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New Yorkers could play an outsized role Tuesday in determining control of the U.S. House as Republicans cling to suburban seats they won two years ago by seizing on fears of crime, and Democrats try to claw them back by warning that a right-wing Congress might ban abortion. If everything goes their way, Democrats hope to pick off a handful of Republican incumbents in congressional races on Long Island and in the Hudson River Valley, as well as a central New York district that state leaders recently reconfigured to make more favorable to Democrats. But the GOP could wind up holding all of that ground and has a chance of unseating one or two incumbent Democrats. Most of the tightest contests are happening in places where voters favored President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump in 2020, but then sent a crop of Republicans to Congress two years later. The slew of competitive races underscore the hidden political complexity of New York, which is associated with Democrats like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but has also given rise to Republican stars like U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, the chair of the House Republican Conference. Jeffries and Ocasio-Cortez won reelection on Tuesday. Stefanik is also heavily favored to hold on to her seat. On Long Island, Republican U.S. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito is in a tough rematch with Democrat Laura Gillen, a former town supervisor he defeated in 2022, but who might do better with Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket. In central New York, Republican Rep. Brandon Williams is trying to hold off a challenge from Democratic state Sen. John Mannion. Williams won his seat two years ago by a margin of only around 2,600 votes and this year his district was redrawn to exclude some rural areas where he had garnered support. In a trio of districts that include parts of the Hudson Valley, three incumbents — two freshman Republicans and a Democrat — are trying to hold on to seats they won by thin margins in the last election. On both sides, the strategy has been to play to moderate suburban voters while casting opponents as extremists. In 2022, Republicans in New York City's suburbs thrived with campaigns that portrayed the nearby city as having become lawless during the pandemic. Crime rates have dropped significantly since then, but Republicans have continued to press crime as an issue while also trying to capitalize on suburban unease about immigration policy and an influx of international migrants. Democrats have moved to mount a stronger defense to voters’ concerns about crime and immigration. They have also hammered Republicans on abortion — a tactic that didn't produce anticipated wins for the party two years ago in a state where abortion rights are not generally seen as under threat. Republican gains on Long Island were eroded last year when former U.S. Rep. George Santos was expelled from Congress after he was revealed to have fabricated his life story and defrauded campaign donors. Santos was replaced in a special election by Democratic U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi, who is now running for reelection against Republican Mike LiPetri, a former state lawmaker. Further out on Long Island, Democrats have turned to former CNN anchor and author John Avlon in an effort to deny Republican U.S. Rep. Nick LaLota a second term. Three close contests are in districts that include parts of the Hudson Valley. In the suburbs north of New York City, Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler faces former U.S. Rep. Mondaire Jones, a Democrat who previously represented part of the district before its boundaries were redrawn for the 2022 election. Jones, one of the first two openly gay Black men to serve in the House, portrayed Lawler as someone who “masquerades as a moderate on television but votes just like an extreme MAGA Republican.” Lawler says Jones is the one masquerading as a centrist, when he is actually liberal. “People want reasonableness,” Lawler said in an interview before the election. “They want folks who are willing to work across the aisle to get things done.” The race got extra attention in early October when The New York Times obtained a photo showing Lawler wearing blackface in 2006 at a college Halloween party where he dressed as Michael Jackson. Lawler said the outfit was intended to be an homage to a childhood idol. Elsewhere in the Hudson Valley, Democratic U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan is locked in a tight race with Republican Alison Esposito, who has served in the New York Police Department and is running on a law-and-order platform. Esposito, if victorious, would be the first openly gay Republican woman to serve in Congress. Further north, Republican U.S. Rep. Marc Molinaro is trying to hold off Democrat Josh Riley in a district that sprawls from New York’s border with Massachusetts across the Catskill Mountains and all the way to the Finger Lakes. The election is a rematch of 2022, when Molinaro narrowly defeated Riley. Molinaro has perhaps tacked harder to the right than his Republican colleagues in the state, most notably when he recently shared a social media post falsely claiming that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating house pets. In the one New York congressional race not involving an incumbent, Democrat George Latimer defeated Republican Dr. Miriam Levitt Flisser. Latimer had beaten U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman in a Democratic primary in June, making Bowman the first member of the progressive band of liberals known as the “Squad” to lose a reelection bid.

