It’s too close to call, but Trump’s wins in Georgia and North Carolina give him more pathways to success than Harris.
الوسم: day
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Excited and unnerved: New Yorkers flood the polls on US Election Day | US Election 2024 News
New York City, US – As the sun rose over the five boroughs of New York City on Tuesday morning, a certain unspoken unease permeated the crisp autumn air.
New Yorkers — both supporters of former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris — flooded polling places early on November 5 as voters in the United States began to duke it out at the ballot box.
For some, it was a chance to dismantle the status quo. For many, it was the election of a lifetime.
New York City is a Democratic stronghold. In 2020, it voted overwhelmingly against Trump, helping to deliver current President Joe Biden a critical election victory.
But each of the five boroughs has its own personality, and the pockets of voters that make up New York City paint a much more complicated picture of this year’s presidential race.
In the blue-collar neighbourhood of Ridgewood, part of the westernmost borough of Queens, 36-year-old hairstylist Adrianne Kuss expressed anxiety about the election’s eventual outcome.
“I feel nervous,” Kuss told Al Jazeera moments after casting her vote for Harris on Tuesday morning. “Nobody should be on the fence… Too many things are at stake.”
Voters leave a polling site on Tuesday in Queens, where Trump signs and banners dot lawns and windows [Dorian Geiger/ Al Jazeera] Sporting pink hair with matching pink sunglasses, cargo pants and boots, Kuss added that the prospect of another Trump presidency frightened her.
The Republican candidate has pledged to be a dictator “for day one” if re-elected on Tuesday. Kuss also pointed out that Trump has made numerous anti-transgender and anti-immigrant comments.
“As a German American, I got this thing about fascism,” Kuss explained.
“I’m concerned about his racism, about his misogyny. But also, he is old and senile and out of touch. He’s not someone who represents New Yorkers. I mean, honestly, he’s this silver-spoon idiot.”
She pointed to the events of January 6, 2021, as fuelling her fears. On that day, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election after Trump repeatedly called the results a fraud.
“I don’t want this cultish mob rearing its ugly head again,” Kuss explained. “That was absolutely terrifying. In 2020, when the insurrection happened, people’s lives were literally at risk. I don’t want to see that again.”
Alice Kokasch, 83, a retired teacher, heads into the Seneca School in Ridgewood, Queens, on Tuesday morning to cast her vote for former President Donald Trump [Dorian Geiger/ Al Jazeera] (Al Jazeera) Queens, however, is Trump’s home borough: He was born and raised in the area, and his family’s real estate business was anchored there.
Traditionally, the borough turns out a higher proportion of voters — specifically white voters — for the former president and real estate billionaire than other pockets of the city.
In 2020, for instance, Trump carried over 26 percent of the vote in Queens, a higher number than in Brooklyn, Manhattan or the Bronx but lower than in Staten Island.
The Republican continues to have sway in areas of Queens like Ridgewood, a working-class, blue-collar neighbourhood where many Polish, German and Albanian voters live.
Retired Queens teacher Alice Kokasch, 83, is one of Trump’s supporters. Kokasch, who voted for the Republican leader in 2016 and 2020, said she had no qualms about sending Trump back to the Oval Office — despite his 34 felony convictions last May.
“He didn’t do anything that bad,” Kokasch told Al Jazeera outside Public School 88, where she taught and went to school. It had been transformed into a polling site for Tuesday’s race.
Kokasch said that, whatever Trump’s personal failings, they were no dealbreaker. “He’s not perfect, but who is, right?”
Brian, a 28-year-old Latino immigrant in Queens, also voted for Trump. Likewise, he was unfazed by Trump’s scandals and criminal history: Last year, the Republican leader became the first US president ever to face criminal charges.
“Honestly, it doesn’t bother me,” Brian, who also declined to give his name out of fear of retribution, told Al Jazeera.
“Nobody’s perfect, and I just look more towards what can he do for his country rather than his prior felony cases. I do acknowledge that that did happen. And, of course, that’s not a good look on anybody. But, you know, nobody’s perfect.”
For Brian, a customer service worker, Trump’s economic record was a mighty pull at the ballot box.
“I believe he’s the right candidate for us,” Brian said. “While he was in power, I felt like the economy was on the right track.”
Still, Brian acknowledged that Trump may not accept the election results if Harris inches ahead of him in the tight presidential race.
“Most likely not,” Brian said with a chuckle. “I know he won’t accept.”
More than one million New Yorkers cast their ballot during the early voting phase of the US election [Dorian Geiger/ Al Jazeera] Another voter in Queens, David, a 30-year-old construction worker with a mild European accent, also voted for Trump on Tuesday alongside his father. He declined to give his last name out of fear his political leanings could affect the family business.
Like many Trump supporters, he cited the high inflation under outgoing President Joe Biden as a motivation for his vote.
“The economy’s going to sh**,” David said. “Everything is up. Inflation is at an all-time high. I think it’s time to drain the swamp. What more can I say?”
With wars ongoing in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon, he also expressed fears that the US could be dragged into a new conflict under further Democratic leadership.
“Countless wars…,” David said, trailing off. “They want our troops to go out there and kill while they’re dining somewhere in Washington, DC, eating steak dinners.”
