As Americans waited anxiously for the results in a knife-edge election, newspaper headlines around the world captured the uncertainty – and fears of unrest in the near future.
The Guardian’s headline is “Hope… and fear” over a photograph of Democratic presidential candidate and US vice-president Kamala Harris. The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith, describes the feeling Americans have as “see-sawing between anxiety and hope”. A second front page story is headlined “Democrats dare to believe”.
Guardian front page on Wednesday, 6 November 2024, the day after the US presidential election. Photograph: Guardian
The Times looks beyond the US to how people in other countries feel about elections in the world’s largest economy, with, “World awaits America’s fate”:
The International New York Times had two US election stories: an opinion piece with the headline “Trump’s fans should also fear a victory” and a piece headlined “Voters share a deep sense of anxiety at ballot boxes”.
The Daily Mail captured fears of what will happen if either candidate wins in a single word – “tinderbox” – as well as how close the polls are: “Tinderbox America on knife edge”.
The Financial Times leads with a demure “America decides”:
The i Paper: “America votes for its future – and braces for election unrest”. Instead of a photograph of either candidate, or both, the paper’s front page image was of security personnel wearing helmets and bullet proof vests and carrying guns.
The ellipsis makes its second appearance on the Daily Mirror’s front page with: “Pray for victory… brace for chaos’:
In France a play on “Après-moi, le deluge”, with Libération’s “Après l’election, la peur d’embrasement” – after the election, fear of unrest:
The front page of Libération. Photograph: FrontPages.com
And “The world hangs on the choice of Americans” in Le Figaro:
Front page of Le Figaro on the day after the 2024 US election. Photograph: Frontpages.com
Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung’s headline is simply, “Her or him”, while Tagespiegel’s headline is “A desk full of worries”, with a picture of the Resolute desk in the Oval Office with nobody behind it.
The front page of Süddeutsche Zeitung. Photograph: FrontPages.com
Frankfurter Allgemeine has a photograph of the Sesame Street character Oscar the Grouch popping out of a garbage bin, and the headline – a reference to a movie about the Vietnam war – “Good morning America”:
The front page of the Frankfurter-Allgemeine Zeitung the day after the US election. Photograph: Frontpage.com
In Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald carries a reference to the tagline of the Melbourne Cup, a horse racing competition that happened on Tuesday, with the headline: “Real race that stops a nation”:
Front page of the The Sydney Morning Herald the day after the US election. Photograph: FrontPages.com
As Donald Trump racked up more electoral votes, Kamala Harris’ campaign co-chair addressed her rally at Howard University, saying there are still votes to be counted and states left to be called and Harris will address the nation on Wednesday.
As Donald Trump racked up more electoral votes, Kamala Harris’ campaign co-chair addressed her rally at Howard University, saying there are still votes to be counted and states left to be called and Harris will address the nation on Wednesday.
Published [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year]
Florida voters defeated a measure to enshrine abortion access into the state constitution, a devastating blow for advocates who had hoped to roll back the state’s six-week abortion ban and continue their now-broken streak of ballot-measure victories.
A total of 10 states voted on abortion-related ballot initiatives on Tuesday. Results are forthcoming in seven states, four of which could overturn post-Roe v Wade abortion bans and restore access. New York and Maryland passed ballot measures to expand their states’ protections for abortion and cement their status as abortion havens.
Given that abortion is one of the top issues in the 2024 election, Democrats had hoped these measures would boost turnout among their base. But while many of the outstanding measures appear on track to pass, including in swing states like Nevada and Arizona, polls suggest a chunk of voters are effectively splitting their votes by supporting both abortion rights and Republicans.
Out of all the abortion-related measures, the Florida initiative – known as amendment 4 – was long considered the most difficult to pass. Unlike other measures, which only require a simple majority – or, in the case of Colorado, 55% of the vote – to pass, the Florida measure needed to garner 60% of the vote. At the time it was called by the Associated Press, the Florida measure had amassed a clear majority, with 57% of the vote.
The Florida result is a bitter pill for abortion rights supporters, shattering a string of successes at the ballot box. Advocates have won abortion-related ballot measures in seven states since Roe was overturned.
After the US supreme court overturned Roe in 2022, Florida became a refuge for people fleeing the abortion bans that now blanket the rest of the US south, before its six-week ban took effect in May of this year.
Had the Florida measure passed on Tuesday, it would have protected the right to abortion up until fetal viability, or about 24 weeks into pregnancy.
In the weeks leading up to election day, Florida Republicans alarmed civil rights and voting rights groups by unleashing a wave of attacks on the measure. Law enforcement officials investigated people who signed a petition to get the measure onto the ballot, while the state’s agency for healthcare administration put up a webpage attacking the amendment. The health department also sent cease-and-desist letters to local TV stations that aired an advertisement supporting the measure, prompting the measure’s organizers to sue.
“Florida’s deadly abortion ban is out of line with the values of our state,” said Lauren Brenzel, manager of the campaign for the amendment, Yes on 4 Florida, in a statement. “Florida voters sent that message loud and clear today, and despite the fact that only a minority of voters voted to retain the abortion ban our extremist government will exploit the situation to deny its own constituents the right to decide on our bodily autonomy.”
