By Zeke Miller, Michelle L. Worth and Will Weissert | Related Press
WASHINGTON — A divided America weighed a stark alternative for the nation’s future Tuesday as a presidential marketing campaign marked by upheaval and rancor approached its finale.
Voters had been deciding whether or not to ship Republican Donald Trump again to the White Home or make Vice President Kamala Harris the primary feminine president. Polls closed Tuesday night in Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, a few of the carefully fought battlegrounds anticipated to resolve the election, together with two dozen different states. On Election Day, tens of tens of millions of People added their ballots to the 84 million forged early as they selected between two candidates with drastically completely different temperaments and visions for the nation.
Trump gained Florida, a one-time battleground that has shifted closely to Republicans in current elections. He additionally notched early wins in reliably Republican states together with Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana, whereas Harris took Democratic strongholds like Vermont, Massachusetts and Maryland.
The financial system and immigration are the highest points dealing with the nation, voters stated, however the way forward for democracy was additionally a number one motivator for a lot of People casting a poll in Tuesday’s presidential election. AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of greater than 110,000 voters nationwide, discovered a rustic mired in negativity and determined for change.
These casting Election Day ballots largely encountered a easy course of, with remoted reviews of hiccups that repeatedly occur, together with lengthy traces, technical points and poll printing errors.
Harris has promised to work throughout the aisle to deal with financial worries and different points with out radically departing from the course set by President Joe Biden. Trump has vowed to exchange hundreds of federal staff with loyalists, impose sweeping tariffs on allies and foes alike, and stage the most important deportation operation in U.S. historical past.
Harris and Trump entered Election Day targeted on seven swing states, 5 of them carried by Trump in 2016 earlier than they flipped to Biden in 2020: the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in addition to Arizona and Georgia. Nevada and North Carolina, which Democrats and Republicans respectively carried within the final two elections, additionally had been carefully contested.
Trump voted in Palm Seashore, Florida, close to his Mar-a-Lago membership, and stated afterward that he was feeling “very confident.”
Harris, the Democratic vp, did telephone interviews with radio stations within the battleground states, then visited Democratic Nationwide Committee headquarters in Washington carrying a field of Doritos — her go-to snack.
“This truly represents the best of who we are,” Harris instructed a room of cheering staffers. She was handed a cellphone by supporters doing telephone banking, and when requested by reporters how she was feeling, the vp held up a telephone and responded, “Gotta talk to voters.”
The closeness of the race and the variety of states in play raised the probability that, as soon as once more, a victor won’t be recognized on election evening.
Trump stated Tuesday that he had no plans to inform his supporters to chorus from violence if Harris wins, as a result of they “are not violent people.” His offended supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after Trump tried to overturn his loss in 2020. Requested Tuesday about accepting the 2024 race’s outcomes, he stated, “If it’s a fair election, I’d be the first one to acknowledge it.” He visited a close-by marketing campaign workplace to thank staffers earlier than a celebration at a close-by conference heart.
After her DNC cease, Harris deliberate to attend a celebration at her alma mater, Howard College in Washington.
Federal, state and native officers have expressed confidence within the integrity of the nation’s election programs. They nonetheless had been braced to deal with what they are saying is an unprecedented degree of international disinformation — notably from Russia and Iran — in addition to the potential for bodily violence or cyberattacks.
In Georgia’s Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold that features a lot of the metropolis of Atlanta, 32 of the 177 polling locations obtained bomb threats Tuesday, prompting temporary evacuations at 5 places, county Police Chief W. Wade Yates stated. The threats had been decided to be non-credible however voting hours had been prolonged at these 5 places.
Either side have armies of attorneys in anticipation of authorized challenges on and after Election Day. And legislation enforcement companies nationwide are on excessive alert for potential violence.
Every candidate would take the nation into new terrain
Harris, 60, could be the primary girl, Black girl and individual of South Asian descent to function president. She additionally could be the primary sitting vp to win the White Home in 36 years.
Trump, 78, could be the oldest president ever elected. He would even be the primary defeated president in 132 years to win one other time period within the White Home, and the primary individual convicted of a felony to take over the Oval Workplace.
He survived one assassination try by millimeters at a July rally. Secret Service brokers foiled a second try in September.
In Scranton, Pennsylvania, Liza Fortt arrived at her polling location in a wheelchair and never feeling nicely. However she stated she ventured out anyway to vote for Harris.
“It means a lot to me and my grandkids, my granddaughters, my nieces. … I was just waiting for this day to come,” stated Fortt, who’s 74 and Black. She stated she by no means thought she’d have such a possibility, to forged a poll for a Black girl in a presidential race.
“I’m proud, to see a woman, not only a woman, but a Black woman,” Fortt stated.
First-time voter Jasmine Perez, 26, forged her poll on the Las Vegas Raiders’ stadium in Nevada for Trump, citing his religious values.
“What really attracted me to Donald Trump is I’m a Christian,” Perez stated, noting of the previous president, “I like that he openly promotes Christianity in America.”
Harris, pointing to the warnings of Trump’s former aides, has labeled him a “fascist” and blamed Trump for placing ladies’s lives in peril by nominating three of the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. Within the closing hours of the marketing campaign, she tried to strike a extra constructive tone and went all of Monday with out saying her Republican opponent’s title.
JD Jorgensen, an impartial voter in Black Mountain, North Carolina, which was hit laborious by Hurricane Helene, stated voters ought to have made up their minds by now.
“I think that the candidates, both being in the public eye as long as they both have been, if you’re on the fence, you hadn’t really been paying attention,” stated Jorgensen, 35.
Related Press writers Jill Colvin in Palm Seashore, Florida, Darlene Superville and Eric Tucker in Washington, Manuel Valdes in Las Vegas and Marc Levy in Allentown, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.