For him, a Harris win was inconceivable — and he echoed the unfounded election fraud claims that Trump has spread ahead of Tuesday’s election, seeking to undermine a potential Democratic victory.
“There’s a lot of spooky stuff going on,” David told Al Jazeera, citing a conspiracy theory that thousands of ballots had been hijacked off an 18-wheeler in Pennsylvania. “I’m not accepting the results.”
New Yorkers funnel into Public School 17 in north Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Tuesday morning to cast their ballot for the next president [Dorian Geiger/ Al Jazeera] South of Queens, in the more left-leaning borough of Brooklyn, public sentiment was slightly different.
In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a woman walking her dog and toting a yoga mat hugged a friend as the pair lined up to enter a polling station on North 5th Street.
Nearby, Brooklyn artist James Kennedy, 46, who wore a tie-dye hat with a blue Kamala pin, posed for a selfie. He told Al Jazeera he was feeling the weight of the moment.
“[I feel] pretty nervous,” Kennedy said. “I don’t know, man. It’s tough. I just wish we could all just get along again, you know? But I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but we’ll see. I just hope positivity wins over negativity.”
Brooklyn artist James Kennedy, 46, said he voted for Vice President Kamala Harris because of her stance on women’s reproductive rights [Dorian Geiger/Al Jazeera] The divisive presidential cycles of the last decade had left him feeling depleted, he explained. Nevertheless, Kennedy, a longtime registered Democrat, said his choice was clear: He would vote for Harris. There was no way he could support Trump’s behaviour and policies.
“The way this man acts, it’s just unpresidential,” the artist said of Trump.
Kennedy, particularly, had been troubled by the undoing of Roe v Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that had previously protected the right to abortion access.
Trump has boasted on the campaign trail that it was the judges he appointed to the court that made Roe’s demise possible. In 2022, after Roe was overturned, many states took the opportunity to implement restrictions on abortion rights — if not ban the procedure entirely.
Kennedy fears further draconian laws could be imposed if Republicans seize the White House again.
“I think that’s just really what’s so important right now,” he added. “But I just think it’s ridiculous that we even have to have [that conversation].”
Harlem polling sites drew scores of African American voters on Tuesday, eager to cast votes for Vice President Kamala Harris [Dorian Geiger/ Al Jazeera] Across the water, in the island borough of Manhattan, polling sites in the Harlem neighbourhood drew scores of primarily African American voters.
Many were eager to cast votes for Vice President Harris, who would be the first Black woman elected to the White House if successful in Tuesday’s race.
One polling site at EM Moore Public Housing drew 98-year-old lifelong Harlem resident Eula Dalton, who walked arm-in-arm with her daughter, Rose Dalton, to the polls.
“It was beautiful,” Eula Dalton said of this year’s voting process.
Both mother and daughter likened the moment to Barack Obama’s stunning 2008 presidential win. Obama became the first non-white person ever to lead the country.
Eula Dalton, 98, said casting her vote for Kamala Harris alongside her daughter, Rose Dalton, 67, was a “beautiful” moment she likened to Barack Obama’s historic 2008 win [Dorian Geiger/ Al Jazeera] Rose, a court reporter, travelled from Connecticut to ensure her mother, who struggles with early onset dementia, could exercise her right to vote.
“I knew I wanted to bring her,” Rose said, explaining that it was difficult for Eula to vote without assistance. “She’s been inactive since Obama, I believe, because, you know, back then, she was probably 16 years younger. She was more aware.”
But the Election Day energy in Harlem was “awesome”, Rose said, calling it a monumental moment in American politics. She predicted Harris would win in a “landslide”.
“Boy, let’s wait till tonight,” she said. “We know it’s historic. It’s very historic.”
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Ten states where abortion rights are on the ballot this election day | US elections 2024
Americans in 10 US states are voting on Tuesday on whether to enshrine the right to abortion into their state constitutions.
In some states, like Arizona and Florida, they have the opportunity to overturn bans that state legislatures passed after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June 2022, doing away with the federal right to an abortion. In others, like Colorado and New York, they are voting on whether to boost protections for the procedure and make them harder to roll back in the event conservatives take power. And in one state – Nebraska – two competing measures will ask voters to choose between enshrining an existing 12-week ban or replacing it with more expansive abortion protections.
Since Roe was overturned, seven states have held abortion-related ballot referendums, and abortion rights supporters have won all of them. The results of Tuesday’s measure will not be the final word; states that vote to overturn bans will see litigation or legislation before those bans are repealed. But taken together, the results will indicate how potent the issue remains after two years without Roe.
Results will begin rolling in after 8pm ET, when the final polls close in Florida, Missouri and Maryland. However, it could take days for a complete tally of all of the votes.
Arizona
Abortion rights supporters in Arizona, a key battleground state in the presidential election, are vying to pass a measure that would enshrine the right to abortion until fetal viability, or about 24 weeks, in the state constitution. Abortion is currently banned in the state after 15 weeks.
Colorado
Colorado’s measure, which needs to garner 55% of the vote, would amend the state constitution to block the state government from denying, impeding or discriminating against individuals’ “right to abortion”. There is currently no gestational limit on the right to abortion in the state.