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage
Just hours after the polls closed in the 2020 United States presidential election, as millions of votes were still being counted, Donald Trump delivered an extraordinary address.
“We were getting ready to win this election – frankly, we did win this election,” the then-president told reporters in the early morning hours after Election Day, alleging that “a major fraud” was being committed.
“We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 o’clock in the morning and add them to the list,” he said.
Trump’s premature — and false — claim of victory over his Democratic challenger Joe Biden, who ultimately won the 2020 election, capped weeks of untrue voter fraud allegations made by the Republican incumbent.
Four years later, as the 2024 race between Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris remains too close to call, experts again are stressing that it could take days to count the votes — and that is not a sign of malfeasance.
“Just like in 2020, it’s entirely normal for vote counting to take several days,” said Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the voting rights project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
That’s especially true “in closely contested states where things are going to be scrutinised and you’re going to have to count a lot of votes before you’re going to have a sense of who’s going to win those states”.
“It’s going to take time, and that’s due to built-in verification steps in the counting process to ensure accuracy,” she told Al Jazeera.
Different procedures
Vote counting takes time in the US for a variety of reasons, including how elections are administered and how ballots are processed.
Each US state runs elections its own way, and as a result, each state’s vote count takes a different amount of time, explained Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor of law at Stetson University College of Law in Florida.
For example, the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin do not allow mail-in ballots to be processed before Election Day, meaning their respective counts will likely take longer.
“Others get a head start by starting the counting process earlier during the early voting period,” Torres-Spelliscy told Al Jazeera in an email.
“And states have vastly different population sizes. Wyoming has a tiny population while California has more people living in it than Canada. The bigger the population of voters, the longer it takes to count their ballots, which can number in the millions.”
Meanwhile, states also must sort through what are known as provisional ballots. These are ballots cast by people whose voter registration status must first be verified before their vote is counted, thereby taking a little bit longer.
Ultimately, that it can take hours — or even days — after Election Day to count votes is not a sign of any illegal act, Torres-Spelliscy said. “Just because it takes a populous state a few days to count millions of votes is not evidence of fraud.”
Misperceptions, misinformation
Still, misinformation can quickly spread in the time it takes to tabulate the votes — and between when the polls close and when a projected winner is announced.
While states can take weeks to release their official vote tallies, US media organisations make projections based on their own methodologies as well as preliminary results.
This “election call” — a news outlet announcing a projected presidential winner — can happen on election night. But in closer contests, such as the 2020 race between Trump and Biden, it can take a few days.
Most polling leading up to Election Day this year showed Harris and Trump locked in a race that is too close to call and will likely come down to how the candidates fare in seven critical battleground states: Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada.
The potential for misinformation in this period is especially high in a polarised nation where Trump has now spent years claiming that the 2020 election was stolen from him and the electoral system overall is rife with fraud.
Those beliefs are held by many Americans: According to a September 2023 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, 66 percent of Republican voters said they believed the “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
A phenomenon known as the “Blue Shift” can also add to false perceptions that something nefarious is going on, as it did in 2020.
The term refers to a moment in US elections when the results begin to shift in favour of Democrats as more mail-in ballots get counted throughout the day. Generally, more Democratic voters have voted by mail than Republicans, but it remains to be seen if that will again be the case this year.
In 2020, Trump “used that change in the numbers over the course of the day … to create this idea that something was wrong”, Lakin at the ACLU said.
“But it was the normal processing of ballots; it was just a feature of the way people were opting to vote in that particular year.”
On the campaign trail, the former president repeatedly warned of voter fraud, including the prospect that noncitizens were voting as part of a Democratic plot to skew the results in Harris’s favour — a claim experts have slammed as untrue.
His team has filed a number of lawsuits related to alleged irregularities on voter rolls, the lists of people who are eligible to cast ballots.
And Trump also embraced the slogan “too big to rig” to urge his supporters to vote in numbers large enough to “guarantee we win by more than the margin of fraud”.
“He’s already sort of announced that he’s the winner before the ballots have even been counted. This is the same claim that he made in 2020: If he’s not the winner of the official count, it can only be because of fraud,” said James Gardner, a professor at the University of Buffalo School of Law in New York state.
“He has already laid the groundwork for yelling fraud and irregularity just because he might not win. If that’s your starting point, the fact that it takes a while to count the ballots is only one of a million different things that you can say.”
According to Gardner, “the root of the problem is that the Republican Party under Trump is not willing to play by the rules of democracy.
“It believes that it deserves to be in power regardless of electoral outcomes. So as a result, it does not adhere to any of the ethics of democratic fair play. Democracy is based on fair rules of fair competition, and the Trump Republican Party is not committed to those.”
Potential for violence
Torres-Spelliscy noted that even if Trump does say he won before all the votes are counted, that type of pronouncement “makes no difference legally”.
“What matters is who states and DC certify and which candidate wins 270 Electoral College votes,” she explained.
