U.S. election night: Trump leads Harris in key battleground states
THE LATEST:
- Donald Trump leads in several major battlegrounds after taking more than 20 reliably red states.
- Kamala Harris wins eight solidly blue states.
- Current electoral vote tally is 207 for Trump and 91 for Harris.
- Presidential candidates need 270 electoral votes to win.
- Polls now closed in most states, including the critical swing states.
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 likely coming down to voters’ choice in battleground states.
The early results were as predicted, with each candidate locking up reliably red and blue states — though Trump found early strength with a decisive victory in Florida.
The contest is expected to be decided by seven swing states, which are anybody’s game:
- Arizona.
- Georgia.
- Michigan.
- Nevada.
- North Carolina.
- Pennsylvania.
- Wisconsin.
As of 10:45 p.m. ET, Trump had 207 electoral votes with a narrow edge in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Harris had 91 electoral votes.
A candidate needs a total of 270 votes in the electoral college to claim the presidency.
CBC News has called Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, 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 will hold the reliably blue states of Colorado, New York, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont and the District of Columbia.
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.
The last polls close in Alaska at 8 p.m. local time (1 a.m. ET).
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.
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 has largely gone 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.
How the candidates are spending the night
Harris is spending election night at a party at her alma mater, 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.”
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris visited the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington on election day, where she chatted on the phone with voters and addressed a cheering crowd of phone bank volunteers. ‘This truly represents the best of who we are,’ Harris said.
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.
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.
In response to a reporter’s question, Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump said he doesn’t think he needs to tell his supporters to refrain from violence if he loses the election. ‘I certainly don’t want any violence, but I certainly don’t have to tell [them]’ because they ‘are not violent people,’ he said at a Palm Beach, Fla., polling centre, where he cast his vote.
“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.
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.
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.
Published at Fri, 01 Nov 2024 08:11:21 +0000
Phoney bomb threats reported on Election Day in 5 U.S. battleground states
Hoax bomb threats, many of which appeared to originate from Russian email domains, were directed at polling locations in five U.S. battleground states — Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — as election day voting was underway, the FBI said on Tuesday.
“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 fake bomb threats in Georgia were briefly evacuated.
The two locations, in Fulton County, both reopened after about 30 minutes, officials said, and the county was seeking a court order to extend the location’s voting hours past the statewide deadline of 7 p.m. local time.
Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, blamed Russian interference for the election day bomb hoaxes.
“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.
The Russian embassy in Washington said insinuations about Russian interference were “malicious slander.”
“We would like to emphasize that Russia has not interfered and does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, including the United States,” the embassy said in a statement. “As [Russian] President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed, we respect the will of the American people.”
State officials confirm hoax threats
Ann Jacobs, head of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said fake bomb threats were sent to two polling locations in the state capital of Madison, but they did not disrupt voting.
A spokesperson for Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s Democratic state secretary, told Reuters there had been reports of bomb threats at several polling locations, but none were credible.
Benson’s office had been notified that the threats may be tied to Russia, the spokesperson said.
An FBI official said Georgia alone received more than two dozen, most of which occurred in Fulton County, which encompasses much of Atlanta, a Democratic stronghold.
Police in DeKalb County, Ga. — another Democratic stronghold — later responded to bomb threats at eight locations, according to a county press release. Six of the locations were polling places and were evacuated. County officials were seeking an emergency order extending opening times at the voting sites.
DeKalb County police later said no bombs were found at the six voting sites.
A senior official in Raffensperger’s office, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Georgia bomb hoaxes were sent from email addresses that had been used by Russians trying to interfere in previous U.S. elections.
The threats were sent to U.S. media and polling locations, the official said, adding, “It’s a likelihood it’s Russia.”
Adrian Fontes, the Arizona secretary of state, a Democrat who is the chief election official in the swing state, said four fake bomb threats had been delivered to polling sites in Navajo County, located in the northeastern part of the state and which includes three Indigenous tribes.
U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, and Republican candidate Donald Trump, a former U.S. president, are locked in a tight race for the White House. Opinion polls suggest the contest is too close to call.
A judge in Clearfield County, Pa., extended voting hours to 9:00 p.m. local time after a bomb threat at a vote-counting site disrupted the process.
Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, said on Tuesday night multiple bomb threats had been investigated and none were found to be credible. He did not mention Russia.
The phoney bomb threats mark the latest in a string of examples of alleged interference by the Russians in the 2024 election.
On Nov. 1, U.S. intelligence officials warned that Russian actors manufactured a video that falsely depicted Haitians illegally casting ballots in Georgia. Intelligence officials also found that the Russians created a separate phoney video that falsely accused someone associated with the Harris presidential ticket of taking a bribe from an entertainer.
U.S. intelligence officials have also accused Russia of interfering in previous presidential elections, especially the 2016 race that Trump won against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Published at Tue, 05 Nov 2024 22:26:13 +0000
