It’s Election Day in America

A voter who cast her ballot for former President Donald Trump in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, said she thinks the presidential race is going to be close.

She told CNN’s Danny Freeman that her voting experience was “quick and easy,” and she said she voted for Trump for two reasons — the economy and his stance on immigration.

“The economy more than anything,” she said. “I think it’s going to be pretty close in this county,” she added.

Vice President Kamala Harris called into Atlanta radio station V-103’s The Big Tigger Morning Show to remind Georgia voters to get out and vote on Election Day, telling listeners “we’ve got to get it done. Today is voting day and people need to get out and be active.”

Harris said her focus for the day is “making sure everybody knows the power of their voice through their vote.” She continued to avoid referring to former President Donald Trump by name, instead referring to him as “my opponent” during the interview.

Election Day in the key battleground state of Michigan is off to a smooth start, according to Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office.

There have been no reports of major voting issues or massive lines in the state, and no reports of weather-related incidents or closures, officials said.

So far today, 8,000 absentee ballots have already been returned and more than 820 people registered to vote through Michigan’s same-day voter registration option.

As of today, more than 3.3 million voters in Michigan have already cast their ballots between early in-person voting and absentee ballots, a turnout rate of 45.8% of active registered voters, the secretary of state’s office said.

Christina Neri and Elizabeth Garcia are the first voters at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. They got in line at 5 a.m., they told CNN’s Stephanie Elam.

She said she was motivated to vote for change because food and the cost of living have gotten expensive.

The two women shared they plan to vote for Kamala Harris.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, who leads the House Democrats’ campaign operation, told CNN on Tuesday that it could take a week or more before control of the House is officially determined.

As more voters choose to vote by mail, DelBene cautioned it could take just as long as the midterms in 2022 — when it took eight days to officially know which party won the House — or longer.

“Don’t be surprised if it’s going to take a little while for these races to close,” DelBene said in a phone interview on Election Day. “Some of these races are really, really close …. It might take a little while in close races, especially in a state like mine, where we’re still getting ballots in that are postmarked.”

DelBene, who represents Washington State, said she is preparing fellow Democrats for a delay based on last cycle’s election results, which were not official until November 16, 2022. Republicans won the House by only about 6,675 votes — the results of the five closest races. Some were decided by fewer than 1,000 votes.

Officials have requested that voting time be extended in Cambria County after a “software malfunction” has disrupted voters’ abilities to scan their ballots, the Office of County Commissioners said Tuesday.

Election officials in the county insist “there is a process in place for issues of this nature” and the malfunction “should not discourage voters from voting at their voting precincts.”

“The Cambria County Board of Election learned early this morning that a software malfunction in the County’s Electronic Voting System has prevented voters from scanning their ballots,” a statement from the Office of County Commissioners said.

Dave Luciew, who votes in the Cambria County borough of Geistown told CNN he was surprised to see that his voting location was empty this morning until he found out why.

“When we (Luciew and his wife) got there, it was surprisingly empty. As people were exiting, they said that the machines were down,” Luciew said. “After going inside to confirm the issue, we decided to wait until later when the machines are functioning again.”

Luciew is opting to return later, he says, because it will make him feel more assured of his vote being properly counted. The Pennsylvania Department of State is also working with county officials to address the issue, spokesman Matt Heckel said.

Paper ballot: Voters can “continue to vote by paper ballot, in accordance with normal operations, while the county resolves the issue with in-precinct scanning,” Heckel said.

“We are working with the County to resolve this technical matter and are committed to ensuring a free, fair, safe, and secure election,” Heckel said.

CNN’s Tanika Gray contributed to this report

Correction: This post has been updated to reflect that officials have requested that voting time be extended.

Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein told CNN that he believes ballot counting will go “much faster” in the 2024 election cycle compared to 2020.

“We started pre-canvassing our mail ballots as soon as the polls opened at 7 a.m. today and we are going to count the ballots much faster than we did in 2020,” Bluestein said.

Bluestein said the process will likely go faster because many people have transitioned back to in-person voting at polling places and therefore there will be fewer mail ballots to count this year than there were in 2020.

New election equipment: He added that the city also purchased additional equipment to help open envelopes more quickly and “we have more people working than we had in the past.”

“Ultimately, whether or not a race can be called comes down to the margin of the election. So, it’s hard to predict when people will be able to wake up and know the result out of Pennsylvania, but what I can say is it won’t take four days until the Saturday after the election for us to count the bulk of the mail ballots. That will be done much quicker,” Bluestein explained. “Hopefully, if everything continues to go smoothly” by the middle of the day Wednesday.