Florida
Florida’s measure would roll back the state’s six-week ban by adding the right to an abortion up until viability to the state’s constitution. It needs 60% of the vote to pass.
Maryland
Legislators, rather than citizens, initiated Maryland’s measure, which would amend the state constitution to confirm individuals’ “right to reproductive freedom, including but not limited to the ability to make and effectuate decisions to prevent, continue, or end the individual’s pregnancy”. There is currently no gestational limit on the right to abortion in the state.
Missouri
Voters will decide whether to overturn the state’s current, near-total abortion ban and establish a constitutional guarantee to the “fundamental right to reproductive freedom”, including abortion care until fetal viability.
Montana
Abortion in Montana is currently legal. If passed, the measure would amend the state constitution to explicitly include “a right to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right to abortion” up until fetal viability, or after viability to protect a patient’s life or health.
Nebraska
Nebraska is the lone state with two competing ballot measures. If both measures pass, the measure that garners the most votes would take effect.
The first would enshrine the right to abortion up until viability into the state constitution.
The second would enshrine the current 12-week ban.
Nevada
Nevada’s measure would amend the state constitution to protect the right to abortion up until viability, or after viability in cases where a patient’s health or life may be threatened.
New York
New York state legislators added a measure to the ballot to broaden the state’s anti-discrimination laws by adding, among other things, protections against discrimination on the basis of “sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive health”. It does not explicitly reference abortion, but advocates say its pregnancy-related language encompasses abortion protections. Abortion is protected in New York until fetal viability.
South Dakota
South Dakota’s measure is less sweeping than other abortion rights measures, because it would only protect the right to abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. Although this measure will appear on the ballot, there will be a trial over the validity of the signatures that were collected for it. Depending out the outcome of the trial, the measure – and any votes cast for it – could be invalidated.
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The Take: On Election Day, what’s driving the fight for US swing states? | US Election 2024 News
PodcastPodcast, The Take
US journalists spotlight issues in the 2024 election in the battleground states which could swing the vote.
In the US election, seven battleground states could swing the contest towards Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Kamala Harris. Voters in these states have faced a barrage of outreach and campaign visits. We hear from a panel of local journalists taking the pulse of their communities, on the calculus of voters they’ve been talking to and the issues that matter most.
In this episode:
- Ruth Conniff (@rconniff), editor-in-chief, Wisconsin Examiner
- George Chidi (@neonflag), politics and democracy reporter, The Guardian
- Sophia Lo (@sophiamaylo), producer, City Cast Pittsburgh
Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Chloe K Li, Sonia Bhagat, Ashish Malhotra, Khaled Soltan and Sarí el-Khalili with Phillip Lanos, Spencer Cline, Cole Van Miltenburg, Duha Mosaad, Hagir Saleh and our host, Malika Bilal.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editor is Hisham Abu Salah. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
Connect with us:
@AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Threads and YouTube
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US election: It’s voting day – What polls say; what Harris, Trump are up to | US Election 2024 News
On the eve of Election Day in the United States, presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris blitzed through battleground states while trying to drive home key promises to supporters and voters still on the fence.
Vice President Harris zoned in on cities across Pennsylvania while former President Trump made stops in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
The Democratic candidate was joined by pop culture figures including Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey, while Trump called to stage his sons and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, with whom he once had a contentious relationship.
What are the latest updates from the polls?
The race continues to remain tight according to the latest polls, with key swing states presenting narrow leads for both candidates.
According to FiveThirtyEight’s daily tracker, Harris has a 1.2-point lead over Trump nationally, a margin that has remained fairly static in recent days, though it has shrunk compared with a month ago.
In swing states, Harris has a one-point advantage in Michigan and Wisconsin, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Meanwhile, Trump’s lead in Georgia and North Carolina has shrivelled to under one point, while he is ahead by 2.2 points in Arizona.
In Pennsylvania and Nevada, less than half a point separates the two: Harris has sneaked ahead in the former, though only marginally, after trailing Trump narrowly for the past two weeks; while the Republican candidate is barely ahead in Nevada.
Yet, the gap between the two candidates remains within the margin of error of polls in all seven swing states.
Pennsylvania has 19 Electoral College votes, the most among the battleground states, while Nevada has the fewest – six.
Still, Al Jazeera correspondent John Holman said that Nevada could prove to be crucial because of how close the race is. Key election issues resonate strongly here, with Nevada facing one of the highest unemployment rates and costs of living in the US.
More than 82 million Americans have already voted this year, according to a tally by the Election Lab at the University of Florida. The figure represents more than half of the total votes cast in the 2020 presidential election.
What was Kamala Harris up to on Monday?
Harris spent the final day campaigning in Pennsylvania.
The Democratic candidate started off with an event in Scranton, the hometown of President Joe Biden. She continued touting a message of unity while stating that the country is ready to move on from the Trump era.
Between rallies, Harris stopped by the Old San Juan Cafe, a Puerto Rican restaurant in Reading, Pennsylvania, trying to woo a community that has a large electoral presence in the state and that has come into focus after a comedian made racist comments about the US territory at a Trump event recently.
