The vote is pivotal for the rest of the world, too, with the future of European security and global trade in the balance. Trump has threatened to pull the U.S. out of the NATO military alliance and boasted about ending Russia’s war on Ukraine in a day. European governments have been trying to prepare for what — for some — will be the nightmarish prospect of a second Trump term.
The president is not chosen by popular vote whereby the candidate with the most support across the U.S. wins. Instead, there are 50 state-wide contests and one in the District of Columbia, in a system known as the “Electoral College.” The winner is the candidate with the most Electoral College votes across the country.
Pollsters and political experts reckon most of the states are sewn up for one candidate or the other, with only seven truly competitive battlegrounds. These are the so-called Rust Belt states, the former industrial heartlands of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania; and the Sun Belt states of Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona in the southern and western parts of the country.
Voters across the country say their top priority this time was “democracy,” according to exit polling reported by NBC News, followed by the economy, abortion and migration. Trump is making inroads winning support from black and Latino men, in two crucial swing states — North Carolina and Georgia, surveys suggested.
The weeks and days leading up to the election have been tense. The campaign split the country with many voters feeling they have a terrible choice to make between the outlandish and unpredictable Trump and Harris, who has struggled to define herself or set out what she would do differently to President Joe Biden if she wins.
Name-calling and violence
The two sides have traded insults, with Harris branding Trump a fascist, while he has called her a “sleazebag.” The specter of violence has haunted the political atmosphere, too. Trump was targeted twice by would-be assassins, once escaping by the narrowest of margins as a bullet cut his ear. He has also indulged in his own violent rhetoric in recent days, suggesting Harris should fight Mike Tyson and one of her supporters should be shot at.