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The first polls have closed in Indiana and Kentucky — though polls in the western parts of those states will be open for another hour — and results should start trickling in soon. They will be incomplete and potentially very unrepresentative of the final numbers, though, so caution and patience are both warranted.

But one thing is already clear: The turnout in this election will be historic.

We won’t know the final turnout numbers for some time, but they are on track to be enormous, as evidenced by the fact that at least six states have already surpassed their 2016 vote totals with several hours left to go in many places.

According to the United States Election Project, 2020 votes have already exceeded 2016 votes in Colorado, Hawaii, Montana, Oregon, Texas and Washington State.

By the end of the night, the same could easily be true in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina and Utah, all of which had reported more than 90 percent of their 2016 totals by earlier today.

Michael P. McDonald, a University of Florida professor who compiles data from across the nation, said that the country appeared to be on track for roughly 160 million total votes cast. That would mean a turnout rate of about 67 percent of the eligible voting population — higher than the United States has seen in more than a century.

Around the nation, Black voters were on pace to greatly surpass their turnout from 2016, according to voter data analyzed and released Tuesday by the Collective PAC, which is dedicated to electing Black lawmakers.

Quentin James, the founder of the PAC, said more than 616,000 Black people had already cast ballots in Texas — more than the 582,000 who voted in 2016 — and that the turnout of Black voters in Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona was on pace to easily overtake 2016 levels.

In Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state, Democratic officials said they felt particularly bullish about turnout in Philadelphia. With just under 400,000 mail ballots cast and lines at hundreds of polling places around the city starting at 6:30 a.m., one Democratic official said he thought the turnout could surge past levels seen in 2008 for former President Barack Obama.

On the other side, Bill Bretz, chairman of the Republican Party in Westmoreland County, Pa., which includes eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh, said turnout had been “exceptionally high” there.

We don’t have enough information yet to say whether more Democrats or more Republicans voted in most states. We do know that Democrats had a strong advantage in early voting, and that Republicans were expected to have an advantage in Election Day voting — but there is much less Election Day voting this year than in past years.

“There’s only so much left in the Election Day vote,” said Michael P. McDonald, an elections expert at the University of Florida. “That means that Trump’s got to make up ground with a smaller potential pool.”