In the afternoon, Harris made her way to the steel city of Pittsburgh where she pledged to sign into law a national reproductive rights bill if passed by Congress.
Harris capped off the day with a big rally in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which featured music stars Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, as well as influential media personality Oprah Winfrey.
Harris speaks during a campaign rally at Carrie Blast Furnaces in Pittsburgh [Gene J Puskar/AP Photo} What was Donald Trump up to on Monday?
Donald Trump continued his campaign with a whirlwind tour through North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
In his first stop at Raleigh, North Carolina, the Republican candidate claimed a decisive advantage in the presidential race, which he said was “ours to lose”.
Trump went on to attack Harris on crime and immigration, arguing that “you’ll have open borders the very first day” if she is elected.
The stop marked Trump’s third consecutive day in the state while Al Jazeera’s Phil Lavelle reported an unusually low turnout in Raleigh, describing the venue as “only half full”, with empty seats visible around the edges.
Trump wraps up a campaign rally at JS Dorton Arena in Raleigh, North Caroline [Evan Vucci/AP] Later, Trump went to Reading, Pennsylvania, where he again suggested that he would carry out mass deportations by invoking an antiquated law, and to get Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighters to battle migrants.
Trump said he told UFC CEO Dana White – a backer of the former president – to set up a league. “At the end, I want the migrant to go against the champion, and I think the migrant might actually win, that’s how nasty some of these guys are,” Trump said. “But I don’t know, I doubt that,” he added, trailing off.
He also reiterated unfounded election fraud claims.
Trump also said Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who could siphon votes from Democrats in some swing states, particularly those outraged by the war in Gaza, “may be my favourite politician”.
He ended his day in Grand Rapids, Michigan with a final appeal to voters.
Trump, Donald Trump Jr and Michael Boulos listen as Eric Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Reading, Pennsylvania [Chris Szagola/AP Photo] What’s next for the Harris and Trump campaigns?
Hailing from California, Harris has voted absentee by mail. Her home state, which carries 54 Electoral College votes, is anticipated to vote Democratic this year, continuing a trend that has lasted for the past 36 years.
According to the NPR radio network, Harris will host a watch party at her alma mater, Howard University, in Washington, DC. The District of Columbia, with its three Electoral votes, is expected to support the Democratic candidate, consistent with its historical backing in every presidential election.
Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign announced plans last week to host an election watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center instead of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.
Despite previously indicating he would vote early, Trump has decided to cast his ballot in Florida on Election Day. Throughout this election cycle, he has encouraged Americans to vote early, even while expressing doubts about the integrity of the electoral process.
Florida, with its 30 Electoral votes, was for many years a swing state, won by former President Barack Obama twice and by Trump in 2016 and 2020. This year, however, Trump is favoured to secure a comfortable victory in the state.
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Trump calls Harris a ‘disaster’ as he concludes final day of campaigning | US Election 2024 News
Former United States President Donald Trump has delivered a final pitch to the American people, making four stops in three different states to denounce his opponent, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, as a “disaster”.
“You know she’s been exposed,” Trump said at his final campaign event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a rally that lasted so long it slipped into the early hours of Election Day.
“She’s a radical lunatic who destroyed San Francisco,” he said of the city where Harris spent the formative years of her career. “But we don’t have to settle for weakness and incompetence and decline.”
Ever since he announced in November 2022 that he would make a second re-election bid, his campaign has focused on immigration, the economy and a desire for retribution against his perceived political adversaries.
Trump has long maintained that his 2020 election defeat was the result of a “stolen” election, a false claim.
And in his final rally of the election, he applied similar language to his former Democratic adversary, President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the presidential race in July due to concerns over his age.
“They stole the election from a president,” Trump said of the circumstances of Biden’s withdrawal. “They use the word ‘coup’. I think it’s worse than a coup in a sense because in a coup there’s a little back and forth.”
Trump stumps heavily on economy
Polls show Democrats like Biden, 81, and Harris, 60, as being vulnerable on issues such as the economy and immigration.
For example, a survey in late October from The New York Times and Siena College found that more voters trusted Trump than Harris to address the economy, at a rate of 52 percent to 45.
Trump has often invoked the economy in his appeal to voters. It was no different on Monday night, when he opened his rally in Grand Rapids with a familiar question: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
He proceeded to muse at length about “groceries” being an old term — before promising to bring food prices down.
“They say my groceries are so much more [expensive],” Trump said of voters. “The term is just like an old term. And it’s a beautiful [term], but they say about my groceries were so expensive. They’ll be cheaper. Your paycheques will be higher. Your streets will be safer and clear.”
Campaign fatigue
During the rally, the 78-year-old Trump also acknowledged the toll the nonstop campaign schedule has taken on him.
“This is the last one we will have to do,” he said of the Grand Rapids rally. “Doing four of these in one day is a little difficult, but not really. Because the love at every one of them has been incredible.”
The Grand Rapids appearance came at the end of a busy day of campaigning. Earlier on Monday, Trump gave speeches in Raleigh, North Carolina; Reading, Pennsylvania; and Pittsburgh, also in Pennsylvania.
