Trump, Harris notch first statewide wins as polls close in US presidential race
Highlights
- Trump claims fraud in Philadelphia, Detroit without evidence
- Democracy and economy rank as the most important issues
- Poll to close shortly in early states
- Control of Congress also at stake with Republicans having easier Senate path
- More than 82 million early votes already cast
- Trump vows to lead America to 'new heights of glory'
- Harris has advocated for abortion rights and pledged to lower food and housing costs for working families
Millions of Americans are voting to choose between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris as their next president. Key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia are expected to settle the outcome of the contest.
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06:55am
Republican Donald Trump won eight states in Tuesday's U.S. presidential election while Democrat Kamala Harris captured three states and Washington, D.C., Edison Research projected, but the outcome of the race remained uncertain with critical battleground states unlikely to be called for hours or even days.
The early results were as anticipated, with the contest expected to come down to seven swing states: Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin. Opinion polls showed the rivals neck and neck in all seven going into Election Day.
As of 8 p.m. ET (0100 GMT on Wednesday), polls had closed in 25 states.
Trump had 90 electoral votes after winning Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia, Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, Missouri and Tennessee; Harris had gained 27 electoral votes from Vermont, Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. A candidate needs a total of 270 votes in the state-by-state Electoral College to claim the presidency.
From Reuters
06:40am, 6 Nov
Polls close in first six US states, including swing state Georgia
Polling stations closed Tuesday in six US states in the bitterly contested election between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former president Donald Trump, including in the key battleground of Georgia.
Polling places also closed in Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia in a landmark contest that saw tens of millions of Americans cast their ballots early.
US networks projected Trump as the winner in Indiana and Kentucky, and Harris the victor in Vermont.
The United States was in for a long night of waiting for results, which may be known overnight, or not for days.
Harris is seeking to become the first woman US president, while Trump is seeking a return to power after four years out of the Oval Office.
Polls were to close throughout the evening, untill the last votes are cast in Alaska.
From AFP
05:50am, 6 Nov
Most voters say democracy is under threat, exit polls show
Nearly three-quarters of voters in Tuesday's presidential election say American democracy is under threat, according to preliminary national exit polls from Edison Research, reflecting the nation's deep anxiety after a contentious campaign between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.
Democracy and the economy ranked by far as the most important issues for voters, with around a third of respondents citing each, followed by abortion and immigration at 14% and 11%, the data showed. The poll showed 73% of voters believed democracy was in jeopardy, against just 25% who said it was secure.
05:25am, 6 Nov
Results of national exit poll on US presidential election
Democrat Kamala Harris faced Republican Donald Trump on Tuesday in the US presidential election, after the two candidates vied for support by staking positions on issues including abortion, the economy and foreign policy.
Following are preliminary results from an exit poll conducted by Edison Research. Results will be updated as additional poll responses are gathered.
05:10am, 6 Nov
In US swing state Georgia, a battle for Black male votes
Ronald Jordan was all smiles Tuesday as he entered a polling booth in the US swing state of Georgia, where women voters appeared to outnumber men, but he felt a gnawing concern -- his Black male friends were sitting out the election.
Democratic contender Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump are both seeking to win over Black voters in the crucial southern state -- its largest minority voting bloc –- in a race that could be decided by razor-thin margins.
05:00am, 6 Nov
Philadelphia officials reject Trump 'massive cheating' claim
Donald Trump sought to undermine Tuesday the credibility of voting in the biggest city of must-win US state Pennsylvania, an unsupported claim quickly and firmly denied by top Philadelphia officials.
Amid reports of exceptionally high voter turnout in a soundly Democratic area, Trump said there was "a lot of talk about massive cheating" in the city.
3:00am, 06 Nov
Michigan Muslims shun Harris over Mideast turmoil
Haunted by the daily violence ravaging the Middle East, Soujoud Hamade, a registered Democrat, felt compelled to back Green Party candidate Jill Stein in the US presidential election.
"It is very emotional," the 32-year-old real estate lawyer told AFP after casting her ballot Tuesday at a school in Dearborn, the nation's largest Arab-majority city, where voters could prove decisive in the key battleground of Michigan.
1:10am, 06 Nov
Man arrested with flare gun at Capitol
The US Capitol police says it has just arrested a man who "smelled like fuel" and had a "flare gun" at the Capitol visitor centre in Washington DC.
In a post on X, the police say the man was stopped during a screening process at the centre.
"The man smelled like fuel, had a torch and a flare gun," the post says.
The centre is closed for tours today while police investigate, the post adds.
The US Capitol is where Congress, the legislative arm of the federal government, sits.
12:20am, 06 Nov
Harris to host Election Night watch party at Howard University
Vice President Kamala Harris will host her Election Night watch party at Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington, DC, that Harris credits as a launching point in her political career.
