Americans across 50 states are casting their ballots after fierce campaigning these past few months. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have given their final messages, with Harris spending all of Monday in Pennsylvania before ending in Philadelphia.
“The momentum is on our side,” Harris told a crowd in Philadelphia. “Tonight, then, we finish as we started: with optimism, with energy, with joy,” she said.
“If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole ball of wax,” Trump also said at a rally in Reading.
Trump and Harris need 270 electoral college votes to win the election, and everything largely depends on the seven swing states — Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada. These seven states are very competitive this year compared to the others, which are all comfortably Democratic or Republican, per public opinion polls.
The candidate who wins Pennsylvania (the most populous) has over a 90% chance of winning the White House, according to analysts.
More than 78 million early ballots have been cast but the result may not be soon known. Indeed, many polls are too tight to call, and given a large margin of error, most observers are unwilling to predict the outcome.
So far, a small New Hampshire town has produced the first result of election day. Harris and Trump are tied with three votes each in Dixville Notch, which has only six voters. Sky News reports that the tiny town has been the first town in the country to complete in-person voting since the 1960s.
The report said an accordion version of the U.S. national anthem was played before voters cast their ballots at midnight. In 15 minutes, the count was completed.
Overall, it could take several days before Americans know the final results of this historic election, experts say.