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris notched early wins in reliably Republican and Democratic states, respectively, as a divided America made its decision in a stark choice for the nation’s future Tuesday. Polls closed in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Nevada, the seven closely fought battlegrounds expected to decide the election, but the results there were too early to call. Balloting continued in the West on Election Day, as tens of millions of Americans added their ballots to the 84 million cast early as they chose between two candidates with drastically different temperaments and visions for the country. Trump won Florida, a one-time battleground that has shifted heavily to Republicans in recent elections. He also notched early wins in reliably Republican states such as Texas, South Carolina and Indiana, while Harris took Democratic strongholds like New York, Massachusetts and Illinois. The fate of democracy appeared to be a primary driver for Harris’ supporters, a sign that the Democratic nominee’s persistent messaging in her campaign’s closing days accusing Trump of being a fascist may have broken through, according to AP VoteCast. The expansive survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide also found a country mired in negativity and desperate for change. Trump’s supporters were largely focused on immigration and inflation — two issues that the former Republican president has been hammering since the start of his campaign. Those casting Election Day ballots mostly encountered a smooth process, with isolated reports of hiccups that regularly happen, including long lines, technical issues and ballot printing errors. Harris has promised to work across the aisle to tackle economic worries and other issues without radically departing from the course set by President Joe Biden. Trump 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 U.S. history. Harris and Trump entered Election Day focused on seven swing states, five of them carried by Trump in 2016 before they flipped 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, also were closely contested. Trump voted in Palm Beach, Florida, near his Mar-a-Lago club. He called into a Wisconsin radio station Tuesday night to say: “I’m watching these results. So far so good." Harris, the Democratic vice president, did phone interviews with radio stations in the battleground states, then visited Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington carrying a box of Doritos — her go-to snack. “This truly represents the best of who we are,” Harris told a room of cheering staffers. She was handed a cellphone by supporters doing phone banking, and when asked by reporters how she was feeling, the vice president held up a phone and responded, “Gotta talk to voters.” 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. Trump said Tuesday that he had no plans to tell his supporters to refrain from violence if Harris wins, because they “are not violent people.” His angry supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after Trump tried to overturn his loss in 2020. Asked Tuesday about accepting the 2024 race’s results, he said, “If it’s a fair election, I’d be the first one to acknowledge it.” He visited a nearby campaign office to thank staffers before a party at a nearby convention center. After her DNC stop, Harris planned to attend a party at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington. Federal, state and local officials have expressed confidence in the integrity of the nation’s election systems. They nonetheless were braced to contend with what they say is an unprecedented level of foreign disinformation — particularly from Russia and Iran — as well as the possibility of physical violence or cyberattacks. In Georgia’s Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold that includes most of the city of Atlanta, 32 of the 177 polling places received bomb threats Tuesday, prompting brief evacuations at five locations, county Police Chief W. Wade Yates said. The threats were determined to be non-credible but voting hours were extended at those five locations. Bomb threats also forced an extension of voting hours in at least two Pennsylvania counties — Clearfield, in central Pennsylvania, and Chester, near Philadelphia. Both sides have armies of lawyers in anticipation of legal challenges on and after Election Day. And law enforcement agencies nationwide are on high alert for potential violence. Harris, 60, would be the first woman, Black woman and person of South Asian descent to serve as president. She also would be the first sitting vice president to win the White House in 36 years. Trump, 78, would be the oldest president ever elected. He would also be the first defeated president in 132 years to win another term in the White House, and the first person convicted of a felony to take over the Oval Office. He survived one assassination attempt by millimeters at a July rally. Secret Service agents foiled a second attempt in September. Harris, pointing to the warnings of Trump's former aides, has labeled him a “fascist” and blamed Trump for putting women's lives in danger by nominating three of the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. In the closing hours of the campaign, she tried to strike a more positive tone and went all of Monday without saying her Republican opponent's name. Voters nationwide also were deciding thousands of other races that will decide everything from control of Congress to state ballot measures on abortion access in response to the Supreme Court’s vote in 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade. In Florida, a ballot measure that would have protected abortion rights in the state constitution failed after not meeting the 60% threshold to pass, marking the first time a measure protecting abortion rights failed since Roe was overturned. Earlier Tuesday, Trump refused to say how he voted on the measure and snapped at a reporter, saying, “You should stop talking about that." In reliably Democratic New York and Maryland, voters approved ballot measures aimed at protecting abortion rights in their state constitutions. JD Jorgensen, an independent voter in Black Mountain, North Carolina, which was hit hard by Hurricane Helene, said voters should have made up their minds before Tuesday. “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,” said Jorgensen, 35.  