Bluestein also expressed full confidence in the security of the election and results.

“The election in Philadelphia and across the commonwealth is going to be free and fair and safe and secure. I am completely confident in our ability to run the election fairly,” he said.

Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance cast his ballot in-person this morning at his polling place in Cincinnati.

The senator appeared in good spirits as he arrived at St. Anthony of Padua Church to vote with his wife, Usha, and their children.

After casting his ballot for the Trump-Vance ticket, Vance told reporters he was thankful to those who came out to see “one of the great traditions in American democracy.”

“I feel good, you never know until you know, but I feel good about this race,” Vance said.

Vance acknowledged that in a race this closely divided, no matter who wins the election, at least half of the country will be disappointed. But he said, if elected, he will still treat those who did not vote for his ticket as American citizens.

“I think my attitude is the best way to heal the rift in the country is to try to govern the country as well as we can, create as much prosperity as we can for the American people and remind our fellow Americans that we are all fundamentally on the same team, no matter how you voted,” Vance said.

Also, Vance said he doesn’t put much stock into the Iowa poll showing Vice President Kamala Harris with a lead over Trump.

“I’m not too worried about that. Look, one outlier poll doesn’t change what we’ve seen on the ground. We feel very good about the energy. We feel very good about the early vote. But ultimately, the ball is in the courts of the American people. Today is the day. If you don’t want an open border, vote for Donald Trump. If you want to get back to low inflation and affordable groceries, vote for Donald Trump. If you want to return the world to peace and stability vote for Donald Trump,” Vance said.

“I certainly hope you vote for Donald J. Trump today … but if you vote the wrong way, in my view, I’m still going to love you, I’m still going to treat you as a fellow citizen and if I am lucky enough to be your vice president I’m going to fight hard for your dreams and your family over the next four years.”

Vance said he hasn’t had a chance to speak to the former president today, but he plans to watch the election results with Trump in Palm Beach later tonight. He said “my heart is just overwhelmed with gratitude” to be campaigning for vice president of the United States.

“The fact that I’m standing here is a testament that we live in the greatest country in the world,” Vance said.

This post has been updated with the latest comments from Vance.

In one Georgia household, the quest for speedy election results is more than a public service – it’s a battle for marital bragging rights.

Akyn Beck, the elections director in Floyd County, and her husband Noah Beck, the elections director in Polk County, have an ongoing competition over who can report results fastest on election night.

State officials have hyped a new law change that requires counties to report the results of their early vote an hour after polls close, hopefully speeding up results reporting in the Peach State. But the Becks won’t be waiting around for an 8 p.m. deadline.

“We report by like 7:02 p.m., so we know by 7:02 p.m. who won,” in the race between the competitive couple, Akyn Beck said.

The Becks probably won’t find time to chat with one other during Election Day, but they will be closely watching the state’s election website to see whose results are posted the quickest.

If her husband prevails, “Noah is not a good winner, so he will print off on like a large piece of paper his reporting time and put it on the kitchen table,” Akyn Beck said. “I’m a more gracious winner.”

After the results are reported – and both counties conduct a 100% audit – then it’s time to celebrate. Akyn Beck says they’ll probably go for a nice dinner. Or take a nap.

In Florida, first-time voter Davianna Porter, 20, told CNN that she would like Donald Trump to win because she likes “what he stands for more.”

She said she is Puerto Rican and while she is not okay with the comments about Puerto Rico at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, she said, “everyone has opinions like, you know, if they don’t like Puerto Ricans, it hurts of course, but at the end of the day, I’m okay with who I am.”

Two polling locations in western Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County experienced delays Tuesday morning, but they are now operational, according to county spokesperson Abigail Gardner.

The judge of elections was late at a polling site in the borough of Whitehall, but “They have arrived, and the site is open and running now,” Gardner told CNN.

In Pittsburgh’s Lincoln Place neighborhood, “the judge of elections did not come to the polling place this morning,” according to Gardner. “The sheriff is retrieving the poll book from the judge of elections and will take it to the polling place, Lincoln Place Presbyterian Church.”

Poll workers are placed at the Lincoln Place location, and the site will be open as normal, Gardner added.

While Florida generally makes it challenging for people in the state with felony convictions to regain their voting rights, former President Donald Trump will have no issue casting a ballot for himself today.

Trump was convicted in Manhattan earlier this year of 34 counts of falsifying business records tied to hush money payments before the 2016 election to adult film star Stormy Daniels. The first former US president convicted of a felony, Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on November 26.

