A US presidential campaign marked by upheaval and rancor approached its finale on Election Day as Americans yesterday decided whether to send former US president Donald Trump back to the White House or elevate US Vice President Kamala Harris to the Oval Office.
Polls opened across the nation 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 candidate, 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 US President Joe Biden.
Photo: AFP
Trump, the Republican nominee, 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 US 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 and 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, a US 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, were also 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 last night or to try to contest the result if she wins.
Trump planned to vote in his adopted home state of Florida, 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 was to hold a watch party at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington.
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