A U.S. Army soldier who was injured in May while working on the American-built pier to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza has died. Sgt. Quandarius Stanley, 23, was a motor transport operator and was critically injured when high winds and heavy seas damaged the pier, causing four Army vessels to become beached. Two other service members also were injured but later returned to duty. U.S. military officials have not provided details on how exactly Stanley was injured but have noted it was not in combat. He died last Thursday and had been assigned to the 7th Transportation Brigade Expeditionary at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia. “Sgt. Quandarius Stanley was an instrumental and well respected first-line leader in the 7th Transportation Brigade Expeditionary (TBX), especially during the mission to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza. We will continue to provide support to his family during this difficult time," said Col. John “Eddie” Gray, brigade commander. "Our entire unit mourns alongside his family.” Capt. Shkeila Milford-Glover, spokesperson for the 3rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command, said Stanley had recently been retired and was receiving treatment in a long-term care medical center. The massive pier project was hampered by unexpected bad weather and security issues, as well as persistent safety issues involving Israeli forces that prompted aid agencies to halt distribution of the supplies out of fear of being injured and killed. The Defense Department formally pulled the pier from the Gaza shore on June 28 and declared an end in mid-July to the mission to bring aid into the territory besieged by the war between Israel and Hamas. All together, the military moved nearly 20 million pounds of aid onto the Gaza shore in what officials said was the “largest volume of humanitarian assistance” ever delivered into the Middle East. But aid agencies had difficulty moving the food brought ashore to areas further into Gaza where it was needed most because humanitarian convoys came under attack.

Election Day voting unfolded largely smoothly across the nation Tuesday with only scattered reports of delays from extreme weather, ballot printing errors and technical problems. Most of the hiccups occurring by midday were “largely expected routine and planned-for events,” said Cait Conley, senior adviser to the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in a press briefing. She said the agency was not currently tracking any national, significant incidents impacting election security. In swing-state Pennsylvania, early reports that Republican poll watchers were not allowed into some polling sites were soon resolved. A Pennsylvania state judge ordered polls to remain open for two extra hours in Cambria County, which voted 68% for former President Donald Trump in 2020. The county sought the extension after a software malfunction affected ballot-scanning machines, though county officials confirmed no one was turned away from the polls and said all ballots would be counted. A technical malfunction in Champaign County, Illinois, and challenges with e-pollbooks in Louisville, Kentucky, also delayed voting, but those issues were soon fixed and voting was back up and running. In Arizona's Maricopa County, one voting location was slightly delayed when a worker forgot to bring a key. In Missouri, flooding made one St. Louis area polling site hard to reach and knocked out power to another, requiring poll workers to turn to a generator to continue election operations. Still, in various states affected by rain, voters were enthusiastically huddling under umbrellas as they lined up to cast their ballots. “We’ll be like post office workers: in rain or snow or sleet,” voter Mary Roszkowski said after she cast her ballot in windy Racine, Wisconsin, wiping raindrops off her face. In Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said there were some reported bomb threats to polling places, but all were deemed non-credible and authorities were investigating. In Maine, at least three high schools that served as polling places were subjected to false reports of shooters, but the polls remained open as police confirmed the calls were hoaxes. “Voting continued uninterrupted. It’s a testament to the careful planning and communication between clerks and law enforcement,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told The Associated Press. Helping voting run relatively smoothly on Election Day was the fact that tens of millions of Americans had already cast their ballots. Those included record numbers of voters in Georgia, North Carolina and other battleground states that could decide the winner. As of Tuesday, AP tracking of advance voting nationwide showed more than 82 million ballots already cast — slightly more than half the total number of votes in the presidential election four years earlier. That's driven partly by Republican voters, who were casting early ballots