Under Florida law, if a voter has an out-of-state conviction, Florida will defer to that state’s laws for how a felon can regain his or her voting rights.

For Trump, that means he will benefit from a 2021 New York law that allows people with felony convictions to vote as long as they’re not serving a term of incarceration at the time of the election.

For other Floridians with felony convictions, the rules are not so simple.

A successful 2018 ballot initiative restoring voting rights to those who had completed the terms of their sentence was gutted by state Republican lawmakers. They passed a law requiring that all the fines and fees associated with a conviction are paid – a process that can be cumbersome, as there is not a centralized system for tracking such outstanding fees.

More than 100 leaders in the legal profession signed an open letter warning lawyers who challenge votes this election not to peddle false information in court filings.

The letter from leaders of several city, state and national bar associations urged lawyers to ground their lawsuits in facts. They pointed out an onslaught of cases already this election cycle.

Remember: A handful of prominent attorneys working for Donald Trump in 2020, including Rudy Giuliani, have lost the ability to practice law because of false information in those cases.

Elizabeth Gonzales wasn’t sure she’d vote this presidential election, overwhelmed by the political chaos unleashed during the 2020 race in her home state of Georgia.

Yet two hours before polls opened Gonzales, an educator, was first in line to vote shortly after 5 a.m. at one of Fulton County’s 177 polling sites.

Gonzales, in her 60s, did not want to name the candidate that earned her vote, but she said there’s one major issue that drove her to cast her ballot — women’s reproductive rights.

“The way husbands are sacrificing their wives, children are sacrificing their mothers and doctors are being threatened with jail time all because women need their reproductive rights,” she said. “Women have the right to their health. It should be between the health care providers and the woman.”

The issue of abortion also drove voter Asia Brownlee to the polls. She voted for Kamala Harris.

Originally from the battleground state of Michigan, Brownlee told CNN she became a permanent resident in the Peach State this year to make a difference.

Brownlee described the process of getting registered to vote as “tedious.” She said she had to place numerous phone calls to finally resolve becoming an active voter in Fulton County on the last day of early voting, but work hours forced her to put casting her ballot off until early Election Day.

President Joe Biden’s name won’t appear on the ballot Tuesday, but the stakes are high for the 81-year-old president and his legacy as he waits to see whether the country will send his predecessor or chosen successor to the White House next year.

The president has kept a relatively low profile in recent days and is expected to do the same today. Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will watch the election results from the residence of the White House with long-time aides and senior White House staff, a White House official said. Biden, who has no public events on his schedule, is expected to receive regular updates as races play out across the country.

Today’s election looks far different than what the Bidens envisioned a few months prior as he hoped voters would elect him to a second term in the White House — and the result could help determine how the president is remembered.

Biden’s team has felt his quick endorsement of Harris after dropping out the race helped set the path for the party to quickly coalesce around her candidacy. A Harris win would keep Donald Trump, whose divisive presidency is what drove Biden to run in the 2020 race, from returning to the White House. But a Harris loss could prompt a round of questions within the party over whether Biden clung to his candidacy for too long and jeopardized Democrats’ chances.

Even as he’s been cast to the sidelines, Biden has continued to warn of what a second Trump presidency could hold for the country. And the White House has worked to protect some of his key accomplishments in the event Trump were to win and seek to undo many parts of the president’s legacy.

“I have vast disagreements with Trump and his personality,” Biden said Saturday. “What will happen? What will happen if you trade in my administration for his?”

A federal judge said Monday evening that she would not block the US Justice Department from deploying monitors at polling places in St. Louis, rejecting a lawsuit brought by Republican state officials in Missouri.

US District Judge Sarah Pitlyk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, pointed to a previous court agreement the city of St. Louis had reached with the department that allowed for DOJ staff to monitor that the city’s polling places were in compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Meanwhile, in a separate case, the Justice Department agreed election monitors in Texas will remain outside of polling places on Election Day, according to state officials.

Republicans in the state had filed a lawsuit to stop the Justice Department from deploying election monitors inside polling locations, but the state indicated Monday that it had reached an agreement with the DOJ to allow the monitors to stay outside.

US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, ordered the DOJ to submit filings confirming the agreement by noon CT.

Polls have been opening across the country all morning and more polls will open at 8 a.m. ET. Here they are:

It’s been called the “red mirage” or the “blue shift,” and it refers to the recent phenomenon by which an apparent Republican lead early after polls close on election night is erased by the counting of mail-in ballots later in the evening or in the days after Election Day.

