This is it: Key states to watch in the Electoral College results

LAWRENCE —As voters cast their ballots for president today, a University of Kansas expert on polling and partisanship pinpoints what to watch for in the handful of states seemingly up for grabs, and he reflects on this divisive election.

Patrick Miller, assistant professor of political science, is available to comment on the presidential election and congressional races. Miller studies U.S. politics and attitudes of partisanship, among other topics, and he has served as lead author on studies about gender and compromise and partisan rivalry. Miller monitors Kansas and national polling made available and tweets analysis at Twitter.com/pmiller1693. Miller is also available to comment on elections and campaign finance issues, public opinion and surveys, media and politics, and race and politics.

Q: In the presidential race, what will be the key states to watch today? What do polls show right now in those states?

Miller: Given the polling leads in most states, Trump has a plausible but narrow path to victory that requires him winning the bulk of remaining swing states, including some that are currently leaning toward Clinton. Among the key states left in this category, along with their current leader in the Huffington Post Pollster poll average:

• Florida - Clinton by 2 percent
• North Carolina - Clinton by 2 percent
• Georgia - Trump by 2 percent
• New Hampshire - Clinton by 3 percent
• Ohio - Trump by 1 percent
• Iowa - Trump by 2 percent
• Arizona - Trump by 2 percent
• Nevada - Clinton by 2 percent

Trump can win all of the states above that currently lean toward him and still lose. He needs to win some states that are currently narrowly leaning toward Clinton in the poll average. If he cannot do that, he cannot win.

Q: As far as partisanship and voter behavior, what do you think should be the first thing researchers should dissect or examine thoroughly once this election is over?

Miller: Three things stand out in this election:

First, despite the hype over so-called Never Trump Republicans and Bernie Bro Democrats who would not support the nominee of their party because they were bitter about the primary, that opposition largely faded away. Most Republicans who were unhappy with the Trump nomination now support him, and many have come to have positive evaluations of him as a person.

The same is true for Clinton and Sanders supporters. Partisanship has largely kicked in and brought these voters home to who they should be supporting based on their partisan leanings. This is a major reason why third party candidates never really caught on this year — most voters are simply too loyal to one party or the other to seriously defect to a third party. It may take the course of the campaign to get most of them on board, but most do come around.

That said, it will be interesting to watch if either candidate underperforms much with their party. Both Obama and Romney got in the low 90 percent range of support from their own party, and that has been typical in most recent presidential elections. Any decline from those levels should be regarded as underperforming.

Second, the ongoing realignment of whites along education lines this year has been astounding. Ever since 2000, whites with a college degree have slowly been getting more Democratic, while whites without a college degree have slowly been getting more Republican. But this year's election has hugely accelerated that trend.

Clinton is managing the rare feat among Democrats of winning college educated whites, while Trump is doing better than Republicans typically do with lower socioeconomic status whites. This is a big reversal of the New Deal coalition in which working class whites voted Democratic while upper class whites voted Republican.

Whites with college degrees differ substantially from whites without one on a wide range of issue and psychological variables that are relevant for political behavior, so this ongoing realignment will be critical to shaping not only what the party bases look like in the future, but how they think.

Third, Latinos are continuing their realignment toward the Democrats this year. In 2012, 71 percent of Latinos voted for Obama. In the last pre-election survey from Latino decisions, Clinton had increased that to 76 percent of Latinos, whereas Trump's support among Latinos had fallen 13 percent from Romney's to a mere 14 percent of that vote.

Early voting numbers from several states indicate that Latinos are enthusiastic to vote, almost doubling their early vote turnout in Florida, for example. Turnout and the Democratic vote share among Latinos will matter greatly for Clinton in states like Florida and Nevada, but Latino voters will also be relevant in states like Georgia and North Carolina where they compose a small percentage of the electorate in states that are very close.

Q: And for control of the U.S. Senate and House, what are the key races or factors to watch for tonight?

Miller: U.S. Senate control is virtually a tossup. Assuming Clinton wins the presidency, then Democrats need just four seats to win control with Kaine breaking the tie. Most observers expect Democrats to win Illinois and Wisconsin from the Republicans. In order to reach a majority, Democrats will need to hold their vulnerable seat in Nevada and win two seats from Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Indiana. Missouri, and Florida — the remaining most competitive races. It helps Democrats that several of these pick up opportunities are also in states that Clinton will carry, but Democrats will need to depend on Republicans splitting their tickets to win seats in places like Missouri and Indiana.

Most observers expect Republicans to retain the U.S. House majority, but with a diminished majority. Democrats enter with a likely net gain from court-ordered redistricting over racial packing in Virginia and Florida. Beyond that, several dozen races are expected to be competitive to some degree. Democrats are trying to flip a number of higher education, higher income suburban districts that voted for Romney but where Trump is substantially underperforming typical Republican numbers (such as KS-3, NJ-5, VA-10). Democrats also hope to pick up seats where strong Latino turnout may boost their candidates, including four House races in California and seats such as CO3 and 6, UT4, and Nevada 3 and 4.

To arrange an interview with Miller, contact George Diepenbrock at 785-864-8853 or gdiepenbrock@ku.edu.