But making his final appeal in Grand Rapids has become a Trump team tradition. Grand Rapids was the site of his final event in the 2016 and 2020 election cycles.
The question of Trump’s fatigue and fitness on the campaign trail has been an issue the Harris campaign has sought to weaponise.
Harris has positioned herself as a “new generation” of leader, compared with the older Trump, and her campaign recently released footage of Trump on social media appearing to nod off at a campaign event.
“Being president of the United States is probably one of the hardest jobs in the world,” Harris told reporters earlier this month. “And we really do need to ask: If he’s exhausted on the campaign trail, is he fit to do the job?”
Both candidates have sought to paint the other as incapable of weathering the stresses of the White House.
Navigating controversy
In the waning days of his campaign, Trump has also had to navigate controversy over his rhetoric and that of his allies.
For instance, he faced outcry after suggesting that longtime critic, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, ought to know what it was like to have guns trained on her since her family is known for its hawkish approach to foreign policy.
On Sunday, he also said he would not “mind so much” if someone shot the media to get at him. And at a rally at Madison Square Garden a week earlier, his campaign ignited a firestorm when one of the speakers described the US island territory of Puerto Rico as “garbage”.
Trump has since sought to redirect any criticism to President Biden, who appeared to call the Republican’s supporters “garbage” in response to the Puerto Rico comment.
“I came in a sanitation uniform last week, and that worked out pretty good,” Trump told the crowd in Grand Rapids. “Because Joe Biden in one of his crazy moments said that we were all garbage.”
The crowd booed Biden in response.
Trump also returned to a talking point that earned him backlash during the June presidential debate: that migrants were stealing “Black jobs”, a phrase many critics viewed as racist.
The former president nevertheless doubled down on the assertion in his Grand Rapids rally, reverting to hyped-up rhetoric about the threat of migration.
“One hundred percent of the jobs that were created went to migrants, not to people. And I’ll tell you what. Your Black population is being devastated by these people. They’re taking all the Black population jobs away,” he said.
“You’re going to see some bad things happen. They’re taking their jobs. The Hispanic population is going to be next.”
‘We’ve been waiting four years for this’
Polls show Trump continues to be neck and neck with Harris in the final hours before Americans cast their ballots.
But in his final campaign appearances of the 2024 election cycle, Trump sought to create a false narrative that his popularity far exceeded Harris’s — and that there was no way he could lose.
“When we win the election, look, the ball’s in our hands. All we have to do is get out the vote tomorrow. You get out the vote. They can’t do anything about it. We win,” he said.
He also described his presidential bid — and his near-death experience in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July — as providential experiences.
“Just a few months ago, in a beautiful field in Pennsylvania, an assassin tried to stop our great movement. The greatest movement in history,” Trump told the Grand Rapids audience. “That was not a pleasant day. But many people say that God saved me in order to save America.”
Earlier, in Pittsburgh, Trump appeared before a large crowd and offered a closing message to voters whose support might still be undecided in the key swing state.
“We’ve been waiting four years for this,” said Trump. “We’re going to win the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and it’s going to be over.”
While on stage, he announced he had received the endorsement of Joe Rogan, the hugely influential podcaster who interviewed Trump and his running mate JD Vance.
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Polls open for 2024 US Election Day as Kamala Harris, Donald Trump face off | US Election 2024 News
Washington, DC – Election Day is finally here.
Polls have opened for the 2024 United States election, a national vote that will decide not only the next president of the country but also the makeup of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Tuesday caps a mad-dash stretch of campaigning that saw Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and her Republican challenger Donald Trump crisscrossing the country in hopes of shoring up voters.
For weeks, polls have shown a remarkably tight race, with no candidate having the edge going into Election Day.
Whatever the outcome of the vote, the result will define US politics and policy for the next four years. It will also be historic as voters will either elect the first female president in Harris or the first convicted felon in Trump.
In the final sprint of the race, both candidates have laid out vastly different visions for the country’s future. They have also staked out divergent positions on key issues like the economy, immigration, women’s rights and democracy.
Harris has pledged to “turn the page” on what she calls Trump’s divisive rhetoric. She has also positioned herself as a “new generation” leader who will boost the middle class, protect women’s rights and maintain the integrity of US institutions at home and abroad.
Nevertheless, she has faced regular protests over her support for Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon.
Trump, meanwhile, has promised a return to a US “golden age”. To do that, he has sketched a plan to lift economic regulations, project US strength abroad and crack down on migrants – a line of attack that regularly dips into racist tropes.
But while the candidates’ platforms have starkly contrasted in both substance and tone, they overlap on one lofty theme: that the outcome of this year’s vote is pivotal.
Trump has dubbed the 2024 race “the most important” one the country has ever seen, while Harris says it is the “most consequential” of voters’ lifetimes.
Both candidates spent the final 24 hours ahead of Election Day busily campaigning in key states.
“With your vote tomorrow, we can fix every single problem our country faces and lead America – indeed, the world – to new heights of glory,” said Trump as he delivered his closing pitch at the final rally of his campaign in the early hours of the morning in Grand Rapids, in the swing state of Michigan.
Harris said “the momentum is on our side” as she signed off in Philadelphia.
