Former President Donald Trump has taken early lead in the US presidential election. He has won 214 electoral votes while Vice President Kamala Harris has 179 electoral votes.
Harris picked up California, Washington State, Washington, D.C., and an electoral vote from Maine. Trump, meanwhile, won Idaho, Iowa and Kansas.
Most polls are now closed in the country. They closed at 11 p.m. Eastern time in California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington, and are set to close at midnight Eastern time in Hawaii and 1 a.m. Eastern time in Alaska.
Votes are still being counted in the key battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona. As predicted, the election will be close, according to Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“It’s going to come down to a handful of states,” she told VOA.
In the race for the U.S. Senate, Maryland and Delaware made history Tuesday night by electing Democrats Angela Alsobrooks and Lisa Blunt Rochester, respectively, to the Senate. This will mark the first time two Black women, both Democrats, will serve in the Senate at the same time.
“From the bottom of my heart, Delaware, thank you,” Rochester said in a post on the social media platform X.
Elsewhere in the Senate race, Virginia’s Tim Kaine and New Mexico’s Martin Heinrich, both Democrats, won re-election.
For the Republicans, Ted Cruz from Texas and Josh Hawley from Missouri both won re-election. Republican John Curtis also won his Senate race in Utah.
Abortion was on the ballot in 10 states this election cycle.
New York residents voted in favour of a measure designed to safeguard protections for abortion. But in Florida, residents rejected an effort to overturn the state’s six-week abortion ban.
“It’s a hot button issue in much of the country, and that’s, I think, what we’re going to see play out in a lot of states,” Kamarck told VOA about abortion.
Trump added to his lead with wins in Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.
Trump also won the statewide popular vote in Nebraska, giving him two electoral college votes. Trump has also won one congressional district electoral vote in Nebraska, out of three up for grabs. Nebraska is one of two states that apportions its electoral votes partially based on victories in congressional districts.
Harris added New York and Colorado to her list of wins. The Empire State gives her 28 electoral votes. Colorado gives her 10.
Plenty of states are still in play, including battlegrounds Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
As for the battle for control of the Senate, New York Democrat Kristen Gillibrand and Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar both won re-election. Delaware Democrat Lisa Blunt Rochester also won her Senate race.
And Democrat Andy Kim won his Senate race in New Jersey to become the first Korean-American member of the Senate. He has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2019.
In Maryland, Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat, won her Senate race against Republican Larry Hogan, a former state governor.
Meanwhile, Republicans Pete Ricketts from Nebraska, John Barrasso from Wyoming, and Kevin Cramer from North Dakota, all won re-election.
Bomb threats continue
Security threats continued into the night on Election Day, with new bomb threats reported in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
The elections office in La Paz County, Arizona, was evacuated Tuesday evening after two local officials received an emailed bomb threat. No one was harmed.
Earlier on Tuesday, several polling places in Navajo County also received bomb threats by email, but Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said that state officials determined that they were not credible.
Those threats in Arizona were part of an array of hoax bomb threats that also targeted polling stations in Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin. Many of the threats appeared to originate from Russian email domains, according to the FBI.
Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, a bomb threat prompted the evacuation of a voting services government building, an election official said Tuesday evening.
“There was a bomb threat to the Government Services Center in West Chester, PA,” Josh Maxwell, chair of the Chester County Board of Elections, said in a post on the social media platform X.
“Voter Services is located there, and in-person ballots are delivered after 8 pm. Mail-in ballots are canvassed and tabulated at a different location,” Maxwell added.
The building was being searched by dogs and would be back in service shortly if nothing was found, Maxwell said in a later post.
Harris, Trump continue to win expected states
With polls in half of the country closed, Vice President Kamala Harris has won eight states, and former President Donald Trump has won 10. So far, Harris’ and Trump’s state wins have followed predictions.
In addition to Harris’ earlier Vermont win, she has also won Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island. She now has 71 electoral votes.
Trump, meanwhile, has added Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia to his list of wins, following his victories in Indiana and Kentucky. The Republican candidate now has 101 electoral votes.
At least 270 electoral votes are needed to win the presidency.
Various Senate races are also being called.
Longtime Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent, won reelection to a fourth six-year term. The 83-year-old is a self-described democratic socialist who caucuses with the Democrats.
Also in New England, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy won reelection in Connecticut; Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren won reelection in Massachusetts’ and Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse won reelection in Rhode Island.
Meanwhile, in West Virginia, Republican Jim Justice won his Senate race, as predicted, flipping the first seat in the battle for control of the chamber. Justice has served as governor of West Virginia since 2017.
In Indiana, Republican Jim Banks has won Indiana’s open Senate seat. Senator Mike Braun left the Senate after one term to run for governor, which he won. Banks, a military veteran, has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2017.