Former President Donald Trump has pointed to the red mirage to back up his baseless allegations of election fraud, when in fact it has been a function of the rise of mail-in voting and the often-peculiar rules about when those ballots can be counted.

In 2020, the phenomenon played out in slow-counting places like California, which are heavily Democratic and where every registered voter is sent a mail-in ballot. That means a blue shift in the popular vote could still occur even if it does not delay figuring out the presidential election results.

In 2020 too, the vote count didn’t reflect a Joe Biden lead in Georgia until early in the morning of November 6, when, as CNN’s Phil Mattingly showed viewers on the Magic Wall, small batches of votes were being counted and affecting the very close election.

There was also a blue shift in 2016, but it was not decisive. As CNN’s Marshall Cohen wrote, when Hillary Clinton offered her concession and admitted her loss to Americans the day after Election Day, she was still behind in the popular vote. While the trickle-in of ballots was not enough to get her the White House, it was more than enough to give her an edge of millions of ballots in the popular vote.

It’s important to remember that while news networks like CNN might project a winner when it is clear who will win, the races are not officially certified until later. Certification deadlines vary from state to state, but they all have until December 11, 2024, to complete recounts, if needed, and settle disputes around presidential results.

Read more about this here.

Long lines of people are queuing to cast their vote outside the precinct housed at a Loyal Order of the Moose Lodge, in Wilmington, North Carolina, which opened at 6:30 a.m. ET on the dot.

When it opened, 30 to 40 people were in line, and the crowd has grown since, CNN’s team on the ground reported.

Elsewhere, at the Gwinnett County Voter Registrations & Elections office in Lawrenceville, Georgia, a line of people waited to hand deliver absentee ballots early on Tuesday morning.

This is also the area where poll watchers check in to get their credentials.

Former presidential candidate and Donald Trump supporter Vivek Ramaswamy said Trump’s campaign has attracted greater attention from groups who have historically voted Democrat, including the Black vote, Hispanics and Gen Z.

Ramaswamy said that Gen Z are motivated by wanting to stay out of foreign conflicts and avoid “World War 3,” grow the economy and bring down housing costs which he said were the issues that mattered most to young Americans.

“Combine that with the rising costs. What we’ve seen over the last several years – and this is a hard fact – is that prices have gone up and wages have not kept up.” Ramaswamy said.

Some context: The economy is booming under Biden’s administration and currently a historically high percentage of people have jobs. Gross domestic product grew at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 2.8% last quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Wednesday, and paychecks are growing at a 3.9% adjusted rate, according to the Department of Labor. That’s still a faster clip than inflation, which means the amount of money Americans have to spend is growing.

When asked if Trump should concede if he loses the election, Ramaswamy said “whoever wins the election should win the election and whoever loses should concede,” before claiming the 2020 election was undermined by Kamala Harris and the Democrats.

CNN’s David Goldman contributed reporting to this post.

It’s 7 a.m. ET and polls have opened across more than 20 states. Here’s the states that have just opened their polls:

Top Trump advisers, who say they are cautiously optimistic over how Donald Trump will perform today, believe their success or failure in these final hours ultimately comes down to one issue: turnout.

Trump’s advisers say they believe this cycle is the strongest Trump has ever performed, particularly when they look at public polling compared to 2016 and 2020.

The adviser pointed to the final NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll of the 2020 election cycle as example, which showed Biden leading Trump nationally by 10 points among registered voters.

However, one underlying area of unease when examining that data, advisers and people close to Trump privately acknowledge, is that they argue fewer voters are what they previously characterized as “silent” Trump voters who came out for him in 2016 and 2020.

“Whereas before turnout for him was maybe surprising, especially in 2016, and a lot of people were silent about their vote and that didn’t always register in the data, it’s unclear if we’ll see that type of difference this time around,” a person close to Trump told CNN.

American voters head to the polls Tuesday to choose the country’s next leaders in a mass democratic experiment where tens of millions of votes will be cast without incident.

But false claims of voter fraud in 2020 and former President Donald Trump’s repeated charges of cheating mean that everything, from voter eligibility to logistical problems like long lines, ballot functionality and vote counting, will be scrutinized closely, especially in the key battleground states.

Election officials across the US – particularly in swing states – have pledged to uphold the integrity of the vote and urged voters not to be misled by conspiracy theories.

“Here in Georgia, it is easy to vote and hard to cheat,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday. “Our systems are secure and our people are ready.”

The 2024 election has already featured allegations from Trump and other Republicans that the vote is “rigged.” Trump has made repeated false claims that Democrats are cheating in the election, and he’s twisted isolated problems with voting in an effort to prime his supporters to believe the election is not legitimate if he loses.