Harris elaborated on the decision while appearing on Atlanta radio station V-103's The Big Tigger Morning Show.
"The first office I ever ran for was freshman class representative at Howard University. And to go back tonight to Howard University, my beloved alma mater and be able to hopefully, you know, recognise this day for what it is, is really full circle for me," CNN quoted her as saying.
11:55pm. 05 Nov
Polls open in Hawaii
Voting opened in Hawaii one of the last states to do so. Hawaii, with four electoral college votes, will be one of the last states to close its polls today at 19:00 local time (05:00 GMT). Some locations in Alaska will remain open an hour later.
11:00pm, 05 Nov
Trump casts his ballot in Florida
Donald Trump and his wife Melania have just cast their votes at the Mandel Recreation Centre in Palm Beach, Florida.
Wearing his trademark red cap, he's speaking to the media now. "I feel very confident...and it looks like Republicans have shown up in force," he says.
Trump says he was "honoured" to see that the lines are pretty long.
10:55pm, 05 Nov
RNC files lawsuit to extend voting hours in Pennsylvania
The Republican National Committee (RNC) has filed a lawsuit in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, following the extension of voting hours earlier.
The lawsuit supports the emergency petition to extend the voting hours, after a key software malfunction meant the scanners weren't working.
This led to delays and long lines for voters.
10:25pm, 05 Nov
Over half of Wisconsin likely to vote today
The administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, Meagan Wolfe, told NY Times that based on early voting figures in the state and the total vote counts from 2020, she anticipated that more than half of the state's voters were likely to cast their ballots in person today.
A total of 1.51 million early votes were cast this year. In 2020, there were 3.3 million total votes in the battleground state, which President Biden won by just over 20,000 votes.
9:45pm, 05 Nov
Fake news circulated using FBI insignia: NYT
FBI officials said unknown people had been circulating fake news clips and videos using the bureau's insignia to push false narratives that voters should avoid polling places because of imminent terror attacks, according to the New York Times. The development came hours after officials warned that foreign actors, led by Russia and Iran, were accelerating misinformation efforts.
9:25pm, 05 Nov
Philadelphia to count votes much faster this time
Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein tells CNN that he believes ballot counting will go much faster in 2024. He said they had started pre-canvassing mail ballots as soon as the polls opened at 7:00am today.
Bluestein said the process will likely go faster because many people have transitioned back to in-person voting at polling places and therefore there will be fewer mail ballots to count than there were in 2020.
The city has also purchased additional equipment to help open envelopes more quickly and "we have more people working than we had in the past."
Although it could not be said for certain, Bluestein said the counting will be much faster this year. As for the result, he assured that it would not take four days to declare results like last time.
Philadelphia is a crucial centre in this election since its state Pennsylvania is a major battleground state with 19 electoral votes and tagged as a must-win for Kamala Harris.
9:00pm, 05, Nov
Trump's running mate Vance votes in Ohio
Donald Trump's running mate, JD Vance, voted in person a short time ago in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The Republican vice-presidential nominee was seen arriving at a polling station there with his wife and their children.
He appeared to be in good spirits.
07:20pm, 5 Nov
Voting begins in rain-hit Wisconsin, Michigan
It's raining in the critical swing states of Wisconsin and Michigan and is likely to continue on and off through the rest of the day. Experts say election day rain can reduce voter turnout slightly, and that can be a factor in a tight election like this.
07:15pm, 5 Nov
More than half of US's 50 states now voting
Voting has begun in more than 50 US states including Florida, Alabama, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and 3 key swing states -- Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
6:30pm, 5 Nov
What else are Americans voting on today?
It's not just a choice between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump today - voters in America have plenty else to decide on:
Abortion rights are on the ballot in 10 states - including the battleground states of Arizona and Nevada
One third of the US Senate - 34 of its 100 seats - is also up for grabs. Democrats currently control the Senate by a one-seat margin
In the US House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Congress, all 435 seats are up for election, as they are every two years. Republicans currently have a slim majority
Recreational or medical marijuana use is also on the ballot in four states - Florida, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota
Referendums on voting and elections - in some areas, voters will also choose how they want their elections to be run
06:15pm, 5 nov
Polls open in swing state North Carolina
More polls have opened, this time in Ohio, West Virginia and North Carolina, meaning 11 US states in total are now welcoming voters.
North Carolina, the first swing state today where polls have opened, has had a tough few weeks. In 2020, Donald Trump won the Sun Belt state by a margin of less than 2 percent.
Polling stations opened from 6:00am (1100 GMT) in states including Virginia, North Carolina and New York. Tens of millions of voters are expected to cast their ballots, on top of the more than 82 million people who have already voted early in the preceding weeks.