Still, if Trump prematurely declares victory over Harris and is ultimately found to have lost after the votes are counted, that would add to the distrust, anger and feelings of injustice that already permeate among many of the former president’s supporters.
“What’s going to happen this time — what’s already happening — is that there’s going to be all kinds of outlandish claims made through the media, and that will at the very least inflame Trump’s supporters,” Gardner said. “And who knows what they’ll do.”
Amid Trump’s false fraud claims after the 2020 vote, a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol in Washington, DC, to try to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s election victory.
The January 6, 2021, insurrection continues to reverberate across the country, Lakin said, as the false claims of a stolen election “created this huge divide in this country and ultimately led to violence”.
“That would be unfortunate if that were to happen again,” she said. “It would be a travesty for democracy if we can’t figure out how to return to a peaceful transfer of power.”
Democratic presidential candidateKamala Harris has made her last appeal to voters, holding a series of rallies in battleground Pennsylvania, with a final, glitzy event in the city of Philadelphia, where producer-actress Oprah Winfrey introduced her.
In her fifth and final event late on Monday night, Harris told a large crowd she was ready to represent the next generation of leadership in the United States.
“But this race is not over, and we must finish strong,” she said.
“And this could be one of the closest races in history. Every single vote matters.”
Winfrey appeared on stage at the event at the Philadelphia Museum of Art with 10 young people who were all first-time voters.
“[If] you’re feeling burned out and bruised and maybe inconsequential, nothing could be further from the truth. Every single vote, everyone is going to matter,” said Winfrey. “That’s why I’ve come to Philadelphia tonight.”
As she closed her address, Harris said voters had a chance in this election to finally “turn the page on a decade of politics that has been driven by fear and division”.
“We are done with that. We’re done [and] we’re exhausted with it,” she said.
“America is ready for a fresh start, ready for a new way forward, where we see our fellow Americans not as an enemy.”
‘You’re going to make the difference’
Throughout the day, Harris’s message had been consistent – every vote was crucial in the state that holds 19 Electoral College votes, the most of all the seven swing states that will likely determine the outcome.
“We need everyone in Pennsylvania to vote,” she said to an exuberant afternoon crowd in Allentown. “You are going to make the difference in this election.”
The polls have Harris essentially tied in Pennsylvania with her Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, who held one of his final rallies in Reading, Pennsylvania, only a few kilometres away from Harris.
Over the last few days, Harris has sought to further differentiate her campaign from Trump’s by not mentioning his name, and emphasising optimism and community.
“Momentum is on our side, momentum is on our side, can you feel it? We have momentum, right?” she said to cheers.
“Because our campaign has tapped into the ambitions and aspirations and the dreams of the American people, we are optimistic and excited about what we will do together.”
Harris, 60, could make US history as the first woman, the first Black woman and the first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office. Four years ago, she broke the same barriers in national office by becoming President Joe Biden’s second-in-command.
Harris’s last day was all about encouraging supporters to vote and think about the future.
“It’s time for a new generation of leadership in America, and I am ready to offer that leadership as the next president of the United States of America,” she said.
‘No joke’
Harris’s Allentown rally was introduced by Grammy Award-winning musician Fat Joe, who was raised by parents of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent. He wasted no time in taking aim at the racist remarks that featured at the recent Republican rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden.
“That was no joke ladies and gentlemen. That was no joke, filled with so much hate,” he said.
Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who was part of Trump’s warm-up act at the New York rally, created a firestorm of protests when he called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage”.
Southeast Pennsylvania is home to thousands of Latinos, including a sizeable Puerto Rican population. Harris and her allies have repeatedly hit at Trump for those comments.
Fat Joe reminded the Allentown rally that people can make their feelings clear when they vote.
“My Latinos, where is your pride,” he asked.
“If I am speaking to undecided Puerto Ricans, especially in Pennsylvania, what more do they gotta do to show you who they are? If I tell you that Kamala Harris is with us, she’s with us.”
On Monday, Harris told supporters: “I stand here proud of my longstanding commitment to Puerto Rico and her people and I will be a president for all Americans.”
Harris also swung by Scranton – the birthplace of Biden.
“Are you ready to do this?” she yelled to supporters there, with a large handmade “Vote For Freedom” sign behind her and a similar “VOTE” banner to her side.
‘We are not going back’
Throughout the whirlwind last day, Harris repeated one of the slogans of her campaign – “We Are Not Going Back”. It is designed, in part, to contrast her with Republicans who supported the US Supreme Court decision that overturned a national right to an abortion.
She repeated her promise to protect women’s reproductive rights.
“We are not going back because ours is the fight for the future, for freedom, like the fundamental freedom for a woman to make decisions over her own body and not have the government tell her what to do,” Harris said.
In a race against time, United States presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have traversed the nation’s swing states in a bid to woo undecided voters and bag crucial Electoral College votes that could decide the winner of the 2024 US election.
Even if both White House hopefuls secure their traditional blue (Democratic) and red (Republican) states, the Electoral College votes from those are unlikely to be enough for either candidate to reach the magic number of 270 needed to cross the threshold to victory.
This year, the seven closely watched swing states are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and North Carolina.
