Millions cast vote in historic US presidential election; focus shifts on results

Washington, Nov 6 (PTI): Voting in the US presidential election entered the final hours with millions of Americans already deciding whether to elevate Vice President Kamala Harris to helm the White House or send Republican leader Donald Trump to the top office for a second tim.

Millions cast vote in historic US presidential election; focus shifts on results

Washington, Nov 6 (PTI): Voting in the US presidential election entered the final hours with millions of Americans already deciding whether to elevate Vice President Kamala Harris to helm the White House or send Republican leader Donald Trump to the top office for a second time.

The race remained stubbornly deadlocked for weeks with some of the election forecasters giving 60-year Harris an edge over former President Trump, 78, in some of the key battleground states like Pennsylvania.

The first polls are already closed in Indiana and Kentucky, two states that traditionally vote for the Republican Party.

In the next few hours, polls are set to close in the seven battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin which will effectively decide who will be the 47th President of the United States.

With the voting closing in the next few hours, the people are now bracing for the much-awaited results.

According to authorities, 182,000 pre-election ballots were counted already in Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, exit polls showed state of democracy, the shape of the economy and abortion are the most important issues for American voters in the election.

Almost six in 10 people ranked the state of democracy as their number one issue, according to exit polls released by CBS News.

It was followed by abortion as five per cent of the voters felt it was an important issue for them. Over one in 10 chose the economy as a priority issue.

An exit poll by CNN said roughly three-quarters of the electorate holds a negative view of the way things are going in the US today.

Only about one-quarter call themselves enthusiastic or satisfied with the state of the nation, with more than four in 10 dissatisfied and roughly three in 10 saying they are angry, according to the poll.

Voters remain generally optimistic, with more than 6 in 10 saying that America’s best days are in the future, and only about one-third said that they’re already in the past, the CNN poll found.

It said President Joe Biden’s approval rating is sliding nationally with about four in 10 voters saying they approve of his job performance and a majority disapproving.

As voting continued, the Kamala Harris campaign said it felt “good” about early voting in the Keystone state of Pennsylvania and other battleground states.

“Listen, we feel good about what we’re seeing in Pennsylvania and across the battleground states,” Harris’ communications director Michael Tyler said.

“I think when you look at the early vote data, yes, there has been a mode shift because Republicans — they used to disparage early voting and claim it was fraud,” Tyler told Fox News.

“They have now embraced it and have encouraged their voters to do so. So, you’re seeing a little bit of a mode shift,” he said.

According to the Harris Campaign, it knocked nearly 100,000 doors in Pennsylvania on Monday.

In the last few weeks of her campaign, Harris majorly focused on Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the states identified with Democratic Party’s colour of blue.

In 2020. Joe Biden had won all these three “Blue Wall” states which have a total of 44 electoral college votes. If Harris manages to win the three states, then she is likely to become the next American president.

The US has 50 states and most of them vote for the same party in every election except the swing states. Based on the volume of population, the states are assigned electoral college votes.

Overall a total of 538 electoral college votes are up for grabs. A candidate with 270 or more electoral votes is declared winner in the election.

If both candidates register victory in all the states that historically support the same party, then it will leave Harris 44 electoral college votes short of victory and Trump 51 votes short.

In that situation, the 93 votes of the swing states will decide who the next American president will be.

The swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, known as part of the ‘Rust Belt’, have been traditionally the strongholds of the Democratic Party. However, Trump won the three of them in 2016. The states returned to the Democratic fold in the 2020 election.

The four swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina are called ‘Sun Belt’ with a total electoral college vote of 49.

The Republicans have a stronger support base in the Sun Belt states. Even if Trump wins all the four Sun Belt states, he will still require to win one more in Rust Belt.

In her campaign in the last few days, Harris has been projecting the election as the one to protect the country’s fundamental freedoms, safeguard constitutional values, ensure women’s rights and make a “fresh” beginning.

In his concluding arguments, Trump maintained his aggressive rhetoric and even suggested that he should not have left the White House after the 2020 election, triggering apprehensions that he may not accept the polls if defeated.

“This is the most consequential election in our lifetime,” senior US Senator Bernie Sanders told CNN, while explaining why Trump as president will be detrimental to the USA’s foundational values.

Ahead of the voting, both Harris and Trump urged citizens to come out of their homes and vote.

Dixville Notch, a town in New Hampshire state, was the first place in the US where the voting began.

As fears of post-election violence loomed large, cities and towns across the US have been put under strong security cover with police erecting barricades around the White House and the Capitol Hill in Washington DC.

In their final rallies last night, Harris and Trump concluded their campaigns with virtually opposing visions of how to take the country forward with Harris calling for a vision to overcome “hate and divisiveness” and Trump warning of a bleak future under a Democratic regime.

”Tonight, then, we finish, as we started with optimism, with energy, with joy,” said Harris, closing her campaign in Pennsylvania.

In his concluding remarks, Trump said: “My message to you, and to all Americans tonight is very simple: we don’t have to live like this.” PTI MPB GSP GSP

(This story is published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. No editing has been done in the headline or the body by ABP Live.)