05:53pm, 5 Nov
Harris or Trump will inherit a mixed legacy in 2024 US election
Americans head to the polls on Tuesday in a mood of discontent and division, with opinion polls showing nearly two-thirds of voters believe the country has been heading in the wrong direction under President Joe Biden.
While the United States economy is the envy of the industrialized world, emerging from COVID shutdowns with strong job growth and wage increases, many Americans complain those gains were gobbled up by high grocery and housing prices.
05:45pm, 5 Nov
What is the 'Electoral College'?
The United States is one of the oldest democracies in the world and it still follows the same election system set by its founders nearly 250 years ago. The US presidential election, the process that selects arguably the most powerful person in the world, is a mega-event for the entire planet. But what is the system that makes this election work? What is this "Electoral College" through which Americans will elect who holds the Oval Office for the next four years?
05:30pm, 5 Nov
Harris to spend election night at Howard University, Washington
Howard University has been preparing to host Kamala Harris for her election night watch party.
Workers set up fencing around the perimeter of the campus, limiting access from nearby streets. Screens and a stage were erected in the university's main quad, where Harris and her running mate Tim Walz are expected to speak.
Harris graduated from the Washington DC University in 1986.
From Reuters
05:22pm, 5 Nov
Where Harris and Trump stand on immigration
Kamala Harris: Harris supports a bipartisan proposal to hire thousands of new border security agents and asylum officers and close the border if crossings reach an average of more than 5,000 migrants a day over a week. She has called for a pathway to citizenship for immigrants already in the country illegally.
Donald Trump: Trump wants to round up millions of undocumented immigrants and detain them in camps before deporting them en masse, using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to carry out deportations without due process. As president, he enacted sweeping anti-immigration policies that included separating migrant children from their parents.
From The New York Times
04:50pm, 5 Nov
How will swing state voters decide the US election 2024 results?
The winner of November's U.S. presidential election will govern a nation of more than 330 million people, but the contest will almost certainly be decided by just tens of thousands of voters – a tiny fraction of the populace – in a handful of states.
That's because only seven of the 50 states are truly competitive this year, with the rest all comfortably Democratic or Republican, according to public opinion polls.
Among those seven battlegrounds, Pennsylvania, the most populous, stands out as the most likely state to determine whether Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump is the next president.
The candidates' strategies reflect this reality, with the vast majority of their ad spending and campaign events directed at those seven states that swing between political parties.
03:50pm, 5 Nov
Thai baby hippo predicts Trump victory
Moo Deng, a baby pygmy hippo at Thailand's Khao Kheow Open Zoo, was offered two fruit baskets labelled with the names of the presidential candidates - Donald Trump and his Democrat rival, Kamala Harris.
The baskets were filled with fruits such dragon fruit and watermelons.
"Moo Deng chose Trump because the piece of dragon fruit was bigger," Khao Kheow Zoo posted on social media platform X.
Moo Deng, who was born in July, has become a social media celebrity with millions of fans worldwide captivated by her adorably clumsy antics.
From Reuters
03:18pm, 5 Nov
Harris or Trump: America decides in knife-edge election
American voters deliver their verdict Tuesday after an extraordinarily turbulent election that will either make Kamala Harris the first woman president in US history or deliver Donald Trump a comeback that sends shockwaves around the world.
As polling stations open nationwide on Election Day, Democratic vice president Harris, 60, and Republican former president Trump, 78, are dead-even in the tightest and most volatile White House race of modern times.
12:39pm, 5 Nov
New Hampshire hamlet tied in first US Election day votes
Voters in the US hamlet of Dixville Notch launched Election Day in the first minutes of Tuesday with a tied vote, mirroring the incredibly close national polls in the White House race.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump each got three ballots in the tiny community in the northeastern state of New Hampshire which for decades has kicked off Election Day at the stroke of midnight Monday -- hours before the rest of the country's polling stations open.
02:29pm, 5 Nov
Harris, Trump campaign draws to a close before final vote
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris both predicted victory as they campaigned across Pennsylvania and other battleground states on Monday in the final, frantic day of an exceptionally close U.S. presidential election.
The campaign has seen head-spinning twists: two assassination attempts and a felony conviction for Republican former President Trump, and Democratic Vice President Harris' surprise elevation to the top of the ticket after President Joe Biden, 81, dropped his reelection bid under pressure from his own party. More than $2.6 billion has been spent to sway voters' minds since March, according to AdImpact, an analytics firm.
01:46pm, 5 Nov
When will we know who won?
As Americans prepare to vote on Election Day Tuesday, officials are calling for patience as they tally ballots in what could be a historically close presidential race -- and warning that it could take days to find out who has won.
Under the US system, citizens do not vote directly for their leader. Instead, their ballots elect the 538 members of a group called the Electoral College, which then elects the president and vice president.
