WASHINGTON — Americans will cast roughly 160 million ballots by the time Election Day comes to a close — in several different ways, including many submitted a few weeks before polls even open.
They will choose a president, members of Congress and thousands of state lawmakers, city council members, attorneys general, secretaries of state — and in Texas, a railroad commissioner who has nothing to do with the trains.
This year's election also comes at a moment in the nation's history when the very basics of how America votes are being challenged as never before by disinformation and distrust.
It can be tough to make sense of it all. To help better understand the way America picks its president and its leaders — all the way down the ballot — The Associated Press offers the following thoughts on the Top 25 people, places, races, dates and things to know about Election Day. A guidebook, of sorts, to American democracy as it nears its 250th birthday.
No. 1: People: Donald Trump & Kamala Harris
It's said that every presidential election makes history. Perhaps. But while some are destined to be included in the history books, others become the subject of books all of their own. Put 2024 down to get a whole shelf at the library. Will Americans choose to return Donald Trump to the White House, electing a former president to a new term for only the second time — and picking for the first time a person convicted of a felony to sit behind the Resolute Desk? Or will voters decide Kamala Harris ought to be the nation's first woman to take up office in the Oval Office, a candidate who didn't win a single primary yet landed at the top of her party's ticket by acclamation. No list of the Top 25 things to know about this year's general election can begin without an acknowledgment that no matter who America chooses, Trump and Harris will make history this Election Day. (Or a few days later.)
No. 2: People: Elon Musk
There might not be anyone as all-in on returning Trump to the White House as Elon Musk, the world's richest person. ''President Trump must win to preserve the Constitution. He must win to preserve democracy in America,'' the founder of SpaceX and Tesla told a rally crowd in early October when Trump returned to the site of his first attempted assassination in Pennsylvania. Along with his unfathomable personal wealth, Musk's ownership of X, formally known as Twitter, gives him an unprecedented ability to try and convince voters of his belief that electing Trump is a ''must-win situation.'' Musk is spending heavily on get-out-the-vote efforts and using his perch as X's CEO to amplify misinformation and push into millions of timelines his argument that the country will not survive should Kamala Harris win the White House. It's a foreboding message that seems to get bleaker by the day – and Musk knows it. ''As you can see, I am not just MAGA,'' he told Trump's backers from the rally stage. ''I am Dark MAGA.''