Here’s a brief look at some of the key issues shaping the swing states and both candidates’ stance on them:
(Al Jazeera)
Arizona: Immigration
Since 1952, Arizona has voted Republican in all but one election (1996) before Joe Biden flipped it in 2020 for the Democrats.
This time, polls show Trump leading marginally.
Arizona is a border state, and many polls have shown immigration and border control as key issues for many of its residents. In a May poll by CBS News, for instance, 52 percent of the respondents said recently arrived immigrants from Mexico had worsened living conditions for them.
Here is how both candidates plan to tackle immigration and border security:
Harris on immigration
Vice President Harris believes the US immigration system is “broken” and in need of “comprehensive reform”. While she has pledged support for a border security bill that would increase detection technology to intercept drugs and has promised to add 1,500 border security agents, Harris has also promised an “earned pathway to citizenship” and an increase in the number of employment-based and family visas.
Trump on immigration
Overall, Trump blames immigrants for rising housing, education and healthcare costs.
Trump’s plans include deporting millions of undocumented migrants by force, sealing the border to stop the “migrant invasion” by using the military on the US-Mexico border, and constructing detention facilities.
The former president wants to reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which requires asylum seekers to stay in Mexico until their immigration cases have been resolved. Trump also wants to end birthright citizenship for children born to undocumented parents.
The Republican candidate wants to impose ideological screening of immigrants but has proposed automatic green cards for foreign graduates of US universities.
Georgia: Cost of living
Traditionally a Republican stronghold, this southern state went Democratic in 2020 – but only just. The votes in Georgia were counted three times, including once by hand, but that did not stop Trump from controversially attempting to overturn the results.
This time, perceptions about the state of the economy could determine how Georgia votes. A September poll by Redfield & Wilton Strategies, in partnership with the UK newspaper, The Telegraph, found that 41 percent of Georgia’s voters viewed the economy as the single biggest issue for them.
How do both candidates propose to ease the burden of inflation – which is not yet down to pre-COVID-19 levels?
Harris on cost of living
Harris has promised to cut taxes for “more than 100 million working and middle-class Americans” by restoring Child Tax Credits and Earned Income Tax Credits. She has also pledged to increase Long-Term Capital Gains Tax from 20 percent to 28 percent, and the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent to pay for this.
In order to help lower the cost of living, the vice president has proposed a federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries.
Trump on cost of living
Trump has pledged to “end inflation” and significantly increase the Child Tax Credit while cutting government spending and bringing down the corporate tax rate to 15 percent.
Michigan: Israel’s war on Gaza
The state of Michigan was a key stop in Vice President Harris’s last stretch of campaigning and here is why: Harris wanted to make a last-ditch effort to win over the continent’s largest Arab-American community that has been angered by the Biden-Harris administration’s unequivocal support for Israel in its war on Gaza.
While pre-poll numbers show Harris with a slender lead in the state, Trump will hope that his “Muslim supporters” will help him win in Michigan.
More than 100,000 uncommitted voters in the state have declared that they will not endorse Harris or Trump and some may opt for the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, who has pledged to press for a ceasefire and halt weapons sales to Israel.
Harris on Gaza
While Harris has promised to work towards ending the war in Gaza, “allow Palestinians to realise their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination”, she has also backed Israel’s “right to defend itself” and has rejected an arms embargo on the US ally in the Middle East.
Trump on Gaza
Trump has not revealed specific details about what he would do on the issue of Gaza. However, during a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in July, Trump urged the Israeli leader to “get his victory” over Hamas. He said the killings in Gaza had to stop but that Netanyahu “knows what he’s doing”.
That rhetoric is in line with Trump’s actions during his first run as president. His government recognised the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, prompting anger among Palestinians. He negotiated “normalisation” deals between Israel and several Arab nations under the Abraham Accords and he pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, which Israel also opposed.
However, he has also argued that he will push for peace – and get it.
Pennsylvania: Fracking
President Joe Biden’s home state of Pennsylvania offers 19 Electoral College votes, the most among battleground states – and could prove to be the state that determines who wins the election.
In recent days, Harris has gained ground there, according to Democratic strategist Anish Mohanty. “Things have changed in this election over the last few days and the vice president has pulled off her campaign effectively,” Mohanty told Al Jazeera shortly after polls opened on the East Coast. Mohanty alluded to racist remarks against Puerto Rico by a comedian at a Trump rally recently as a turning point for the campaign: Pennsylvania is home to more than 480,000 Puerto Ricans.
But in addition to concerns over political divisiveness, immigration, the state of the economy and abortion, Pennsylvanians are concerned about an issue specific to their state: Fracking.
Fracking is a form of oil and gas production that environmentalists say is bad for the environment but which is the source of a huge number of jobs around the state. The practice causes earth tremors and has a high environmental cost since the procedure consumes large amounts of water, in addition to releasing methane, a greenhouse gas.
An October poll found that the state’s residents are divided on fracking: 58 percent backed it, while 42 percent opposed it.
Harris on fracking
Harris famously opposed fracking when she ran for president four years ago but in late July, her campaign officials confirmed that she will not seek to ban fracking if elected.
