As we learned in our previous segment with state Board of Elections executive director Karen Brinson Bell, there’s every reason to believe that this year’s election with run smoothly and fairly in North Carolina and that by late Tuesday evening, we’ll have a lot of results from most of the key races.

What those results will be, however, remains the great mystery of the moment. Larger-than-usual turnout from North Carolina Republicans in the first days of early voting spurred optimism for GOP candidates, but that pattern has since turned around. And as we learned in a conversation this past week with the executive director of Public Policy Polling, Tom Jensen, the outcomes in most top-of-the-ballot contests remain much in doubt and dependent on voter turnout in late early voting and on Election Day.