We may not know the presidential winner until at least Friday

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If President Trump had lost Florida, the 2020 presidential race would essentially be over. But Trump appears to have won Florida, and now the electoral map is a patchwork of hanging swing states. And it looks like we may not know who won the decisive states — especially Pennsylvania — for a few days.

"As you plan your sleep schedule for the rest of the week," Nathaniel Rakich writes at FiveThirtyEight: "We should have near-complete unofficial results from Wisconsin early tomorrow morning, as Milwaukee is expected to finish counting around 6 a.m. Eastern. Michigan originally said it would take until Friday to count all of its votes, but officials have revised that estimate to say they’ll be done tomorrow as well. Finally, Pennsylvania results probably won't be known until Friday." Georgia's largest county, Fulton, also called it a night and won't continue counting until Wednesday morning.

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At the same time, "just speaking hypothetically," FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver notes, Biden doesn't absolutely need to win Pennsylvania. "If Trump wins Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, but Biden wins Arizona, Biden is an 85 percent favorite in our scenario generator," he notes. "There’s a 6 percent chance of an Electoral College tie, though." Before Election Day, FiveThirtyEight had Trump's chances of winning the Electoral College at 10 percent. So sleep well, everyone.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.