Read more about how misinformation has been rampant in the lead up to the election.

Eight states’ polling locations opened at 6 a.m. ET, including those in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, New Hampshire and Virginia.

In Indiana and Kentucky, polls began opening at 6 a.m. ET, but some in the central time zone will open at 7 a.m. ET.

In Maine, nearly all polls opened at 6 a.m. ET, but municipalities with less than 500 people can open as late as 10 a.m. ET.

The tiny New Hampshire township of Dixville Notch voted at midnight, in line with a decades-long tradition; Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump tied with three votes each.

Keep calm and trade on — that’s the mantra many investors are repeating to themselves through one of the most turbulent news weeks of the year.

Tuesday is election day in a tight race to determine the next president of the United States. On Thursday, the Federal Reserve will announce its next interest rate decision, the first since officials cut interest rates by half of a percentage point and since unemployment data revealed a weakening labor market.

Still, investors don’t appear to be letting their jitters get to them — at least not entirely.

Markets were volatile on Monday and ultimately closed lower as traders failed to find solid footing ahead of this week’s news. But that doesn’t mean investors are feeling pessimistic: Market gains year-to-date through October have been the strongest in any election year since the 1950s, when the S&P 500 was first created.

“These gains are supported by an economy that remains resilient and forward earnings that reached yet another record high,” wrote Keith Lerner, chief market strategist at Truist, in a note Monday.

October’s jobs numbers disappointed Wall Street, but many investors expect that the setback is temporary and due to extreme weather events like hurricanes Helene and Milton. Plus, economic data shows that Americans are still spending money. The US economy grew more than expected in the third quarter of 2024, and much of that growth came from strong consumer spending, which was at its highest level in over a year.

Read more about the impact the election may have on Wall Street here.

Around the world, all eyes are on the US election — even Hindu worshipers in southern India, who prayed for a Kamala Harris victory on Monday.

Harris is the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, with her mother born in the state of Tamil Nadu before moving to the US for a doctoral program. Harris has shared childhood memories of visiting her grandfather in Chennai and has spoken about how her Indian heritage has influenced her life and career.

In the videos, banners with Harris’ face are displayed next to idols of Hindu gods, with priests offering prayers and flower petals to the idols.

Many Indian Americans were energized after Harris became the new Democratic nominee, with national and grassroots organizers from the community citing a groundswell of support for the Harris campaign in the weeks after she announced her candidacy.

Some key battleground states are being hit by a strong cold front on Election Day that’s bringing heavy rainfall and severe storms.

The heaviest rain is falling from eastern Texas to the Missouri-Illinois border, including St. Louis. Slow moving storms are also tracking over the same areas, bringing numerous flash flood warnings that call for life-threatening flash flooding. Some of these warnings report that 3-8 inches of rainfall have fallen in the overnight hours.

While the rainfall will continue to slowly shift east, what has already fallen could affect early morning voters trying to get out and vote.

The front will continue to head east, bringing showers to Minnesota and the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan south to Louisiana. Rainfall has been noted to slightly reduce voter turnout in previous elections.

Wisconsin looks to have the worst weather of CNN’s seven battleground states, with the Storm Prediction Center issuing a level 1 of 5 severe storm threat for much of the state. Widespread showers and even thunderstorms could produce isolated wind gusts more than 60 mph and a brief tornado.

The heaviest rainfall along the front today will fall from east Texas to southern Indiana.

Election Day is here. Millions of Americans have already voted early, but if you plan on voting in person today, it is important to know that the time polls open vary by location, sometimes within a county or municipality in a state.

Here’s a look at some of the earliest poll opening times (all times in ET):

6 a.m.

6:30 a.m

7 a.m.

8 a.m.

For more information on how to vote in your area, see CNN’s voter handbook.

It’s Tuesday, November 5, and polls are beginning to open across the country.

Last night, the presidential candidates made their final late-night pitches to potential voters in battleground states.

In former President Donald Trump’s final rally, he argued that his real opponent was not Vice President Kamala Harris but an “evil Democrat system.” Harris, meanwhile, did not mention Trump, but ended her 107-day campaign with a pledge to “turn the page on a decade of politics that has been driven by fear and division.”

Here’s what else to know this morning:

When Americans cast their votes today, they are not directly electing the presidential candidates themselves. Voters are casting ballots for competing slates of “electors” who will in turn cast the actual votes for president and vice president on December 17. Collectively, the electors from all 50 states and the District of Columbia are referred to the “Electoral College.”

