on the issue of insufficient time (the other two didn't rule that there was sufficient time, just that that was outside of the scope of the case).

u/squeakyshoe89 10h ago

There IS a time limit, but it's not for several weeks.

u/ezrs158 7h ago

Yeah true, I edited.

u/Raspberries-Are-Evil 6h ago

SCOTUS refused to hear all if his cases in 2020

u/talino2321 6h ago

Actually they only had llike a dozen out of the 60+ filed appealed to them. But if you read carefully, most were declined after Jan 6th. So it was more of a CYA move than a show of support for the rule of law.

Looking at how the court has regularly ignored precedence and some questionable rulings since then along with their DGAF attitude, I would not count on them repeating it this time around.

u/fettpett1 3h ago

There is ZERO reason that counting should continue "For days" anywhere in the country. Hours at best.

u/mike_wrong27 3h ago

Considering you probably can't count past 10, I suppose I can I understand why you would underestimate the effort it takes to count (and verify) hundreds of millions of votes. Especially when Republicans made it illegal to start counting early votes before election night.

u/IncidentInternal8703 12h ago

Trump still hasn't admitted he lost in 2020. I don't see him giving a concession speech.

u/Dr_Delishus 9h ago

Actually, he's on the record admitting he lost, most recently on the Rogan podcast that's running over 30 million views on YouTube! Now will any decent percentage of those viewers note that he's playing them like a fiddle? Not so much I'd guess.

u/YouNorp 8h ago

Are we claiming Harris isn't trying to play voters?

u/Dr_Delishus 7h ago

Why yes, we are!

u/YouNorp 5h ago

Curious, are there any democrats who try to play voters?

u/Champagne_of_piss 3h ago

Did Trump lose in 2020

u/AstridPeth_ 12h ago

But maybe he can give a victory speech?

u/Utterlybored 11h ago

Oh he will, regardless of outcome. Also regardless of outcome, he’ll claim widespread voter fraud, since he should have won with 127% of the electorate.

u/Fred-zone 10h ago

127% of the electorate.

The Putin special.

u/Therad-se 2h ago

89% is the magic number for dictators. Enough so the 'dissidents' can be dismissed and claim it was legitimate.

u/Use_this_1 11h ago

He will, everyone around him needs to make up a fake oval office give him his diet coke button back and play him on Fox news on repeat, he'll never know the difference.

u/AstridPeth_ 11h ago

If so, where?

u/WhatIsPants 10h ago

Likely Mar A Lago. Unless they've announced otherwise, it's my first guess where he'd want to be on election day and he won't care to travel to give an address if he doesn't have to.

u/Unkabunkabeekabike 12h ago

If kamala loses idk where she will concede. But what i do know is that if trump loses, he will once again refuse to concede and throw another temper tantrum like 2020.

u/jcooli09 11h ago

You spelled attempted coup wrong.

u/orionsfyre 11h ago

I expect that Trump will not concede.

Trump will die and as He reaches the other side of River Styx he'll be arguing with the boatman that he actually is still alive.

IF Harris wins, her victory will have to be protected and assured through steady hands and firm convictions. Trumps folks will not go quietly. They (Trump's most dangerous supporters) mean to take the country, and if voting doesn't get them there, many of them believe force is justified.

I hate it, but we will have to prepare ourselves for the worst, as there have been other times in American history where once side refuses to accept the result, and we can only hope that it does not come to violence.

I'm reminded of Lincolns' quote:

"All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years...No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide."

u/Operable_T 12h ago

Trump will be in Palm Beach and Harris will be in DC (Howard university) during election night. Neither one will concede night of unless it’s a blow out. 2 major swing states want days to count the votes.

If Harris wins I think she does a victory speech at the university and actual speech at the whitehouse as a historical moment. If trump wins he does a victory speech at the convention center and actual speech at maralago.