at a higher rate than in recent previous elections after a campaign by Trump and the Republican National Committee to counter the Democrats' longstanding advantage in the early vote. Early in-person and mail voting proceeded without major problems, besides some typical glitches expected in any election. That included in the parts of western North Carolina hammered last month by Hurricane Helene. State and local election officials, benefiting from changes made by the Republican-controlled legislature, pulled off a herculean effort to ensure residents could cast their ballots as they dealt with power outages, lack of water and washed out roads. That appeared to continue on Tuesday, with the North Carolina Board of Elections reporting no voting issues. Besides the hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida, the most worrisome disruptions to the election season so far were arson attacks that damaged ballots in two drop boxes near the Oregon-Washington border. Authorities there were searching for the person responsible. The absence of any significant, widespread problems has not stopped Trump, the Republican nominee, or the RNC, which is now under his sway, from making numerous claims of fraud or election interference during the early voting period, a possible prelude to challenges after Election Day. Trump and Republicans also have warned about the possibility that Democrats are recruiting masses of noncitizens to vote, a claim they have made without evidence and that runs counter to the data, including from Republican secretaries of state. Research has consistently shown that noncitizens registering to vote is rare. Any noncitizen who does faces the potential of felony charges and deportation, a significant disincentive. One case of noncitizen voting was caught during early voting last month and resulted in felony charges in Michigan after a student from China cast an illegal early ballot. This is the first presidential vote since Trump lost to Joe Biden four years ago and began various attempts to circumvent the outcome and remain in power. That climaxed with the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to halt certification of the results after Trump told his supporters to “fight like hell.” Even now, a solid majority of Republicans believe Trump's lie that Biden was not legitimately elected, despite reviews, audits and recounts in the battleground states that all affirmed Biden's win. A survey last month from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed Republicans remain much more skeptical than Democrats that their ballots will be counted accurately this year. Seeking to rebuild voter confidence in a system targeted with false claims of widespread fraud, Republican lawmakers in more than a dozen states since 2020 have passed new voting restrictions. Those rules include shortening the window to apply or return a mail ballot, reducing the availability of ballot drop boxes and adding ID requirements. On the last weekend before Election Day, Trump continued to falsely claim the election was being rigged against him and said a presidential winner should be declared on election night, before all the ballots are counted. Vice President Kamala Harris urged voters not to fall for Trump’s tactic of casting doubt on elections. The Democratic nominee told supporters at a weekend rally in Michigan that the tactic was intended to suggest to people “that if they vote, their vote won’t matter.” Instead, she urged people who had already cast ballots to encourage their friends to do the same. Through four years of election lies and voting-related conspiracy theories, local election officials have faced harassment and even death threats. That has prompted high turnover and led to heightened security for election offices and polling sites that includes panic buttons and bullet-proof glass. While there have been no major reports of any malicious cyberactivity affecting election offices, foreign actors have been active in using fake social media profiles and websites to drum up partisan vitriol and disinformation. In the final weeks, U.S. intelligence officials have attributed to Russia multiple fake videos alleging election fraud in presidential swing states. On the eve of Election Day, they issued a joint statement with federal law enforcement agencies warning that Russia in particular was ramping up its influence operations, including in ways that could incite violence, and likely would continue those efforts well after the votes have been cast. Jen Easterly, the nation’s top election security official, urged Americans to rely on state and local election officials for information about elections. “This is especially important as we are in an election cycle with an unprecedented amount of disinformation, including disinformation being aggressively peddled and amplified by our foreign adversaries at a greater scale than ever before,” she said. “We cannot allow our foreign adversaries to have a vote in our democracy.”