The presidential candidate who wins the majority of the popular vote on election night does not necessarily win the White House. In order to win the presidency, a candidate must win a majority of votes in the Electoral College.

Here’s how the Electoral College works:

Read more about how the US election works.

Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump targeted Gen-Z voters as they campaigned ahead of the election, many of whom will be voting for the first time today.

Columbia University’s Columbia Magazine found that Gen Z make up more than 40 million voters, including eight million new voters.

And social media’s influence on these voters cannot be underestimated, according to Aidan Kohn-Murphy, founder of advocacy group Gen-Z for Change. He told CNN that TikTok has helped inform many young people about the presidential candidates and their campaigns.

Key issues for younger voters are “climate, reproductive justice, gun violence and Biden’s incredibly unpopular support for the Israeli government,” Kohn-Murphy said.

He said that young people shared information on TikTok in a “peer-to-peer model, that really leads people to support candidates more.”

He also noted that many first-time voters did not have previous political scandals — such as former President Donald Trump’s “Access Hollywood” tape — on their radar, but social media had enabled them to learn more about the candidates.

Former President Donald Trump argued during the final rally of his campaign that his real opponent this election was not Vice President Kamala Harris but instead “an evil Democrat system.”

“The silent majority is back and tomorrow you need to get out and vote,” Trump said.

It’s decision day for voters in America’s battle for the White House and control of Congress — even if the results could take days or weeks to sort through.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are hoping to win over seven swing states: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the three Great Lakes states that make up the “blue wall” that Trump cracked in 2016 but President Joe Biden carried in 2020, and Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, the four Sun Belt battlegrounds.

While the election of either candidate would be historic, there’s much more being decided Tuesday, including five states — Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota — voting on whether to turn back abortion bans with constitutional amendments.

Republicans hope to take advantage of a favorable Senate map, with Democrats defending seats in the red-leaning states of Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. The party’s hopes of holding onto its narrow House majority winds from the coast of Maine through New York’s Hudson Valley, the rolling hills of Virginia’s Piedmont, a “blue dot” in Nebraska and into California’s Orange County, where the political ebbs and flows of the Trump era have been on vivid display.

The initial results in the hours after polls close might not be determinative. States decide their own election procedures, and the order in which states count early, mail-in and Election Day votes varies across the map — as does how quickly certain cities, counties and regions report their results.

Read more about what to expect from the day.

Former President Donald Trump has ended his final campaign rally after speaking for nearly two hours in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

He repeated many of his campaign promises, such as vowing to impose hefty tariffs and to crack down on illegal immigration.

At one point he also brought several of his children and their spouses to the stage, who delivered brief remarks, including Tiffany, Eric and Donald Jr.

His marathon address ends a long campaign trail — with Trump saying he had attended more than 900 rallies this year.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he’s disappointed the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is so closely contested.

In an interview on CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” taped in Bucks County, Pennsylvania last Thursday, Walz laid out the contrast between the two candidates to show that the difference is “stark.”

He said of the election being so closely contested: “It disappoints me, I think, because I think that the choice is so stark, but it’s not surprising.”

“The country’s really divided. There’s been a group of people out there who figured that out, and I think they’ve done a wonderful job of making people think it doesn’t matter, everybody’s the same,” Walz said.

Walz then laid out how he saw the differences between Harris and Trump, particularly noting insults directed toward Puerto Rico made by a speaker at a Trump rally in October.

In the past, Walz has expressed some disbelief at the competitiveness of the presidential election. He has regularly mused at private fundraisers and campaign stops that “I’ll go to my grave not understanding” how the election is so close.

Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake has held her final campaign rally, telling supporters that on Tuesday they have “a chance to change the trajectory of this country and save this Republic.”

Campaigning on the steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse in Prescott, Arizona on Monday — where US Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona launched his presidential campaign — Lake, a former TV newscaster up against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in a key Senate race, argued that the “Make America Great Again” movement “is not dead,” and claimed that a “silent majority” will back her and former President Donald Trump tomorrow.

Lake and Gallego, a Marine veteran who represents Arizona’s 3rd congressional district, are vying for the pivotal Senate seat held by independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

Lake, who did not concede her 2022 election loss and promoted Trump’s false theories about the 2020 election, said she believes in “fair and honest elections” and argued “I really believe that our Founding Fathers never envisioned we’d have elections that are run so horribly.”

She also thanked GOP congressional candidate Abe Hamadeh and said: “When they did to us what they did to us in 2022, and everyone else ran and hid, guess who stood with me and said, damn it, we’re going to fight — Abe Hamadeh.”

