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Exit polls show a tight race between Trump and Harris in the 2024 election
This message came as Trump won Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia in Tuesday’s presidential election.
Former US president Donald Trump on Tuesday posted a video message to social media urging Republicans to stay in line to vote as his campaign seeks to boost turnout in the final hours.
“Hi, Republicans. We’re doing really well. If you’re in line, stay in line,” Trump said. “Don’t let them take you off that line. Vote. stay in the line. They can’t do anything about it, and vote. We’re going to win it big.”
Harris and Republican former president Trump are battling it out for the White House, with polls gradually closing across the United States Tuesday and a long night of waiting for results expected.
Initial results are coming in, with US media projecting wins for Trump so far in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia. Harris has so far captured Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont and the US capital Washington, DC. So far, that gives Harris 27 electoral votes and Trump 105.
Magic number 270
The magic number to win the presidency is 270. Observers expect the hotly contested race for the White House to come down to a handful of key battleground states.
The early results were expected, with the race likely to come down to seven battleground states: Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Opinion polls showed the rivals neck and neck in all seven going into Election Day.
Nearly three-quarters of voters say American democracy is under threat, according to preliminary national exit polls from Edison, reflecting the nation’s deep anxiety after a contentious campaign.
Democracy and the economy ranked by far as the most important issues for voters, with around a third of respondents citing each, followed by abortion and immigration. The poll showed 73% of voters believed democracy was in jeopardy against 25% who said it was secure.
‘CHEATING’ in Philadelphia
Hours before polls closed, Trump claimed on his Truth Social site without evidence that there was “a lot of talk about massive CHEATING” in Philadelphia, echoing his false claims in 2020 that fraud had occurred in large, Democratic-dominated cities. In a subsequent post, he also asserted there was fraud in Detroit.
“I don’t respond to nonsense,” Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey told Reuters. A Philadelphia city commissioner, Seth Bluestein, replied on X, “There is absolutely no truth to this allegation. It is yet another example of disinformation. Voting in Philadelphia has been safe and secure.”
Trump, whose supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after he claimed the 2020 election was rigged, voted earlier near his home in Palm Beach, Florida. “If I lose an election, if it’s a fair election, I’m gonna be the first one to acknowledge it,” Trump told reporters.
Millions of Americans
Millions of Americans waited in orderly lines to cast ballots, with only sporadic disruptions reported across a handful of states, including several non-credible bomb threats that the FBI said appeared to originate from Russian email domains.
Trump planned to watch the results at his Mar-a-Lago club before speaking to supporters at a nearby convention center, according to sources familiar with the planning. Harris, who had previously mailed her ballot to her home state of California, spent some of Tuesday in radio interviews encouraging listeners to vote.
Harris, 60, the first female vice president, would become the first woman, Black woman and South Asian American to win the presidency. Trump, 78, the only president to be impeached twice and the first former president to be criminally convicted, would also become the first president to win non-consecutive terms in more than a century.
Control of both chambers of Congress is also up for grabs. Republicans have an easier path in the U.S. Senate, where Democrats are defending several seats in Republican-leaning states, while the House of Representatives looks like a toss-up.
(With agency inputs)
- Location :
Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)