Donald Trump is refusing to say how he voted on Florida's abortion measure — and getting testy about it. The former president was asked twice after casting his ballot in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday about a question that the state's voters are considering. If approved, it would prevent state lawmakers from passing any law that penalizes, prohibits, delays or restricts abortion until fetal viability — which doctors say is sometime after 21 weeks. If it’s rejected, the state’s restrictive six-week abortion law would stand. The first time he was asked, Trump avoided answering. He said instead of the issue that he did “a great job bringing it back to the states.” That was a reference to the former president having appointed three conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who helped overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 2022. Pressed a second time, Trump snapped at a reporter, saying “you should stop talking about it.” Trump had previously indicated that he would back the measure — but then changed his mind and said he would vote against it. In August, Trump said he thought Florida’s ban was a mistake, saying on Fox News Channel, “I think six weeks, you need more time.” But then he said, “at the same time, the Democrats are radical” while repeating false claims he has frequently made about late-term abortions. In addition to Florida, voters in eight other states are deciding whether their state constitutions should guarantee a right to abortion, weighing ballot measures that are expected to spur turnout for a range of crucial races. Passing certain amendments in Arizona, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota likely would lead to undoing bans or restrictions that currently block varying levels of abortion access to more than 7 million women of childbearing age who live in those states.

Control of the White House and the narrowly divided Senate and House may hang in the balance on Nov. 5, but don’t expect election night to be all nail-biters and barn burners. Chances are some winners will be declared before a single vote has been tallied, just as the polls close in those states. So what gives? Although determining a winner before any votes have been counted may seem counterintuitive, race calls at poll closing time in uncontested or landslide races have been a routine part of election nights for decades, even though competitive, hotly contested races that can take hours, days or even weeks to decide tend to be the most memorable and attract the most attention. The Associated Press will consider multiple factors and analyze available data before determining whether a winner can be declared when polls close in a given state. But the AP will never declare the outcome in a competitive contest before enough votes are counted to make the winner clear. Uncontested races Many of the races called just as the polls close are uncontested elections where only one candidate appears on the ballot and is therefore the only possible winner of the race. Voters in some parts of the country live in multimember districts for offices such as state legislature, where more than one candidate is elected in a district. In those districts, an uncontested race is one where the number of candidates on the ballot is equal to or less than the number of seats available in that district. In the 2024 general election, the AP will declare winners in nearly 2,000 uncontested races, compared with about 4,500 contested races. Noncompetitive contests Sometimes it’s possible to declare winners at poll closing time in noncompetitive races with multiple candidates in areas where one political party has an established history of lopsided victories. In these cases, the AP will analyze multiple sources of available data, including the results of AP VoteCast, a comprehensive survey of both voters and nonvoters that determines who voted, how they voted and why, to confirm the outcome. The AP will not call a race when polls close if AP VoteCast’s results indicate a deviation from the state’s long-standing political trends and voting history. AP VoteCast results will be available for all 50 states, though only a small number will be considered as potential poll close calls. There is no AP VoteCast survey in the District of Columbia, so no contest there will be called when polls close even though the nation’s capital has a long history of overwhelming victories for Democratic candidates. For example, the AP’s poll close calls in the 2020 presidential election included Wyoming, a state that last voted for a Democrat in 1968 and that Donald Trump won over Joe Biden by 44 points; and Massachusetts, which last voted for a Republican in 1984 and that Biden won by 34 points over Trump. A handful of states and districts have multiple poll closing times because they are in more than one time zone. In these cases, the AP will not declare a winner before the final poll closing time in that state or district. Florida, Texas and some others begin to release vote results from most of the state shortly after polls close in the earlier time zone. Votes that are already counted from areas in the earlier time zones will also be considered in determining whether a winner can be declared at the moment when the last polls close. Other election data the AP takes into account include an area’s voting history from recent elections, voter registration statistics and pre-Election Day polling. When the above data points confirm the expected result in a state where either major party has a history of dominating elections, the AP may call the race as soon as voting ends.

