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US President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden are projecting confidence on Election Day as more than 100 million votes have already been cast in the heated presidential race.
Trump visited his campaign headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, on Tuesday, where he thanked dozens of employees working to get him re-elected.
“I think we are going to have a great night, but it’s politics and elections and you never know,” he said.
“Winning is easy. Losing is never easy, ”Trump added, noting how important winning the battlefield of the US state of Pennsylvania is to his prospects for a second term in the White House.
That’s where Biden spent the morning, making a stop at his childhood home in the town of Scranton.
More than 100 people cheered for the former vice president of the United States in front of the two-story white house. “It’s good to be home!” Biden told the crowd.
Joe Biden speaks outside his childhood home on Election Day in Scranton [Kevin Lamarque/Reuters]
After weeks of campaigning, an estimated 60 million voters are expected to go to the polls Tuesday to choose between Biden and Trump, two candidates who offer completely different visions for a nation in crisis.
“Turnout will be high everywhere,” Michael Traugott, a political science professor at the University of Michigan, told Al Jazeera.
Battlefield states
Michigan is one of three Midwestern states, along with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, that Trump won in 2016 giving him an electoral college victory. Trump held large rallies in all three states on Monday, hoping to spark another victory from behind.
Earlier this week, Biden led a pair of rallies with artists John Legend in Philadelphia and Lady Gaga in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s two largest cities. Biden also visited Cleveland, Ohio and made a third stop in the Pittsburgh suburbs.
Both candidates focused heavily on Pennsylvania during their campaigns.
Republican Vice President Mike Pence, Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Biden’s wife Jill campaigned in the state in the last hours of what has been a divisive contest.
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence hold a campaign rally at Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the night before Election Day [Carlos Barria/Reuters]
At the same time, indicative of how broad the fight is, former President Barack Obama urged late voters to get out in Florida and Georgia on Monday, while First Lady Melania Trump appeared in North Carolina.
The first lady cast her vote Tuesday at a polling station in Palm Beach, Florida, near the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Trump changed his residence from New York to Palm Beach County last year and voted in person on Oct. 24 during early voting.
When asked why she did not vote then, the first lady told reporters: “It is Election Day, so I wanted to come here to vote today.”
He did not wear a mask to protect himself against COVID-19 when he voted, but his spokesperson said the first lady was the only person at the polling site, with the exception of poll workers and their staff, all of whom were screened for detection. the virus. .
Participation record
The United States has recorded a record early turnout in the elections, fueled in part by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nearly 101 million votes had been cast as of 2:14 p.m. ET (19:14 GMT) on Tuesday, according to a tally by the United States Election Project at the University of Florida.
The Associated Press news agency also said Tuesday that early voting in several states, including Texas and Arizona, had already exceeded the total vote count in 2016. The biggest gain was recorded in Kentucky, where nearly 13 times as many votes were cast. than in four years. ago, AP reported.
Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, told Al Jazeera that the state could get six million votes this year. “We’ve never gotten close to that,” Bullock said.
While Georgia has historically gone to Republican presidential candidates, some polls show it is within reach of Biden this time around, which is why the former vice president’s campaign has fueled strong voter turnout to provide an election surprise to Democrats.
Voters line up to cast their ballots at Savannah Grove Baptist Church in South Carolina [Randall Hill/Reuters]
“We haven’t gotten this kind of attention from presidential candidates in a generation or more,” Bullock said.
Trump, meanwhile, held a large rally in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Monday night. It’s a county that won by 238 votes in a state that won by a very narrow margin in 2016. Kenosha may well be close again.
He closed the day with a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he had finished his campaign in 2016, hoping to rekindle the same supporters who gave him the White House four years ago.
“It’s always important that voters get excited at the last minute,” said Timothy Hagle, professor of political science at the University of Iowa. “You like to see some energy in your candidates.”
The result may take days
The outcome of the election may not be known for days, depending on how close the vote is in key states and how long it takes to count the large number of mail ballots that have been cast.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has warned that counting 2.8 million mail ballots could take up to three days. Michigan plans to publish interim results that may indicate who is winning, however.
In Pennsylvania, state rules allow counties to collect mail-in ballots with Election Day postmarks for three additional days. Trump has threatened to challenge those ballots in court, which could call into question tens of thousands of votes.
Biden leads Trump in national polls of eligible voters between 51.8% and 43.4%, according to a moving average calculated by FiveThirtyEight.com. Final polls in key states on the battlefield suggest that Trump has narrowed the gap with Biden.
Our final participation estimate came in at 158 million, with a range of the 80th percentile between 147 and 168 million. Compared to 137 million in 2016.
– Nate Silver (@ NateSilver538) November 3, 2020
Trump’s path to electoral college victory is challenging. The most controversial states to observe the first results will be Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. Trump’s losses in either of them would indicate that Biden is having a good night.
Arizona, Iowa and Ohio are also states where the race for the presidency is very close and Trump cannot afford to lose.
Possible discomfort
Whatever happens, authorities across the country are preparing for possible unrest following the election results.
Stores and buildings in downtown Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and downtown New York were closed, while additional police officers were deployed in New York. A non-scale fence was also installed around the White House.
Members of the Pennsylvania National Guard fanned out to downtown Philadelphia over the weekend to help quell the riots and looting that began after the Walter Wallace Jr. police shooting. [Michael Perez/AP Photo]
The National Guard was deployed to Philadelphia following riots over the weekend following the police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr., a black man.
Ten states had activated the National Guard as of last week and 14 more are expected to activate troops this week, The New York Times reported.
Al Jazeera’s William Roberts contributed to this report
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