She argued the election is not “Republican-Democrat anymore” but “Americanism versus communism.”

Former President Donald Trump slammed US Rep. Nancy Pelosi during his final rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, verging on using a profanity to describe the former House Speaker.

“She’s a crooked person, she’s a bad person. Evil, she’s an evil, sick, crazy bi— It starts with a ‘B’ but I won’t say it. I wanna say it,” Trump said to cheers from the crowd.

“I don’t use much (foul language), you know, every once in a while, and it’s never a real bad word, it’s never bad … But it is a little better when you use foul language. These are bad people,” he said.

Trump constantly rails against Pelosi and recently called the California Democrat “an enemy from within.”

Throughout the end of his campaign trail, Trump’s message has gotten increasingly dark and often offensive. At an event in North Carolina last week, Trump chuckled approvingly at an audience member’s suggestion that Vice President Kamala Harris worked as a sex worker.

Vice President Kamala Harris will spend Election Day in Washington, DC and participate in radio interviews, according to her office.

Former President Donald Trump has taken the stage in Grand Rapids, Michigan — giving the city a special shout-out for being the location of his final rallies in past presidential campaigns.

Trump previously also finished his campaign trail in the city in 2016 and 2020.

Former President Donald Trump is speaking at his final rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he ended both his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. His remarks were originally slated for 10:30 p.m. ET.

Grand Rapids is a Western Michigan city in Kent County, which swung from Trump in 2016 to Joe Biden in 2020.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have tied with three votes each in the tiny New Hampshire township of Dixville Notch, kicking off Election Day in one of the first places in the country to report its presidential preference.

Four Republicans and two undeclared voters participated.

The unincorporated township, located along the US-Canada border in New Hampshire’s northern tip, opened and closed its poll just after midnight ET in a tradition that dates back to 1960.

Read more about how Dixville Notch voted.

Speaking at her final campaign rally in Philadelphia before Election Day on Monday night, Vice President Kamala Harris said her team was “optimistic and excited” — but urged voters to make their voices heard, saying Pennsylvania could “decide the outcome” of the election.

“With only a few hours left, we still have work to do, and as you’ve heard me say before, we like hard work,” she added.

At points, the crowd broke into cheers of “We will win” and “We’re not going back.”

Harris reiterated several campaign promises, such as lowering the cost of living, housing, childcare, elderly home care, and taxes for workers and small businesses. She also vowed to pass a bill to restore reproductive freedoms after the rolling back of Roe v. Wade.

She sought to contrast herself with Donald Trump by using several familiar refrains — such as promising a seat at the table to those who disagree with her, compared to the former president’s often vehement rhetoric against his political opponents.

Vice President Kamala Harris is speaking at a rally in Philadelphia, her final stop in front of voters before Election Day.

Harris has made the key battleground of Pennsylvania her priority on Monday with several stops across the state culminating in her final one in the state’s largest city.

She was joined by Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga, among other celebrities, musicians and elected officials at the famous “Rocky Steps” at the Philadelphia Museum of the Arts.

Oprah Winfrey took the stage at Kamala Harris’ final rally in Philadelphia on Monday night alongside 10 young people – all first time voters.

Another first-time voter said it was especially significant for him as an African American to “exercise my right to vote, which my ancestors fought so hard for.”

“If we don’t show up tomorrow, it is entirely possible that we will not have the opportunity to ever cast a ballot again.”

“We are voting for healing over hate,” she said.

Musical superstar Lady Gaga appeared at Vice President Kamala Harris’ final rally in Philadelphia, performing a rendition of “God Bless America.”

Oprah Winfrey is also expected to make an appearance tonight, before Harris delivers remarks.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz focused heavily on access to abortion and reproductive health care, driving home a core message of Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign in Detroit, Michigan on Monday.

In his remarks at Hart Plaza overlooking the Detroit River, Walz reiterated his attacks on former president Donald Trump, who claimed to be the “protector” of women and said he would look after women “whether they like it or not” at a campaign rally in Wisconsin last week.

He also made a direct pitch to male voters on abortion, asking them to consider the implications of abortion restrictions on the women in their lives.

Her message has been consistent, but Kamala Harris has in the closing days of the presidential race dropped two notable words from her stump speech: Donald Trump.

The former president’s name was again absent from the vice president’s speech on Monday night in Pittsburgh, where she again promised voters a clean break from the discord of the Trump era in American politics. It was a notable switch in rhetoric for the vice president, who had mentioned Trump’s name so often in previous versions of her stump speech that the Republican’s campaign had put together a video compilation of Harris saying “Donald Trump” that he often played at rallies.