In the United States, every four years, Americans cast their votes to elect the president on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. This practice, which has become a defining feature of the democratic process in the country, can be traced back to decisions made over 175 years ago, deeply rooted in the agrarian society that dominated much of the nation at the time. The date was formalised by the US Congress in 1845 when an act was passed to establish a uniform election day for the presidential and vice-presidential races across all states. At that time, the majority of the population worked in agriculture, and the timing of the election was carefully chosen to accommodate the seasonal demands of farming life. November was deemed the most suitable month as it fell between the end of the autumn harvest and the beginning of winter, a period when farmers had fewer obligations in the fields. Besides, the cold and harsher winter conditions, which would make travel difficult, had not yet fully set in. Holding elections earlier in the year could have conflicted with planting or harvesting periods, critical times for the livelihoods of most American families. America reaches Election Day and a stark choice between Trump and Harris The choice of Tuesday as the election day was also a matter of practicality. Sunday was immediately ruled out as it was reserved for religious observance by Christian communities. Meanwhile, Wednesday was typically the day when farmers would head to market to sell their produce, making it inconvenient for rural voters to participate in elections. Tuesday, therefore, was seen as the best option for voters to travel to polling places without disrupting either their worship or commerce. This seemingly simple decision—choosing the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November—was influenced by the social and economic realities of 19th-century America, yet it remains the standard by which presidential elections are held to this day. The enduring tradition highlights how historical contexts continue to shape modern governance, even as the country has evolved far beyond its early agrarian roots.

A presidential campaign marked by upheaval and rancor approached its finale on Election Day as Americans decided whether to send Donald Trump back to the White House or elevate Kamala Harris to the Oval Office. Polls opened across the nation Tuesday morning 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 vice president, 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 President Joe Biden. Trump, the Republican former president, 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 U.S. 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 as well as 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, an 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, also were 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 on Tuesday night or to try to contest the result if she wins. Four years ago, Trump launched an effort to overturn the voters’ will that ended in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Trump planned to vote in his adopted home state of Florida on Tuesday, 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'll have a watch party at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington. Each candidate would take the country into new terrain Harris, 60, would be the first woman, Black woman and person of South Asian descent to serve as president. She also would be the first sitting vice president to win the White House in 32 years. A victory would cap a whirlwind campaign unlike any other in American history. Harris ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket less than four months ago after Biden, facing massive pressure from his party after a disastrous debate performance, ended his reelection bid. Trump, 78, would be the oldest president ever elected. He would also be the first defeated president in 132 years to win another term in the White House, and the first person convicted of a felony to take over the Oval Office. Having left Washington abandoned by some allies after Jan. 6, Trump defeated younger rivals in the Republican primary and consolidated the support of longtime allies and harsh critics within his party. He survived one assassination attempt by millimeters at a July rally. Secret Service agents foiled a second attempt in September. A victory for Trump would affirm that enough voters put aside warnings from many of Trump's former aides or instead prioritized concerns about Biden and Harris' stewardship of the economy or the U.S.-Mexico border. It would all but ensure he avoids going to prison after being found guilty of his role in hiding hush-money payments to an adult film actress during his first run for president in 2016. His sentencing in that case could occur later this month. And upon taking office, Trump could end the federal investigation into his effort to overturn the 2020 election results. The election has huge stakes for America and the world The potential turbulence of a second Trump term has been magnified by his embrace of the Republican Party’s far right and his disregard for long-held democratic norms. Trump has used harsh rhetoric against Harris and other Democrats, calling them “demonic,” and has suggested military action against people he calls “enemies from within.” Harris, pointing to the warnings of Trump's former aides, has labeled him a “fascist” and blamed Trump for putting women's lives in danger by nominating three of the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. In the closing hours of the campaign, she tried to strike a more positive tone and went the entire last day Monday without saying her Republican opponent's name. Heading into Election Day, federal, state and local officials expressed confidence in the integrity of the nation’s election systems. They nonetheless were braced to contend with what they say is an unprecedented level of foreign disinformation — particularly from Russia and Iran — as well as the possibility of physical violence or cyberattacks. Both sides have armies of lawyers in anticipation of legal challenges on and after Election Day. And law enforcement agencies nationwide are on high alert for potential violence. The outcome of the race was being closely watched around the world, with the future of American support for Ukraine, U.S. fidelity to its global alliances and the nation’s commitment to stand up to autocrats hanging in the balance. Harris has vowed to continue backing Kyiv's defense against Russia's full-scale 2022 invasion. Trump has sharply criticized Ukraine, praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and suggested he would encourage Russia to attack NATO allies of the U.S. that Trump considers delinquent. Voters nationwide also were deciding thousands of other races that will decide everything from control of Congress to state ballot measures on abortion access. More than 82 million people voted early — shy of the record set during the 2020 pandemic, when Trump encouraged Republicans to stick to voting on Election Day. This time, he urged his voters to lock down their ballots in advance and they complied in droves.