Harris wrapped up her campaign with a final, glitzy event in Philadelphia, where iconic talk show host Oprah Winfrey introduced her.
The vice president called on “everyone” in Pennsylvania to vote.
“You are going to make the difference in this election,” she told her supporters.
Trump on fracking
Meanwhile, Trump supports fracking and has said he will once again withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and will also remove environmental regulations, such as restrictions on fossil fuel production, deemed “burdensome”. He had withdrawn from the Paris pact during his first term – President Joe Biden had recommitted the US to the agreement when he came to power.
Wisconsin: Healthcare
Up until 2016, Wisconsin had been a reliably blue state for decades, but Trump was able to spring a surprise, beating Hillary Clinton by wooing mostly white, working-class voters who were unhappy about wages, poverty and rising healthcare costs.
Four years later, Biden was able to bring the state back into the Democratic Party’s fold.
This time, multiple opinion polls have suggested that healthcare is the most pressing issue for voters, in a state that has been badly affected by the country’s opioid crisis.
Harris on healthcare
Harris has said she will lower the cost of pharmaceutical drugs, strengthen the Affordable Care Act, and lower healthcare premiums. If elected, she will also work with states to cancel medical debt for more people, she has promised.
Trump on healthcare
On the other hand, Trump says he is “looking at alternatives” to the Affordable Care Act, which he calls too expensive.
Nevada: Unemployment
While Nevada has the fewest Electoral College votes – six – among the swing states, they could still be crucial in such a close race.
Nevada suffers from the highest unemployment rate among all US states – only Washington, DC has a higher joblessness rate – as well as high costs of living.
Harris on unemployment
Harris has promised to review which federal jobs require a college degree if elected president.
“We need to get in front of this idea that only high-skilled jobs require college degrees,” Harris said at a rally in October, promising she would tackle this on “day one” of her presidency.
Trump on unemployment
At his October rally in Nevada, Trump promised to tackle inflation, but in a more recent rally this month, did not address the issue of unemployment.
Al Jazeera’s John Holman, who attended Trump’s November rally in Nevada, noted that while Trump concentrated on migration, the primary concern for voters in Nevada is the economy.
“This is the state with the highest unemployment in the US. It’s been hit hard with inflation. Gas prices, in particular, are high, and it’s a state that has never completely recovered from the pandemic,” Holman said.
North Carolina: Abortion
North Carolina is the only one of this year’s swing states to have been won by Trump in 2020 and although Harris does not necessarily need to win North Carolina, any scenario in which she does will make her path to 270 a lot easier.
Trump can also get to 270 without North Carolina but doing so will be very difficult.
Abortion is a key issue in the state, according to polls. The state reduced the legal limit for abortions from 20 weeks of pregnancy to just 12 weeks in 2023 after the US Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade court ruling granting the right to abortion.
The ruling left the issue largely unresolved and turned the current election into a referendum on fundamental rights for women.
Democrats are hoping that the issue of abortion will motivate white women, who have historically favoured Republicans and 60 percent of whom voted for Trump in 2020, to now vote for Harris instead.
Harris on abortion
The vice president, hoping to become the first female president in the country’s history, has said she will prevent a national abortion ban from becoming law and will sign any bill passed by Congress that restores the legality of abortion nationwide.
Trump on abortion
Meanwhile, Trump has said abortion laws are for individual states to decide and said he will not sign a national abortion ban. However, he has not signalled that he would oppose states – like North Carolina – adopting restrictive measures against reproductive rights.
On Tuesday, residents in Alabama’s newly redrawn congressional district two will vote for the first time.
A June 2023 ruling by the supreme court created the new district in the Black belt, which spans from the state’s Choctaw county, on its western border, to Russell county, in the east, where Black people make up 48.7% of the population. The decision also preserved the only other majority-Black district in the state – district seven. Voters in district two will have the opportunity to increase their political power, a historic change that has the potential to give voters in the Black belt a representative government.
For Letetia Jackson, one of the plaintiffs in Allen v Milligan, the US supreme court case that formed the new district, this election is personal, the culmination of a years long struggle.
“[We wanted to] make sure that Black voters and the African American population in the state of Alabama have an opportunity to have the type of representation that our numbers support,” said Jackson, who is also convener of the South Alabama Black Women’s Roundtable, an organization that works to engage Black voters.
Black people make up about 29% of Alabama’s population, making it the fifth Blackest state in the country, behind Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia and Maryland. But Black voters within the Black belt had been pushed into different congressional districts, which prevented them from voting as a contiguous district and, ultimately, suffocated their political power.
“We have seven congressional districts,” Jackson said “We only [had] one Black majority district, and we were advocating for at least one additional opportunity to elect another congressional member to represent our areas.”
Following the 2020 census, in which the population of Black respondents grew, Jackson said that there was an opening to push for a more representative government. After years of lawsuits and appeals that ultimately made their way to the supreme court, the lines were redrawn, creating the new congressional district two.