08:36am, 5 Nov
What if the US election ends in a Trump-Harris tie?
So what exactly happens if neither Kamala Harris or Donald Trump achieves the Electoral College majority required to win the US election?
While not highly likely, such an outcome remains possible, tormenting Americans already perched painfully on the edge of their seats ahead of the November 5 election.
12:36am, 5 Nov
US to make history either way
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump launched a final frenzied campaign blitz yesterday, hitting must-win Pennsylvania on the last day of a volatile US presidential race that polls say is hurtling towards a photo finish.
At his first rally of the day in North Carolina, Trump, 78, shrugged off accusations that his age and the grueling election schedule had left him physically and mentally exhausted.
12:23am, 5 Nov
How the US elects its president
You vote for a candidate and the candidate with the most votes wins.
It, however, does not work like that in the US. There the electoral college decides the winner.
Each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia has electoral votes equal to the number of representatives it has in the Senate and the House of Representatives, which depends on the population of the state. Big states have more representatives -- California has 54 electoral votes.
12:54pm, 5 Nov
Texas, Missouri sue to block Justice Department from sending poll monitors
The Republican-led states of Missouri and Texas sued the US Justice Department on Monday to block the federal government from sending lawyers to their states on Election Day to monitor for compliance with federal voting rights laws.
Both states are among 27 the Justice Department said on Friday it would send staff out to monitor voting locations, as it has done regularly during national elections.
09:50am, 5 Nov
Important dates in the US presidential race
US voters will go to the polls on Tuesday to cast their votes in the presidential election after a closely fought contest between Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, and Republican former President Donald Trump.
Here is a timeline of events that will take place between now and Inauguration Day in January 2025.
09:24am, 5 Nov
Who has Trump threatened to prosecute if he becomes president again?
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has vowed to investigate or prosecute political rivals, election workers and left-wing Americans if he becomes president again.
Democratic candidate Kamala Harris says that if Trump wins Tuesday's presidential election, he will seek extreme and unchecked powers.
12:46am, 5 Nov
Pennsylvania holds the key
Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump remain in a tight race in the country's seven battleground states that will determine who will be the next president of the United States of America.
According to the RealClearPolitics Poll Average, Vice President Harris held marginal leads in Wisconsin (+0.4) and Michigan (+1.2). Former president Trump was ahead in Nevada (+1.0), North Carolina (+1.5), Georgia (+1.7), Arizona (+2.7), and Pennsylvania (+0.3).
12:03am, 5 Nov
Bangla will be on New York City's ballot papers
In today's US elections, New York City ballots will feature Bangla, making it one of the four languages available alongside English for voters.
"We are required to service four other languages besides English. They are Chinese, Spanish, Korean and Bengali as the Asian languages," said Micheal J Ryan, executive director, Board of Elections, NYC.
12am, Nov 5
What Americans are voting for
It's not just the Harris-Trump show: US voters will cast ballots today for members of Congress, tens of thousands of state and local officials, and in multiple referendums on topics including hot-button issues like abortion.
12am, 5 Nov
Trump counts on young men
In this election, Trump has made a concerted effort to court Gen Z men, especially white, Black and Latino men without a college degree, seeking out the podcasts and influencers that they flock to and appearing on shows where he exhibits a bravado and disdain for cultural norms.
In recent years, young men have become more conservative and increasingly anxious about their economic status.
12am, 5 Nov
Harris banks on women's votes
In an ad for Kamala Harris, a woman marks her ballot for the Democratic candidate while her husband thinks she's voting for Republican Donald Trump: "What happens in the booth, stays in the booth" a voiceover says.
The 30-second-clip, narrated by actor Julia Roberts, shows the couple arriving at a polling station wearing baseball caps featuring the American flag, a symbol often sported by Trump supporters.
08:49am, 4 Nov
Trump rhetoric darkens, Harris vows Gaza peace in final hours
Kamala Harris courted voters angered by the Gaza war while Donald Trump doubled down on violent rhetoric with a comment about journalists being shot as the tense US election campaign headed into its final hours.
The Democratic vice president and the Republican former president frantically blitzed several swing states as they tried to win over the last holdouts with less than 36 hours left until polls open on Election Day.
12am, 4 Nov
'A landslide' or 'lot of fraud'
One day before the US presidential election, supporters of Donald Trump are ready to reject the results -- unless their man wins.
"I really wouldn't believe it if they told me she won," Brandon Dent, 22, told AFP, referring to Trump's rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
"He'll take it in a landslide," the delivery driver said, observing the thousands of fellow Trump supporters lining up to see the president speak in the Virginia city of Salem, nestled among gentle mountains brushed in red and orange by the fall foliage.
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