Election Day 2024 arrived Tuesday — with tens of millions of Americans having already cast their ballots. Those include record numbers in Georgia, North Carolina and other battleground states that could decide the winner. The early turnout in Georgia, which has flipped between the Republican and Democratic nominees in the previous two presidential elections, has been so robust — over 4 million voters — that a top official in the secretary of state’s office said the big day could look like a “ghost town” at the polls. As of Monday, Associated Press tracking of advance voting nationwide showed roughly 82 million ballots already cast — slightly more than half the total number of votes in the presidential election four years earlier. That’s driven partly by Republican voters, who were casting early ballots at a higher rate than in recent previous elections after a campaign by former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee to counter the Democrats’ longstanding advantage in the early vote. Despite long lines in some places and a few hiccups that are common to all elections, early in-person and mail voting proceeded without any major problems.That included in the parts of western North Carolina hammered last month by Hurricane Helene. State and local election officials, benefiting from changes made by the Republican-controlled legislature, pulled off a herculean effort to ensure residents could cast their ballots as they dealt with power outages, lack of water and washed out roads. By the time early voting in North Carolina had ended on Saturday, over 4.4 million voters — or nearly 57% of all registered voters in the state — had cast their ballots. As of Monday, turnout in the 25 western counties affected by the hurricane was even stronger at 59% of registered voters, state election board Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said. Brinson Bell called the voters and election workers in the hurricane-hit counties “an inspiration to us all.” Besides the hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida, the most worrisome disruptions to the election season so far were arson attacks that damaged ballots in two drop boxes near the Oregon-Washington border. Authorities there were searching for the person responsible. The absence of any significant, widespread problems has not stopped Trump, the Republican nominee, or the RNC, which is now under his sway, from making numerous claims of fraud or election interference during the early voting period, a possible prelude to challenges after Election Day. He has mischaracterized an investigation underway in Pennsylvania into roughly 2,500 potentially fraudulent voter registration applications by saying one of the counties was “caught with 2600 Fake Ballots and Forms, all written by the same person.” The investigation is into registration applications; there is no indication that ballots are involved. In Georgia, Republicans sought to prohibit voters from returning mailed ballots to their local election office by the close of polls on Election Day, votes that are allowed under state law. A judge rejected their lawsuit over the weekend. Trump and Republicans also have warned about the possibility that Democrats are recruiting masses of noncitizens to vote, a claim they have made without evidence and that runs counter to the data, including from Republican secretaries of state. Research has consistently shown that noncitizens registering to vote is rare. Any noncitizen who does faces the potential of felony charges and deportation, a significant disincentive. One case of noncitizen voting was caught during early voting last month and resulted in felony charges in Michigan after a student from China cast an illegal early ballot. This is the first presidential vote since Trump lost to Joe Biden four years ago and began various attempts to circumvent the outcome and remain in power. That climaxed with the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to halt certification of the results after Trump told his supporters to “fight like hell.” Even now, a solid majority of Republicans believe Trump’s lie that Biden was not legitimately elected, despite reviews, audits and recounts in the battleground states that all affirmed Biden’s win. A survey last month from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed Republicans remain much more skeptical than Democrats that their ballots will be counted accurately this year. Seeking to rebuild voter confidence in a system targeted with false claims of widespread fraud, Republican lawmakers in more than a dozen states since 2020 have passed new voting restrictions. Those rules include shortening the window to apply or return a mail ballot, reducing the availability of ballot drop