“We must finish strong,” the Democrat candidate declared. “Make no mistake, we will win.”
Record early voting
Election Day is the culmination of weeks of early voting in some locations. Several states began early voting – whether by mail or in person – as far back as September.
Nearly 81 million voters already cast their ballot before Election Day, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab.
That is more than half of the 158.4 million (PDF) total votes cast in the 2020 presidential election – and a sign of record turnout this year for early voting in some parts of the country.
Election Day will ultimately reveal not just which candidate comes out on top, but the full extent of the changing demographics of the US electorate.
The first voting site technically opened right after Monday midnight Eastern time (05:00 GMT, Tuesday) in the tiny New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch. The next slate opened at 5am ET (10:00 GMT) in Vermont.
Other polling sites opened as morning broke across the six time zones that cover the 50 US states.
Once the polls close in the evening, the results may take hours or days to be tabulated. States cannot begin reporting their vote counts until polls close.
Results will start to trickle in by about 6pm ET (23:00 GMT) when the first polls close in states like Indiana and Kentucky.
The last polls will close in the states farthest west, Alaska and Hawaii, around Tuesday midnight ET (05:00 GMT, Wednesday).
After that, the timing of the results will come down to individual states, as the US does not have a centralised election system. Each state is responsible for tallying its ballots. The tighter the margins, the longer that process may take.
All eyes will be on seven key states that are likely to decide the outcome: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and North Carolina.
In the US, the presidential election is decided not by the popular vote but by a weighted system called the Electoral College.
Under the system, each state is worth a certain number of Electoral College votes, equal to the number of senators and representatives in Congress each state has.
For example, the swing state of North Carolina has 14 representatives in Congress based on its population size. Two senators represent every state, bringing the total number of Electoral College votes for North Carolina to 16.
The outcome of the presidential race in a given state determines which candidate receives that state’s Electoral College votes.
All but two states have a winner-takes-all system: if a candidate wins the state, even by a small margin, they get all its Electoral College votes.
There are 538 Electoral College votes in total, spread across the US. Whoever passes the threshold of 270 wins the race.
Since certain states consistently lean Republican or Democrat, Harris is likely to win 226 Electoral College votes easily, and Trump is expected to carry 219 without issue. Beyond that, Harris has 20 paths to victory and Trump 21.
Al Jazeera will rely on The Associated Press news agency to determine who has won each state and, eventually, the overall election. The AP does not issue projections. It declares the result of a race only once a winner emerges and no other outcome is possible.
History-making race
This year’s vote will conclude an election season that repeatedly saw historic upheavals.
Donald Trump, 78, has become the central figure in the Republican Party and has led a movement that has sown doubt in the US election process.
Trump first entered the White House in 2016 after a surprise victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton. But he fell short in his re-election bid in 2020, when Joe Biden bested him at the ballot box.
The Republican leader, however, never conceded defeat and instead claimed that widespread voter fraud cost him the race, an unsubstantiated assertion.
Critics say since his 2020 defeat, Trump has never really stopped campaigning, laying the groundwork for his present-day bid. He officially announced he would seek re-election in 2022 at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
But his campaign has, at times, been overshadowed by historic court cases. Trump is the first president, past or present, to face criminal charges.
Four separate indictments have been issued against him: one for withholding classified documents, one for falsifying business records and two for efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
In the business records case in New York, Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts. But rather than dampen his re-election prospects, his legal troubles have largely energised his base, according to polls.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him and has called the indictments evidence of a coordinated “witch-hunt” designed to derail his presidential bid.
But he was not the only candidate facing historic hurdles as he raced for the White House.
His Democratic rival Harris was not even a candidate until about three months ago. Initially, in April 2023, President Biden announced plans to run for re-election.
He cruised through the Democratic primary season, running largely unopposed in the state-level contests. But concerns about the 81-year-old’s age and ability began to mount as he hit the campaign trail.
A special counsel report released in February, for instance, said Biden “did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died” – something the president later denied. And Biden made several high-profile gaffes, calling Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi the “president of Mexico”.
The concerns over Biden crescendoed after a stumbling debate performance in June, where the president seemed to trail off mid-thought.
By July, Biden had abruptly dropped out of the race, and Democrats quickly coalesced around his vice president, Harris.
By early August, enough Democratic delegates had sided with Harris in a virtual vote for her to be named the party’s nominee for the presidency.
But it was an unorthodox process: never before had an incumbent president dropped out so late in a race, and never in recent history had a major party nominee bypassed the traditional primary process.
On Tuesday, Trump addressed the media after casting his ballot in Palm Beach, Florida, saying he feels “very confident” about his election odds.
“It looks like Republicans have shown up in force,” Trump said. “We’ll see how it turns out”.
He added, “I hear we’re doing very well.”
The election may still break new ground. In the charged political climate, fears of physical threats to polling sites have surged like never before.
And after four years of Trump claiming that the 2020 election had been stolen, observers have warned he and his allies could challenge the 2024 race if the results do not go his way.
That means the cloud of uncertainty that has hung over US politics for months may not dissipate anytime soon.