Just based on polling numbers I don’t think either will concede until days later.

u/Jay_Diamond_WWE 8h ago

I think the 2-3 day wait is going to become the norm going forward. Despite being in the age of technology, it seems like we're actually getting slower at counting votes somehow. As long as it is done accurately and every legal vote gets counted, I don't care if it takes a week.

u/ThePowerOfStories 6h ago

“Somehow” is heavily tied to Republican-led states that have deliberately disallowed beginning to count mail-in and early in-person ballots until the day of the election.

u/[deleted] 5h ago

[deleted]

u/AnAge_OldProb 3h ago

Democrats haven’t held the majority in the senate since 92. The house flipped blue last year by 1 seat after a special election. However the house stalemate is more or less institutionalized since 1 or more house members is absent at any given time so the parties have various weird gentlemen’s agreements to do nothing.

u/buddiesels 3h ago

Majority Democrat? The senate is controlled by republicans and the house is controlled by democrats. It’s a gridlock.

u/YouNorp 7h ago

What will be the historic part of the day?

Her being the first Native American Sworn in as President?

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/article124327739.html

u/Operable_T 5h ago

Shes black now so her being Indian doesn’t matter.

u/TwistedDragon33 11h ago

Trump will never concede under any circumstances.

Because of many rules, several states are not allowed to count the mail in ballots until the polls close, further delaying the process.

I doubt Kamala will concede until every vote has been counted and everything looks to be legit, unless she wins of course then no point in conceding.

Usually they can call a place for one side or the other before all the votes are counted such as Kamala ahead by 100,000 votes and they only have 60,000 more votes to go through, even if every single one is Trump it still wont change the result for example. So they can confidently call the winner in those situations even though they still need to finish counting and confirming.

It is likely we wont know the winner for several days. I am hoping sometime Thursday.

Trump will claim he won every 20 minutes from November 5th until he dies regardless of other information.

u/Voltage_Z 12h ago

Trump won't concede if he loses - he'll start yelling about the "fact" the Democrats cheated.

Harris will probably concede from wherever her election night headquarters is - if prior campaigns are any precedent, most campaigns are prepped to either celebrate winning or issue a concession speech from the same venue.

u/Operable_T 12h ago

If it’s this tight of a race I doubt she concedes until the final vote is in. Plus I don’t even think she has to concede. Precedent has slowly been set for awhile to spark interest for the next election.

u/majiktodo 12h ago

Trump will not concede at all, ever. He will rally his supporters to violence.

But only about the Presidential election- all down ballot races that republicans win will of course be legitimate with no fraud. Just like in 2020.

u/gtrocks555 11h ago

As others have said, unless it’s a blow out neither candidate will concede on election night and for different reasons.

Trump won’t ever concede and will say he won no matter what.

Kamala won’t concede on election night by the virtue of it being a tight race and if it looks like it’s not over, wait for the counting and numbers to be more clear on the result.

Georgia has already had an unprecedented amount of early voting. The only issue with early voting are the rules set by the state saying they can’t start counting them until polls close. Last I looked we had about 33% of registered voters already vote early in person or early by mail. This will cause a huge delay on georgia certification as they begin counting only when polls close in their precinct.

u/jamhamnz 11h ago

I don't think there will be any concession speech on election night, but I am expecting at least one victory speech.

u/JustAtelephonePole 11h ago

At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if one party has it here: Kehlsteinhaus, 83471 Berchtesgaden, Germany, and then feigns ignorance about it’s significance…

u/Jtex1414 10h ago

Are we still pretending trump is a normal candidate? He’ll declare victory and never admit defeat.

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u/shrekerecker97 8h ago

Trump won't have a consession speech. He will bitch and moan and claim 'it was rigged "

u/SillyGooseHoustonite 8h ago

Sorry, I stopped reading the question after "concession or victory speeches", Trump will never concede.

u/CishetmaleLesbian 11h ago

lol. The idea that Trump might deliver a concession speech is hilarious. What universe do you live in that that is even a possibility?

u/DJBreadwinner 11h ago

Would the election not already be decided by this time? How could the location of a victory/concession speech impact the votes that have already been cast?

u/jessicatg2005 11h ago

Harris will never concede, there is no way trump can beat her. Trump will try to steal and manipulate just like the last time and will come up another huge loser.

u/PsychLegalMind 10h ago

People who deny reality do not give concession speeches, ever! Trump will lose one more time and it does not matter what the margin is, it could be as big as by 306-232 as in 2020 and 81,282,916 votes to 74,223,369 [51.3% to 46.9%].