On election day, after voting for a presidential candidate, district two’s voters will move down ballot to vote for their representative in the United States House. They will choose between the Democrat Shomari Figures, who is Black, and Republican Caroleene Dobson, who is white. Despite its demographics, since 1823, the area has only been represented by white politicians, the majority of whom were, since the 1960s, Republicans. If Figures is elected, he would become the first Democrat to hold the position since 2008. And for the first time in the state’s history, two of Alabama’s seven House representatives would be Balck.
“People are really, really excited about that position because in this area there’s been very little representation that actually reflects the needs, the issues, the policies of the people who live there,” she said. “And so they’re excited about the possibility of being able to have someone that really knows the district and that knows the people.”
Casting the vote
Jackson said that even though her district changed, no one from the elections office notified her and many other residents.
Shomari Figures, Democratic candidate for Alabama’s second congressional district. Photograph: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images
And during the Super Tuesday primary earlier this year, advocates reported that more than 6,000 voters in district two received postcards with incorrect voting information. In the absence of official voter information and mobilization efforts, the South Alabama Black Women’s Roundtable and other organizations are working to educate voters.
“We’ve seen the district voting age population increase by 49%,” Rodriesha Russaw, executive director of The Ordinary People Society (Tops), said. “And so these people are learning more and more about how redistricting impacts the voting process and how it impacts their daily lives.”
Russaw also said that there has been an “increase of harm”, since the last election, specifically for Black voters. She said that 15 to 20% of the calls made to a call center that is run for the Alabama Election Protection Network were from elders who were afraid to vote. She said the feeling of anxiety was pervasive.
“One thing that we found is that the voter intimidation has increased in many ways through marketing, through social media, through just everyday contact with individuals, with police officers when it comes to police brutality and violence … [it’s] scare tactics so Black people and people of color would not show up to the polls,” she said.
Tops and other organizations are planning to deploy trusted community leaders as volunteers throughout neighborhoods to encourage people to vote and give voters a sense of comfort when they are at the polls.
They have received voter education training, are working throughout multiple counties in district two. They will be present at the polls, helping folks get off of vans and out of buses and into the polling places.
“We have a really good chance to see a high [turnout] in young voters and first-time voters for this year – more than ever since the Obama election,” she said. “We’re amped up to make sure that these trusted leaders are at the forefront and that when they get to the polls, they see these faces because we don’t want them scared off by the police officers.”
Jackson, from South Alabama Black Women’s Roundtable, said that she had heard from many folks who are feeling enthusiastic.
Evan Milligan, center, plaintiff in Merrill v Milligan, flanked by Deuel Ross, Letetia Jackson, Terri Sewell and Janai Nelson. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP
“I will not say that it’s a slam dunk or that everything is going to be rosy on election day, but I do know that there’s a lot of excitement in the air,” she said. “There are pockets of poor communities in the Black belt that no one ever generally even pays any attention to, and when you talk to some of those people, they’re excited to have an opportunity to finally get somebody who will come and speak to them and represent them.”
In collaboration with other organizations, Tops is working to ensure that every county in district two has transportation to and from the polls. Transportation could prove to be key in a largely rural district, especially one in which voting locations may have changed without voters being notified.
“[We are] ensuring that every particular county and district too has a means of transportation for those who maybe have disabilities or have physical impediments because we believe that equity and inclusion is a big thing,” Russaw said.
Their inclusive voter engagement also extends to childcare. While talking to voters, Russaw said that organizers repeatedly heard that people had to choose between staying home with their children and going to the voting polls. This year, Tops is partnering with community volunteers to give people a safe place for their children while they go out and vote. The organization’s multipurpose center will have activities for children from the morning until after polling locations close.
Jackson said that multiple organizations have been working across the state to reach voters via knocking on doors, making phone calls, sending information and holding rallies and events. They have been trying to ensure that people know when, how and where to vote.
“Our education and mobilization strategy throughout this process is to let voters know they need to make a plan to vote, not to just show up where they normally show up, but to make sure that’s where they’re supposed to be,” she said.
Tops is also using their radio station, WKCD99.1FM, to provide updated information about the election, criminal justice and reproductive justice. That station is also being used for their “Bringing hope to the vote” campaign, in which they aim to inspire people to vote.
“People have lost so much hope,” Russaw said. “We’ve seen the political climate change. We’ve seen Covid, lost a lot of family members. The economical challenges in Alabama are not changing – minimum wage is still $7.25. People are struggling to eat and feed their kids. When we’re talking about engaging voters, we have to remind them that there’s hope … If we continue to focus on bringing hope to people, we will find that people are more amped to cast their vote because they feel like it matters.”
From Brazil to Ireland and Germany to the Caribbean, this year’s knife-edge – and more than usually momentous – US presidential vote will be watched at a multitude of election-night events, some with a particular interest in the outcome.
In St Ann Parish, Jamaica – and most particularly in Browns Town, where Harris’s father Donald was born and the Democratic candidate spent many happy childhood holidays – her supporters plan watch parties, drink-ups and other social gatherings.
“I certainly will be watching it with bated breath. I’m anticipating a close election, but expecting a win for Kamala Harris because she is a dynamite, and I’m praying that, in the interest of democracy, she wins,” said 74-year-old resident Delroy Redway.