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Trump or Harris? Election Day arrives with a stark choice
WASHINGTON (AP) — A presidential campaign marked by upheaval and rancor approached its finale on Election Day as Americans decided whether to send Donald Trump back to the White House or elevate Kamala Harris to the Oval Office.
Polls opened across the nation Tuesday morning as voters faced a stark choice between two candidates who have offered drastically different temperaments and visions for the world’s largest economy and dominant military power.
Harris, the Democratic vice president, stands to be the first female president if elected. She has promised to work across the aisle to tackle economic worries and other issues without radically departing from the course set by President Joe Biden. Trump, the Republican former president, has vowed to replace thousands of federal workers with loyalists, impose sweeping tariffs on allies and foes alike, and stage the largest deportation operation in U.S. history.
The two candidates spent the waning hours of the campaign overlapping in Pennsylvania, the biggest battleground state. They were trying to energize their bases as well as Americans still on the fence or debating whether to vote at all.
“It’s important, it’s my civic duty and it’s important that I vote for myself and I vote for the democracy and the country which I supported for 22 years of my life,” said Ron Kessler, 54, an Air Force veteran from Pennsylvania who said he was voting for just the second time.
Harris and Trump entered Election Day focused on seven battleground states, five of them carried by Trump in 2016 before flipping to Biden in 2020: the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin as well as Arizona and Georgia. Nevada and North Carolina, which Democrats and Republicans respectively carried in the last two elections, also were closely contested.
The closeness of the race and the number of states in play raised the likelihood that once again a victor might not be known on election night. There was one early harbinger from the New Hampshire hamlet of Dixville Notch, which by tradition votes after midnight on Election Day. Dixville Notch split between Trump and Harris, with three votes for each.
In the 2020 presidential race it took four days to declare a winner. Regardless, Trump has baselessly claimed that if he lost, it would be due to fraud. Harris’ campaign was preparing for him to try to declare victory before a winner is known on Tuesday night or to try to contest the result if she wins. Four years ago, Trump launched an effort to overturn the voters’ will that ended in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump planned to vote in his adopted home state of Florida on Tuesday, then spend the day at his Mar-a-Lago estate in advance of a party at a nearby convention center. Harris already voted by mail in her home state of California. She’ll have a watch party at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington.
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Each candidate would take the country into new terrain
Harris, 60, would be the first woman, Black woman and person of South Asian descent to serve as president. She also would be the first sitting vice president to win the White House in 32 years.
A victory would cap a whirlwind campaign unlike any other in American history. Harris ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket less than four months ago after Biden, facing massive pressure from his party after a disastrous debate performance, ended his reelection bid.
Trump, 78, would be the oldest president ever elected. He would also be the first defeated president in 132 years to win another term in the White House, and the first person convicted of a felony to take over the Oval Office.
Having left Washington abandoned by some allies after Jan. 6, Trump defeated younger rivals in the Republican primary and consolidated the support of longtime allies and harsh critics within his party. He survived one assassination attempt by millimeters at a July rally. Secret Service agents foiled a second attempt in September.
A victory for Trump would affirm that enough voters put aside warnings from many of Trump’s former aides or instead prioritized concerns about Biden and Harris’ stewardship of the economy or the U.S.-Mexico border.
It would all but ensure he avoids going to prison after being found guilty of his role in hiding hush-money payments to an adult film actress during his first run for president in 2016. His sentencing in that case could occur later this month. And upon taking office, Trump could end the federal investigation into his effort to overturn the 2020 election results.
The election has huge stakes for America and the world
The potential turbulence of a second Trump term has been magnified by his embrace of the Republican Party’s far right and his disregard for long-held democratic norms.
Trump has used harsh rhetoric against Harris and other Democrats, calling them “demonic,” and has suggested military action against people he calls “enemies from within.”
Harris, pointing to the warnings of Trump’s former aides, has labeled him a “fascist” and blamed Trump for putting women’s lives in danger by nominating three of the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. In the closing hours of the campaign, she tried to strike a more positive tone and went the entire last day Monday without saying her Republican opponent’s name.
Heading into Election Day, federal, state and local officials expressed confidence in the integrity of the nation’s election systems. They nonetheless were braced to contend with what they say is an unprecedented level of foreign disinformation — particularly from Russia and Iran — as well as the possibility of physical violence or cyberattacks.
Both sides have armies of lawyers in anticipation of legal challenges on and after Election Day. And law enforcement agencies nationwide are on high alert for potential violence.
The outcome of the race was being closely watched around the world, with the future of American support for Ukraine, U.S. fidelity to its global alliances and the nation’s commitment to stand up to autocrats hanging in the balance.
Harris has vowed to continue backing Kyiv’s defense against Russia’s full-scale 2022 invasion. Trump has sharply criticized Ukraine, praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and suggested he would encourage Russia to attack NATO allies of the U.S. that Trump considers delinquent.
Voters nationwide also were deciding thousands of other races that will decide everything from control of Congress to state ballot measures on abortion access.
More than 82 million people voted early — shy of the record set during the 2020 pandemic, when Trump encouraged Republicans to stick to voting on Election Day. This time, he urged his voters to lock down their ballots in advance and they complied in droves.
