As the campaigning is over and the vote count gets underway, it all comes down to, who will win, and when will we know?
There is no easy answer, and numerous factors go into whether there will be a decisive winner election night, or possibly in days.
97.3 The SKY will be with you along the way through the night after the polls close locally, and across America. Mark Levin’s sharp analysis will begin SKY coverage, then FOX News and SKY news wall-to-wall after 9 p.m.
What’s at stake in the Presidential showdown
WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided America weighed a stark choice for the nation’s future Tuesday as a presidential campaign marked by upheaval and rancor approached its finale.
Voters were deciding whether to send Republican Donald Trump back to the White House or elevate Vice President Kamala Harris to the Oval Office. With just hours until polls closed, tens of millions of Americans added their ballots to the 84 million cast early as they chose between two candidates with drastically different temperaments and visions for the country.
Voters said the economy and immigration are the top issues facing the country, but the future of democracy was also a leading motivator for many Americans casting a ballot in Tuesday’s presidential election. AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide, found a country mired in negativity and desperate for change.
Those casting Election Day ballots mostly encountered a smooth process, with isolated reports of hiccups that regularly happen, including long lines, technical issues and ballot printing errors.
Trump has vowed to replace thousands of federal workers with loyalists, impose sweeping tariffs on allies and foes alike, and stage the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. Harris stands to be the first female president if elected and has promised to work across the aisle to tackle economic worries and other issues without radically departing from the course set by President Joe Biden.
Harris and Trump entered Election Day focused on seven swing states, five of them carried by Trump in 2016 before they flipped to Biden in 2020: the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin as well as Arizona and Georgia. Nevada and North Carolina, which Democrats and Republicans respectively carried in the last two elections, also were closely contested.
Trump voted in Palm Beach, Florida, near his Mar-a-Lago club, and said afterward that he was feeling “very confident.”
Harris, the Democratic vice president, did phone interviews with radio stations in the battleground states, then visited Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington carrying a box of Doritos — her go-to snack.
The closeness of the race and the number of states in play raised the likelihood that, once again, a victor might not be known on election night.
Federal, state and local officials have expressed confidence in the integrity of the nation’s election systems. They nonetheless were braced to contend with what they say is an unprecedented level of foreign disinformation — particularly from Russia and Iran — as well as the possibility of physical violence or cyberattacks.
Both sides have armies of lawyers in anticipation of legal challenges on and after Election Day. And law enforcement agencies nationwide are on high alert for potential violence.