Redway, whose brother will be hosting a watch party at his sports centre, said Browns Town was on a “knife edge” for Harris, who people consider a “little sister”.
“Her grandfather is buried in the Anglican church, right there in Browns Town … so we will celebrate [her] victory,” he said.
St Ann Parish’s mayor, Michael Belnavis, is also planning a celebratory watch party. A Harris win, he said, would be a signal that democracy is alive and well in the US. “As you know, St Ann is particularly close to her,” Belnavis said.
“So I feel particularly close to this election … and we want to watch it and make it a celebratory thing by having a drink-up and just watching the big screen at John Crow’s Tavern in Ocho Rios with some close friends. Whichever way it goes, it’s going to be historic, and we want to be a part of that.”
Also watching with more than the customary interest will be residents of Thulasendrapuram, Harris’s ancestral village in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where her grandfather was born more than a century ago.
Excited preparations have long been under way for election day, with the women of the village creating kolam, colourful images made from rice paste, outside all the homes, seeking divine blessings for Harris in the election.
A special prayer (puja) is planned at the local Dharmasastha temple. “Our Dharmasastha [Hindu deity] will guarantee her victory,” was the confident prediction of temple trustee S Venkataraman.
In Berlin, the Democratic-friendly scene of the biggest rally of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, jazz club Donau 115 in the city’s Neukölln district, a favourite with the American community, is hosting a “@donau115 is brat” party, riffing on Charli XCX’s early endorsement of Harris.
A live feed of election coverage will begin just before midnight “and end when we know who the winner is and/or when we pass out from anxiety”, say the organisers, who also promise “dynamic” drink specials based on electoral college results, geopolitical trivia contests, and “a terrible sax solo every time a state gets called”.
Across town in east Berlin, Democrats Abroad will hold an election night at their traditional venue in the century-old cinema Kino Babylon with commentary from the stage, live music and “comedy – regardless of how the night turns out”.
In Paris, the legendary watering hole Harry’s Bar has held a ballot on the US election since 1924 and has only been wrong three times: in 1976, when drinkers backed Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter; in 2004, when they backed John Kerry over George W Bush; and in 2016 in favouring Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.
The straw poll tradition dates back to before the days of proxy or postal ballots allowing Americans abroad to vote, when Harry MacElhone, the then owner of the bar that claims to have invented the Bloody Mary, wanted to bring the expat community in Paris together and allow them to express a view.
Any customers who can provide proof of US citizenship can vote in the poll, casting their ballots into a century-old wooden box at the end of the bar. The latest figures from the bar were 265 for Trump – and 302 for Kamala Harris.
In Brazil’s São Paulo, Latin America’s largest city, O’Malley’s Irish pub will be decked out for the occasion with flags, balloons, stars, and the stars and stripes, and will serve an eclectic menu of fish and chips, tikka masala, burritos and kebabs, plus nine different burger options (including the “big monster”: bacon, fried egg, three types of cheese, guacamole, jalapeños, baked beans and chilli).
Organised by Democrats Abroad but open to people “from both sides”, the event starts at 10pm local time and runs until 2.30am when exit polls are expected. “We held events at the same pub this year for the presidential and vice-presidential debates, and they were hugely successful,” said a Democrats Abroad official, Kelly Ann Kreutz.
In Ireland, by contrast, Donald Trump’s golf hotel in Doonbeg in County Clare will be closed as usual on Tuesday night, with no event planned to either celebrate or mourn the outcome of its owner’s third bid for the White House.
University College Dublin is holding two election watch parties, but with a general election pending in the next month and fears a Trump victory could threaten the significant US tech and pharma presence in Ireland, events are few and far between.
Reporting by Natricia Duncan, Anthony Lugg, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, Deborah Cole, Kim Willsher, Tiago Rogero and Lisa O’Carroll
Mackenzie Owens and her boyfriend strut toward the camera like models on a catwalk, posing as she takes a dramatic sip from her Stanley cup. “Just a bf and a gf going to cancel each other’s votes,” reads the caption of their TikTok – the couple, who live in Pennsylvania, support separate candidates this election season.
Owens made the TikTok to join in on a trend of women disclosing that they’re voting against their partners’ preferred candidates. In one video, a woman mischievously tucks away a strand of hair as she mails in her ballot, “proudly” cancelling out her boyfriend’s ballot – “because someone paid attention in US History & has to care about keeping the Dept of Education!!!!” In another, a woman dances to Ciara’s Level Up before driving off to “cancel out” her “Trump loving Husband’s vote in a swing state”.
Mackenzie Owens says she and her boyfriend support different presidential candidates. Photograph: Mackenzie Owens
Thedozensof women participating are, for the most part, Democrats supporting Kamala Harris’s bid, while their male partners are voting for Donald Trump. (Owens did not disclose who she or her boyfriend voted for.) Though their posts provide levity in the final days of an ugly presidential race, they also underscore the pivotal role gender is playing in the election.