boxes and adding ID requirements. On the last weekend before Election Day, Trump continued to falsely claim the election was being rigged against him and said a presidential winner should be declared on election night, before all the ballots are counted. Vice President Kamala Harris urged voters not to fall for Trump’s tactic of casting doubt on elections. The Democratic nominee told supporters at a weekend rally in Michigan that the tactic was intended to suggest to people “that if they vote, their vote won’t matter.” Instead, she urged people who had already cast ballots to encourage their friends to do the same. Through four years of election lies and voting-related conspiracy theories, local election officials have faced harassment and even death threats. That has prompted high turnover and led to heightened security for election offices and polling sites that includes panic buttons and bullet-proof glass. While there have been no major reports of any malicious cyberactivity affecting election offices, foreign actors have been active in using fake social media profiles and websites to drum up partisan vitriol and disinformation. In the final weeks, U.S. intelligence officials have attributed to Russia multiple fake videos alleging election fraud in presidential swing states. On the eve of Election Day, they issued a joint statement with federal law enforcement agencies warning that Russia in particular was ramping up its influence operations, including in ways that could incite violence, and likely would continue those efforts well after the votes have been cast. Jen Easterly, the nation’s top election security official, urged Americans to rely on state and local election officials for information about elections. “This is especially important as we are in an election cycle with an unprecedented amount of disinformation, including disinformation being aggressively peddled and amplified by our foreign adversaries at a greater scale than ever before,” she said. “We cannot allow our foreign adversaries to have a vote in our democracy.”

Conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly delivered a fiery speech supporting Donald Trump during an event billed as his “closing message” on Monday night, a full-circle moment after the former president and the onetime Fox News star feuded bitterly during Trump's 2016 campaign. Invited to the stage in Pittsburgh, Kelly defended Trump against recent controversies, including his repeated pledge to be the “protector” of women, and pressed his case on border security and his opposition to transgender athletes participating in sports. “He got mocked by the left by saying he would be a protector of women,” Kelly said. “He will be a protector of women and it’s why I’m voting for him. He will close the border and he will keep the boys out of women’s sports where they don’t belong.” Trump stood to the side, grinning and beaming, as he listened to the commentator he once called “nasty.” Afterward, she posted a selfie with the former president on X that was captioned in part: "God bless him. Go vote for him!" Kelly was a popular Fox News host in 2016 when she questioned Trump during the first debate of the Republican primary about whether he had the temperament to be president. Trump largely dismissed Kelly’s question at the debate, but later he went directly after her, first overnight on Twitter and later in interviews. “She’s not very tough and not very sharp,” Trump told CNN in a phone interview. “I don’t respect her as a journalist.” Referring to Kelly’s questions during the debate, Trump said, “There was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” The comment was widely viewed as a sexist reference to menstruation. Trump later boycotted another debate on Fox because Kelly was one of the moderators. Kelly left Fox for NBC News. She was taken off the air following an uproar when she suggested it was OK for white people to wear blackface on Halloween. She now hosts a SiriusXM satellite radio show that she has built into one of the highest-ranked on Chartable’s list of news podcasts. “All that nonsense between us,” Kelly said last year, “is under the bridge.” Kelly’s appearance with Trump comes as early voting suggests a gender gap that favors Democrat Kamala Harris. Kelly was critical of some of the speakers who delivered crude and racist comments at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last month. One suggested that Harris, who is vying to become the first woman, Black woman and person of South Asian descent to be elected president, began her career as a prostitute. The speakers, Kelly said, “took what was an amazing celebration of Trump, exciting and well-attended and hugely enthusiastic, and gave themselves a big black eye.”