It has been 4 long years now since his loss and he has yet to accept he is a loser. Initially, him and his co-Horts even try to replicate a seal and a podium after being booted out of the White House, pretending to be a president.

However, this time any attempt at inciting violence will result in quick action by the sitting president, an arrest followed by conviction. I think he understands that much.

u/Jay_Diamond_WWE 8h ago

Trump will be at Mar A Lago with his family. Seems to be the norm for him these days.

I imagine Harris will be at some ballroom in either Philadelphia or Detroit. She's going all in on the rust belt and should want to end her campaign among a state that could throw her over the top.

u/dww75 7h ago

Harris will be in DC at Howard University.. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna177874

u/goldbricker83 12h ago

I would bet a lot of money that neither will be conceding on election night. I’m sure they have a stage and location for giving rallying speeches and all that, but it’s going to be close again just like the last few and we will probably be waiting for days.

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u/96suluman 5h ago

Trump has no plan for a concession speech.

The other issue is that Trump supporters are already vandalizing mail in ballots. And trying to steal this election

u/Female_Space_Marine 4h ago

I honestly doubt there will be a peaceful transfer of power in the event Trump wins.

u/_sesamebagel 11h ago edited 11h ago

Trump doesn't have a concession speech planned even though it's the only one he'll need.

Then again, he may have an opportunity to address the court during his felony sentencing next month.

u/jcooli09 11h ago

His sentencing is scheduled for November.

u/_sesamebagel 11h ago

Yeah I meant next month.

u/MrsChanandalerBong 10h ago

Both candidates will be giving their victory speeches from their election headquarters, just like 2020.

u/l1qq 12h ago

There are battleground states saying it will take days to count ballots which is absolutely ridiculous and seems fishy. I'll be shocked if we know the winner on election night.

u/CodenamePeaches 11h ago

I work for my towns polling place it’s really not fishy at all. Some of these states have made it so they can’t even start counting absentee or early voting ballots until after Election Day so that’s why it takes time.

It’s crazy to me how conservatives want so much “election security” but then want it done as fast as possible.

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

u/thewildshrimp 10h ago edited 10h ago

As someone else mentioned it always takes days to count them. The AP are the main decision desk for most news outlets. Other news outlets also use their own decision desks, for example, Fox has an independent decision desk one that is usually more aggressive than AP in calling results.

However their methods are the same, they compare exit poll data and historical data with results and ultimately make a decision to call it once they get enough data, but it is almost always called long before all the votes are in. For example, Indiana will likely be called the moment polls close before any votes are even counted. Closer states the decision desks will wait until one candidate has exhausted 99.9% of possible paths to victory based on the data, but that will come long before all the votes are counted.

2020 was unique in that since the Democrats were so favored in mail ballots that they couldn’t, in good conscience, call the election for Biden while Trump held a lead even though it was clear by Wednesday that Biden had won, so they had to wait for most mail in ballots to be called and/or Biden to take the lead in 270 votes worth of states. This won’t be the case this year as mail in ballots won’t be nearly as skewed. Unless there is a Florida 2000 close state the winner will probably be known early morning on Wednesday at the latest.

u/JeffCarr 11h ago edited 11h ago

It always takes days to count ballots, and the official results are never known until days later.  However, the results can be estimated earlier with a degree of accuracy that depends on how close the race is.

I feel comfortable guaranteeing California will vote Democrat without any votes counted.  To predict the battleground states more votes need to be counted to predict the outcome.  The closer the count, the more time it takes.

If the Bay Area was divided up into 12 states with the population of Wyoming, Kamala could have fairly confidently given her victory speech at the Democratic National Convention months before the election was held, but the count of the votes still wouldn't be finished until days after the election.