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By Reuters 
12h ago
Trevor Hunnicutt and John Whitesides
Washington – President Donald Trump took the lead over Democratic rival Joe Biden on the vital battlefield of Florida and other swing US states Tuesday, but Biden pinned his hopes on the White House in Arizona and a “wall blue “three-state Rust Belt days to count their votes.
Biden’s hopes for a decisive early Trump defeat were dashed when the president took solid leads in Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Texas. Fox News projected that Trump would win Florida, a state he must win in his quest for 270 votes in the Electoral College.
Biden, 77, was looking at the so-called “blue wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that sent the 74-year-old Trump to the White House in 2016 looking for possible breakthroughs, though the vote count could be extended. for hours or days there.
Trump topped those three states, but much of that was based on Election Day voting with strong Republican numbers. Counting the mail ballots for Democrats in all three states was expected to take hours or days. In Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and much of Michigan, mail-in ballots were not processed until Election Day.
Winning those three states would be enough to give Biden an Electoral College victory. Fox News projected that Biden would win Arizona, another state that voted for Trump in 2016, giving him more options to reach 270 votes in the Electoral College.
Even without Pennsylvania, Biden wins in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as a Congressional district in Maine or Nebraska, which distribute his electoral votes by district, would place him in the White House, as long as he also holds onto the states. that Trump lost in 2016.
Supporters of both candidates called the election a referendum on Trump and his tumultuous first term. The winner will lead a nation strained by a pandemic that has killed more than 231,000 people and left millions more without jobs, racial tensions and political polarization that has only worsened during a virulent campaign.
Trump monitored the election results with members of his family in the living room of the White House residence. Walking in and out of the room were First Lady Melania Trump, her son-in-law Jared Kushner and their daughter Ivanka, among others. “It’s calm, creepy,” said a source familiar with the scene.
A senior Trump aide, watching the returns at the White House, described the mood there in a text: “Good. But nervous.”
Cheers broke out in the East Room of the White House, where 200 Trump supporters drank and ate chicken wings, sliders and cookies when Fox News called Florida for Trump, a source in the room said.
“The place just blew up,” said the source, who said the mood was “extraordinarily positive” and “cautiously optimistic.” “Everyone started cheering.”
Voters also had to decide which political party controls the United States Congress for the next two years, with Democrats heavily favored to regain a majority in the Senate and maintain control of the House of Representatives.
NO EARLY SURPRISES
There were no early surprises as the two contenders split the already projected US states. Trump captured conservative states like Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee, while Democratic-leaning Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Vermont went to Biden, according to projections from the television networks and Edison Research.
Trump’s strong performance in Florida was driven by his best numbers with Latinos. Their participation in the votes in counties with large Latino populations was higher than in the 2016 election.
For months there were complaints from Latino Democratic activists that Biden was ignoring Hispanic voters and lavishing attention instead on black voters in large Midwestern cities. Opinion polls in key states showed that Biden performed poorly with Latinos in the weeks leading up to the election.
Many younger Hispanics were ardent supporters of Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders during the party’s primary campaign, but in opinion polls they expressed little enthusiasm for Biden, considering him too moderate and disconnected.
In the Miami area, Latinos are predominantly Cuban-American, where generations of families have fled the communist government in Cuba. Trump’s message that Biden is a socialist seemed to work with them and with the Venezuelans there despite Biden’s denials.
Edison’s national exit poll showed that while Biden led Trump among non-white voters, Trump received a slightly higher proportion of non-white votes than in 2016. The poll showed that approximately 11% of African Americans, 31 % of Hispanics and 30% of Asians Americans voted for Trump, 3 percentage points more than in 2016 in all three groups.
Edison’s national exit poll also found that support for Trump decreased by approximately 3 points among older white voters, compared to 2016, while it increased by approximately 15 points among older Latinos and by 11 points among black voters among 30 and 44 years old.
The survey found that Biden made significant progress in the suburbs.
In 42 suburban counties spread across 13 states where the majority of votes had been counted, Biden was getting about 5 percentage points better than Clinton in 2016 and Barack Obama in 2012.
Futures for US stocks rose late on Tuesday. S&P emini futures last rose 1.9%, extending a rally during the official trading session when the S&P 500 posted its biggest daily gain in nearly a month.
“Markets have taken a step back from the Democratic sweep stage,” said Stephen Innes, Axi’s chief global markets strategist.
On the betting website Smarkets, the odds reflected a 74% chance that Trump would win, up from 33% earlier in the day.
PANDEMIC STRAINS
Voters, many wearing masks and maintaining social distancing to protect against the spread of the coronavirus, flocked to polling places across the country during the day, experiencing long lines in some locations and short waits in many other locations. There were no signs of disruptions or violence at polling places, as some officials feared.
Biden, the former Democratic vice president, placed Trump’s handling of the pandemic at the center of his campaign and has maintained a consistent lead in national opinion polls over the Republican president.
But a third of American voters listed the economy as the issue that mattered most to them when deciding their choice for president, while two in 10 cited COVID-19, according to an Edison Research exit poll on Tuesday.
In the national exit poll, four out of 10 voters said they thought the effort to contain the virus was “very bad.” In the battleground states of Florida and North Carolina, which could decide the election, five out of 10 voters said the national response to the pandemic was “somewhat or very badly.”
Trump seeks another term in office after four chaotic years marked by the coronavirus crisis, an economy hit by pandemic stoppages, an impeachment drama, investigations into Russian electoral interference, America’s racial tensions and political controversies in the United States. immigration.
Biden is seeking to win the presidency in his third attempt after a five-decade political career, including eight years as vice president under Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.
Biden has promised a renewed effort to combat the public health crisis, fix the economy, and bridge America’s political divide. This year, the country was also rocked by months of protests against racism and police brutality.
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