A late October national poll from USA Today/Suffolk University found that women resoundingly back Harris over Trump, 53% to 36%, a “mirror image” of men’s support for Trump over Harris, 53% to 37%. A September poll from Quinnipiac University similarly found a 26-point gender gap. An unknown – but certainly sizable – number of women are seeing this gender gap in their own relationships.
Owens, who is 19, isn’t particularly bothered by her boyfriend’s politics. “Nowadays, people think that you have to have the same political opinions as your partner, because [hyper-partisan politics] is a big problem in society, but I personally think it’s cool to co-exist and learn about the other side, and get different opinions I didn’t think of before,” she said. “But in a way, that’s not socially acceptable.”
Meanwhile, liberal TikTokers are weighing in to say they could never date or marry a Trump supporter, given the former president’s sexist remarks about women and his appointment of anti-abortion justices to the supreme court, which resulted in the 2022 reversal of Roe v Wade. “What do you mean you’re on your way to cancel out your husband’s vote?” reads one viral tweet. “You should be on your way to the courthouse. Divorce babe. Divorce.”
Harris needs women to turn out on Tuesday, especially those who might take a page from the TikTokers’ playbook and vote differently from the men in their lives. But those posts come from mostly young, liberal women who feel safe publicly disagreeing on candidates. In recent days, Democratic groups have made overtures to Republican women, or women who project conservatism to their friends and family but quietly harbor doubts about Trump.
Republican turnout among women – especially white women, who backed Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections – can be partially explained by their husbands, who are seen as wielding influence over the family vote, said strategists and advocates who spoke with the Guardian.
“Women often give deference to the presumed expertise of their husbands on politics, and then the men reinforce that presumption and express their intensity and so-called greater expertise,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. “We try to reinforce to women that you have your own way of doing things, your own point of view, you focus on what’s good for the whole family. Then we emphasize that the vote is private.”
That’s a sentiment echoed in a new ad, narrated by Julia Roberts, from the progressive evangelical organization Vote Common Good. In the ad, a woman whose husband appears to be a Trump supporter enters the voting booth to cast her ballot for Harris. “In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want and no one will ever know,” Roberts says in the voiceover.
Doug Pagitt, executive director of Vote Common Good, said the group first conceptualized the ad during the 2022 midterms. “We kept hearing from women that they were going to pay an emotional price with their families, friends and church if they didn’t continue to toe the line [and vote for Trump],” Pagitt said.
On a campaign stop in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Michelle Obama told swing state voters: “If you are a woman who lives in a household of men that don’t listen to you or value your opinion, just remember that your vote is a private matter.” Liz Cheney, a never-Trump Republican who campaigned alongside Harris in Detroit last week, reminded Republican women that there is no official way to look up how someone voted: “You can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody, and there will be millions of Republicans who do that on November 5.”
The Lincoln Project, a moderate political action committee, also released a bluntly titled ad, Secret, where two Trump-supporting men assume their wives also back their candidate. However, when the couples get to the polls, one of the women mouths “Kamala” to the other, and after an affirmative nod, both fill in their ballots for the Democrat.
This messaging is stoking anger among conservative personalities, who say it is sexist and retrograde to assume women only vote for Trump to appease their husbands. They also, paradoxically, say this messaging is undermining traditional family values. Charlie Kirk, who last year said the “radical left” was being “run by childless young ladies” on antidepressants, called the ads “the embodiment of the downfall of the American family” on Megyn Kelly’s podcast.
The Fox News host Jesse Watters said that if he found out his wife had secretly voted for Harris, “that’s the same thing as having an affair … it violates the sanctity of our marriage”. This, despite the fact that Watters had an affair with his current wife while still married to his first wife.
In the final stretch, these complex – and often secretive – relationship dynamics are affecting Democrats’ ground game, said Kelly Dittmar, director of research and scholar at Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics. “You see it in public women’s bathrooms or places where women can be directly appealed to without the barrier of the man in their life. There are stickers or signs that say, ‘Remember, your vote is private,’” she said.
Nancy Hirschmann, a political scientist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, added that canvassers for Harris were trained to avoid outing wives who may be registered Democrats to their Republican husbands: “If a man answers the door who’s clearly in favor of Trump, you don’t ask for the woman by name, you ask if there are other voters in the house you can speak to.”
Jamisen Casey jokes that her vote ‘cancels out’ her ex-boyfriend’s ballot. Photograph: Jamisen Casey
It is too early to tell if Republican-coded women may in fact turn out to be secret Harris voters. But back on TikTok, women vocally share their 2024 picks, even if they go against their partner’s choice – or an ex-partner’s choice.
Jamisen Casey, a 21-year-old student who goes to school in California but is registered to vote in her home state of Tennessee, took part in the trend, with a twist. “My absentee ballot on its way home to cancel out my ex boyfriend’s vote,” Casey wrote in the caption of a video showing her dancing with the envelope while We Both Reached for the Gun from the musical Chicago plays.
“It’s really hard to know that there are men out there who want to vote against reproductive rights, even though they shouldn’t have a say in it at all,” Casey, who voted for Harris, said. She doesn’t think she could date someone who doesn’t share her views again. “As a political science major, I made a decision that I don’t want to put myself in that position.”
