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Republican candidate Donald Trump is leading Democratic candidate Kamala Harris after one of the most divisive U.S. presidential campaigns in the nation’s recent memory, with the final result coming down to voters’ choice in battleground states.
Trump, 78, has won two of seven major swing states in Georgia and North Carolina. He leads in four of the remaining battlegrounds as of 12:30 ET.
To have a chance at victory, Harris will likely need to claim Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — all states currently going in Trump’s favour.
By midnight, Trump had 245 electoral votes with an edge in the battlegrounds of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Harris had 189 electoral votes.
A candidate needs a total of 270 votes in the electoral college to achieve the presidency. The Republican is also ahead in the popular vote, with 51 per cent to Harris’s 47.5 per cent.
In the dimly lit back room of a corner bar on Philadelphia’s Cherry Street, young people — many wearing red MAGA caps — have gathered for an election watch party hosted by the Philadelphia Young Republicans. The room was loud and occasionally erupted into cheers.
“[I’m] getting more hopeful the more and more that we see, but it’s still a long night,” said Paul Sutton, 35, the group’s treasurer.
“Probably cautiously optimistic… We’re at the end of the line now. We’ve put in the work, the Trump campaign obviously put in the work. So now we’re just waiting to see.”
Isaac Smith, of the Washington, D.C. , Young Republicans group, is confident that Donald Trump will not only be victorious over Kamala Harris but that he will receive even more electoral college votes than in 2016 and carry the popular vote.
The first results were as predicted, with each candidate locking up reliably red and blue states.
CBC News has called Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming for Trump.
Harris, 60, will hold the reliably blue states of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, New York, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and the District of Columbia.
The mood at Harris’s election night party at Howard University — the candidate’s alma mater in Washington — shifted from electric to anxious as races were called. Palpable anxiety rose as it became clear how close the race could be.
In another blow to Democrats, Republicans seized control of the Senate after flipping blue seats and holding onto others — taking the majority for the first time in four years.
In the past, the results have been obvious within a matter of hours on election night. If the presidential race is extremely close and mail-in ballots become a deciding factor, there will be no clear winner on Tuesday.
All polls have now closed except those in Alaska, which shut at 8 p.m. local time (1 a.m. ET).
Nearly two-thirds of voters cast ballots before election day
Unlike Canadians, Americans vote directly for who they want to see as president — though it is the electoral college which ultimately elects the winner. Their choices this year were Harris, Trump or a third-party candidate.
More than 84 million voters cast their ballots early, either by mail or in person.
Harris, 60, said she had intended to vote early to show voters the different options available. Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, did the same, casting his ballot last week in his home state. President Joe Biden also voted early in his home state of Delaware.
Trump, 78, had previously said he would vote before election day but instead cast his ballot in Florida on Tuesday.
Voting largely went smoothly, but the FBI said hoax bomb threats on Tuesday, many of which appeared to originate from Russian email domains, were directed at polling locations in three U.S. battleground states: Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin.
The bureau said the threats were not credible but at least two polling sites in Georgia were briefly evacuated.
As America votes for either Republican Donald Trump or Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris for president, concerns about potential political violence have prompted officials to take various measures to bolster security during and after election day. Johnny Jennings, a police chief in North Carolina, says unrest could be more likely in the coming days, adding that they are preparing for the worst.
How the candidates are spending the night
Harris is spending election night at a party at Howard University, a historically Black school in Washington, D.C.
“The first office I ever ran for was freshman class representative at Howard University,” Harris recalled in an interview on Tuesday with the Big Tigger Morning Show on V-103 in Atlanta. “And to go back tonight to Howard University, my beloved alma mater, and be able to hopefully recognize this day for what it is — really it’s full circle for me.”
Trump said he would watch the election results with “a very special group of people” at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., and a few thousand people at a nearby convention centre.
Voters in seven swing states will determine the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in November. Andrew Chang breaks down each of the states in play for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump and their pathways to 270 electoral college votes.
Speaking to reporters after voting in Palm Beach, Trump said he had no plans to tell his supporters to refrain from violence should he lose.
“I don’t have to tell them” because they “are not violent people,” he said.
Trump also planned to visit a nearby campaign office to thank those working on his behalf.
The next U.S. president will be consequential for Canada, too: The countries are top allies, side by side on the world stage and one another’s largest customers with billions of dollars annually in trade.
At his own event on the eve of the election on Monday, Walz said voters’ choice will have implications far beyond the next presidential term.
“The thing is upon us now, folks,” Walz said at a rally in La Crosse, Wis. “I know there is a lot of anxiety, but the decisions that are made over the next 24 to 36 hours when those polls close will shape not just the next four years — they will shape the coming generations.”
The U.S. presidential election in November is the only election in the country that doesn’t use the popular vote to determine a winner; instead it uses the slightly confusing — and often controversial — electoral college. Andrew Chang explains how the numbers add up and why winning an election can be just like winning a tennis match.