Adding to the Republican Party’s wins are Senator Rick Scott, who won reelection in Florida; Roger Wicker, who won reelection in Mississippi; and Marsha Blackburn, who won reelection in Tennessee.
These wins are taking place against the backdrop of more warnings from the FBI about influence operations designed to promote election falsehoods. The FBI has warned of three new fake videos and posts using the bureau’s name and insignia to promote false information about the election.
One video involved a purported statement warning journalists not to publish information about violence at polling stations. Another falsely claimed schools were closed until November 11 because of the risk of election-related violence. The third falsely claimed the FBI had received 9,000 complaints about malfunctioning voter machines.
“These three instances are the latest in a series of fabricated videos and statements falsely attributed to the FBI designed to mislead the American public,” the FBI said in a statement.
Trump wins Indiana, Kentucky, Harris wins Vermont
Former President Donald Trump has won Indiana and Kentucky, while Vice President Harris has won Vermont.
The results do not come as a big surprise.
The Republican candidate has carried Indiana in seven of the last eight presidential elections and Kentucky in six of the eight last elections.
Vermont, meanwhile, has gone to the Democratic candidate in each of the last eight elections.
Indiana carries 11 electoral votes, and Kentucky is worth eight. That means Trump currently has 19. Harris, meanwhile, has three electoral votes from her Vermont win.
At least 270 electoral votes are needed to win the presidency.
Abortion is on the ballot
This presidential election is the first since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago. That decision, made possible by three justices appointed by former President Donald Trump, laid the groundwork for states to impose restrictive rules on abortion around the country.
Defending a woman’s right to choose has been central to Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, saying she would sign a bill restoring the protections of Roe nationwide. Trump has said it should be decided state by state.
An October KFF poll found that abortion had become the biggest issue in the election for women younger than 30. And a September poll from Quinnipiac University showed women favoring Harris 53% to 41% for Trump.
In addition to deciding who they want to be the next U.S. president, voters in 10 states will vote on whether to add abortion rights protections to state constitutions. Those amendments are on ballots in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and South Dakota.
In some states, including Arizona and Florida, voters will decide whether to overturn restrictive bans that state legislatures passed after Roe v. Wade was overturned. In other states, voters are deciding on whether to enhance existing abortion protections.
Strong voter turnout
Voter turnout appears to be strong in the United States this Election Day, especially in the swing states expected to ultimately decide the election.
Election officials in Georgia, a key battleground state, estimated that total state turnout this year would surpass that of the 2020 presidential election. More than 4 million Georgia residents voted early, either in person or by mail. That’s a turnout of 55.4%, according to the secretary of state’s office.
And in Michigan, another major swing state, “turnout is off the charts,” said Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, in a post on the social media platform X. At least 3.3 million people in Michigan voted early, putting the state on track to match or beat its highest election turnout on record in 2020 when 5.5 million people voted.
Meanwhile, the battleground state of North Carolina is on track to either meet or surpass its voter turnout record set in 2020, according to the State Board of Elections and the New York Times.
More than 5.4 million people voted in North Carolina in 2020. But this year, more than 4.4 million people voted early.
By 3 p.m. Eastern time in Pennsylvania’s usually red Lancaster County, elections workers had finished opening and scanning more than 50% of the estimated 64,000 returned mail-in ballots, county officials said during a news conference.
“This could be record turnout,” said Commissioner Josh Parsons. He noted long lines at polling stations, especially in suburban and rural parts of the country.
Trump won Lancaster County in 2016 and 2020.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro predicted Tuesday that counting the ballots won’t take as long as it did in 2020, when counting continued until the Saturday after the election.
First polls close at 6 p.m.
The first polls to close will be in parts of Indiana and Kentucky at 6 p.m. Eastern time. Voting locations in parts of both states that are in the Central time zone will remain open until 7 p.m. Eastern time.
At 8 p.m. Eastern time, all polls will be closed in half of the country’s states: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia.
Polls stay open the latest in Alaska, where they will close at 1 a.m. Eastern time.
As of Tuesday, tracking from The Associated Press of early voting nationwide showed more than 82 million ballots were cast before Election Day, which is slightly more than half the total number of votes in the presidential election four years ago.
Still, results in many of those states will take hours, if not days, to be announced.
The presidential election is expected to come down to results in a few battleground states.
Hoax bomb threats were directed at polling locations in three of those swing states – Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin, the FBI said on Tuesday. Many of the threats appeared to originate from Russian email domains, according to the FBI.
“None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far,” the FBI said in a statement, adding that election integrity was among the bureau’s highest priorities.
At least two polling sites targeted by the hoax bomb threats in Georgia were briefly evacuated on Tuesday.
Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger blamed Russian interference.
“They’re up to mischief, it seems. They don’t want us to have a smooth, fair and accurate election, and if they can get us to fight among ourselves, they can count that as a victory,” Raffensperger told reporters. (VOA)