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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in Palm Beach, Florida, Darlene Superville and Eric Tucker in Washington, and Marc Levy in Allentown, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.
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The final day of voting in the US is here
WASHINGTON (AP) — Election Day 2024 arrived Tuesday — with tens of millions of Americans having already cast their ballots. Those include record numbers in Georgia, North Carolina and other battleground states that could decide the winner.
The early turnout in Georgia, which has flipped between the Republican and Democratic nominees in the previous two presidential elections, has been so robust — over 4 million voters — that a top official in the secretary of state’s office said the big day could look like a “ghost town” at the polls.
As of Monday, Associated Press tracking of advance voting nationwide showed roughly 82 million ballots already cast — slightly more than half the total number of votes in the presidential election four years earlier. That’s driven partly by Republican voters, who were casting early ballots at a higher rate than in recent previous elections after a campaign by former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee to counter the Democrats’ longstanding advantage in the early vote.
Despite long lines in some places and a few hiccups that are common to all elections, early in-person and mail voting proceeded without any major problems.
That included in the parts of western North Carolina hammered last month by Hurricane Helene. State and local election officials, benefiting from changes made by the Republican-controlled legislature, pulled off a herculean effort to ensure residents could cast their ballots as they dealt with power outages, lack of water and washed out roads.
By the time early voting in North Carolina had ended on Saturday, over 4.4 million voters — or nearly 57% of all registered voters in the state — had cast their ballots. As of Monday, turnout in the 25 western counties affected by the hurricane was even stronger at 59% of registered voters, state election board Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said.
Brinson Bell called the voters and election workers in the hurricane-hit counties “an inspiration to us all.”
Besides the hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida, the most worrisome disruptions to the election season so far were arson attacks that damaged ballots in two drop boxes near the Oregon-Washington border. Authorities there were searching for the person responsible.
The absence of any significant, widespread problems has not stopped Trump, the Republican nominee, or the RNC, which is now under his sway, from making numerous claims of fraud or election interference during the early voting period, a possible prelude to challenges after Election Day.
He has mischaracterized an investigation underway in Pennsylvania into roughly 2,500 potentially fraudulent voter registration applications by saying one of the counties was “caught with 2600 Fake Ballots and Forms, all written by the same person.” The investigation is into registration applications; there is no indication that ballots are involved.
In Georgia, Republicans sought to prohibit voters from returning mailed ballots to their local election office by the close of polls on Election Day, votes that are allowed under state law. A judge rejected their lawsuit over the weekend.
Trump and Republicans also have warned about the possibility that Democrats are recruiting masses of noncitizens to vote, a claim they have made without evidence and that runs counter to the data, including from Republican secretaries of state. Research has consistently shown that noncitizens registering to vote is rare. Any noncitizen who does faces the potential of felony charges and deportation, a significant disincentive.
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One case of noncitizen voting was caught during early voting last month and resulted in felony charges in Michigan after a student from China cast an illegal early ballot.
This is the first presidential vote since Trump lost to Joe Biden four years ago and began various attempts to circumvent the outcome and remain in power. That climaxed with the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to halt certification of the results after Trump told his supporters to “fight like hell.”
Even now, a solid majority of Republicans believe Trump’s lie that Biden was not legitimately elected, despite reviews, audits and recounts in the battleground states that all affirmed Biden’s win. A survey last month from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed Republicans remain much more skeptical than Democrats that their ballots will be counted accurately this year.
Seeking to rebuild voter confidence in a system targeted with false claims of widespread fraud, Republican lawmakers in more than a dozen states since 2020 have passed new voting restrictions. Those rules include shortening the window to apply or return a mail ballot, reducing the availability of ballot drop boxes and adding ID requirements.
On the last weekend before Election Day, Trump continued to falsely claim the election was being rigged against him and said a presidential winner should be declared on election night, before all the ballots are counted.
Vice President Kamala Harris urged voters not to fall for Trump’s tactic of casting doubt on elections. The Democratic nominee told supporters at a weekend rally in Michigan that the tactic was intended to suggest to people “that if they vote, their vote won’t matter.” Instead, she urged people who had already cast ballots to encourage their friends to do the same.
Through four years of election lies and voting-related conspiracy theories, local election officials have faced harassment and even death threats. That has prompted high turnover and led to heightened security for election offices and polling sites that includes panic buttons and bullet-proof glass.
While there have been no major reports of any malicious cyberactivity affecting election offices, foreign actors have been active in using fake social media profiles and websites to drum up partisan vitriol and disinformation. In the final weeks, U.S. intelligence officials have attributed to Russia multiple fake videos alleging election fraud in presidential swing states.
On the eve of Election Day, they issued a joint statement with federal law enforcement agencies warning that Russia in particular was ramping up its influence operations, including in ways that could incite violence, and likely would continue those efforts well after the votes have been cast.
Jen Easterly, the nation’s top election security official, urged Americans to rely on state and local election officials for information about elections.
“This is especially important as we are in an election cycle with an unprecedented amount of disinformation, including disinformation being aggressively peddled and amplified by our foreign adversaries at a greater scale than ever before,” she said. “We cannot allow our foreign adversaries to have a vote in our democracy.”
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