That promise has been threaded through her campaign, usually implied but increasingly delivered in explicit terms.

“It can be easy to forget a simple truth,” Harris said in Washington. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

The way it is, she said in Pittsburgh, is not so good.

Read the full story.

Elon Musk held a digital version of the town-hall-style rallies he has hosted on behalf of former President Donald Trump. But the event on X ended just a few minutes after it started on Monday night, when Musk encountered technical difficulties.

The event began streaming more than 20 minutes after its scheduled 8 p.m. ET start time. When the billionaire X owner joined, he promoted a podcast interview he did with Joe Rogan and offered to take questions. An operator then attempted to take questions from four listeners who apparently had been on hold, but the line went silent when he called on them.

The operator asked Musk if he believes “we will win” on Tuesday — presumably referring to Trump, whom Musk has supported to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

Musk then called off the event, saying: “let’s cancel this, since we seem to be having some technical issues.” Musk promised to start a regular livestream spaces event on X. The X Spaces event Musk started immediately following the town hall, lasted one minute and appeared to have no audio.

Minutes later, Musk said he would not restart his Q&A and encouraged followers to listen to his Rogan interview instead, during which the podcaster endorsed Trump.

The Monday town hall is just the latest election-related event that Musk attempted to host on X that was plagued by technical difficulties.

An August interview between Musk and Trump that was streamed on X was delayed by more than 40 minutes because of glitches. Musk blamed the issue on a cyberattack, but some experts speculated it was simply caused by too many users trying to listen. A similar event last year to kick off Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign was also delayed by 25 minutes and marred by technical difficulties.

There are thought to be seven states that could conceivably be won by either candidate. As a result, the campaigns have focused their energy in these areas. They can be broken up into two general categories:

3 Midwestern battlegrounds, aka “the blue wall” – These are the manufacturing and union-heavy states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. They used to be more reliably Democratic but have shifted in recent years as their populations have changed and as former President Donald Trump has appealed to White voters without a college degree.

When Trump won the White House in 2016, he won all three. When President Joe Biden won in 2020, he won all three. If Vice President Kamala Harris wins all three this year, she will likely have the electoral votes to be president. But polls suggest close races in all three. Turnout will be key, which for Harris means appealing to suburban women and Black voters. All three states have urban centers.

The blue wall states usually vote the same way. The last time they did not all go to the same candidate was in 1988 – notably also a year when California was red and West Virginia was blue. In those eight elections since 1988, the only time the blue wall states went to a Republican was in 2016, when they were won by Trump.

4 Sun Belt battlegrounds – These states with growing populations include Arizona and Nevada in the West and North Carolina and Georgia in the East. Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina used to be more reliably Republican. Trump won North Carolina twice, but the margins were close in 2020. The last Democrat to win there was Barack Obama in 2008. Biden was the first Democrat to win Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992 and Arizona since Clinton in 1996.

Here are more key things to know about the US election works.

Ahead of election night, read up on the 2024 candidates on the Democratic and Republican tickets vying to win the White House.

Vice President Kamala Harris is the Democratic candidate for president. The daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, Harris grew up in Oakland and spent much of her political career in California’s Bay Area.

She was first elected as the San Francisco district attorney in 2004, before later serving as the attorney general of California. After that, Harris was elected to the Senate before being picked to be President Joe Biden’s running mate in the 2020 election.

She announced her own candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president after Biden withdrew from the ticket and endorsed her on July 21. Harris is the first Black woman and first Asian American to lead the ticket of a major political party.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is Harris’ running mate. Before being elected to Congress to represent the state’s 1st Congressional District in 2007, Walz was a high school geography teacher and an assistant football coach. He also served in the Army National Guard. Walz has been serving as Minnesota governor since 2019.

Former President Donald Trump is the Republican candidate for president, aiming to become only the second commander in chief to win two nonconsecutive terms.

Trump, who was born in New York, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in economics. Before launching his successful 2016 presidential bid, Trump was a real estate developer, businessman and a reality television star as host of “The Apprentice.”

Ohio Sen. JD Vance is Trump’s running mate. Born in Middletown, Ohio, Vance wrote a memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, about his upbringing and white, working-class Americans. He also attended Yale Law School, worked as a venture capitalist and served in the US Marine Corps.

Vance was elected to the Senate in 2023, outlasting a stronger-than-expected challenge from Democrat Tim Ryan and keeping the seat under GOP control.

Read about the Democratic, Republican and third-party candidates here.