Polls are opening across the US for one of the closest presidential elections in modern history with Kamala Harris and Donald Trump neck-and-neck in the polls. As you wait for the answer to the big question: ‘Who has won the American election?’, here are 10 key reads from our reporters and columnists to get you through the day. We will have a live story through the night to bring you the results as they land.
Watching Guide
- When will we know who won the US election? Key timings and results guide as Trump and Harris bid to become next president: If polls are correct, it could take days to decide the next president, but a ‘blue wall’ surge could make the result obvious by 4am, writes Hugh Linehan.
US Election Explained
- What are swing states and how will they decide the presidency? Presidential elections are largely decided by a small number of tight races in the so-called battleground states.
- How does the electoral college work? It is possible to lose the popular vote but still win the US presidential election – as Donald Trump did in 2016.
On the Road
A drive through the Rust Belt: Will it be Kamala Harris or Donald Trump who swings Pennsylvania?
- Jim Dlauter is taking in the Friday afternoon sun, distinctive in his psychedelic Pink Floyd T-shirt and shades in his usual spot in downtown Gettysburg. He likes to watch the world go by. Gettysburg is a Pennsylvanian beacon, drawing up to two million visitors each year to stand at the spot where Lincoln delivered his address. The town centre is like a film set but the preserved battlefield, in the intense silent heat, has an otherworldly atmosphere. The tourist rush is over for the year so the locals get their town back, not that Dlauter minds the influx. He talks about the strangeness of living somewhere that is part small-town, part lodestone to the mythology of America, writes Keith Duggan in Pennsylvania.
‘I want to go to Chicago’: Immigrants, vigilantes and good Samaritans on the US-Mexico border
- Little things stand prominent in the memories of Tom and Carol Wingo. Retired teachers and former “snowbirds” – people who temporarily relocate to warmer areas to escape winter’s bite, they permanently switched Montana for southern Arizona in 2019. Now, they dedicate much of their time to providing relief to immigrants who make it through a section of the border wall between Mexico and the US. “Sometimes you see that people have put on make-up; getting ready for their new life,” says Carol, during a visit to a section of the wall south of a town named Why. “We found a teapot with leaves inside. They had a little celebration after making it this far,” writes Steven Carroll from Why, Arizona.
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- Pickups, trucks and SUVs are king on the roads in rural Georgia, with huge machines and their massive engines seeming to come towards you at every turn. Inflation – particularly the increased price of “gas” – is a big concern for voters here when they’re asked for their thoughts on the election. It’s understandable as many see their choice to drive something with a six-litre engine as being central to “the American way”. Things were different four years ago, some say, but there has been a lot of water under the highway bridges since then, writes Steven Carroll from Perry, Georgia.
Arab-American disillusionment with Democratic Party in Michigan could cost Harris dearly
- Sitting in her office in downtown Dearborn, Soujoud Hamade explains why she won’t be voting for the Democratic Party. Her faith in the party has become completely eroded over the past year as she watched Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, and the shocking reported death toll of more than 40,000, continue with the support of the political party she believed represented her. And she reckons her disappointment – lasting and profound – is shared by many people she knows in the local Arab-American community, writes Keith Duggan from Dearborn Michigan.
- Sitting in his Chevrolet Tahoe SUV, he explains he is one of 26 constables working for the more than four million citizens of Maricopa County. His job involves serving warrants, protection orders and eviction notices, and overseeing asset seizures. oday is an eviction day, and there are four to be done, reports Steven Carroll from Surprise, Arizona.
Opinion
Fintan O’Toole: Trump 2.0 will see US become a fascist state, tempered by senility and greed
- A couple of weeks ago, I attended a conference in upstate New York, where the American writer and film-maker Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm, Restrepo) traced his father’s flight from the Nazis. From Dresden he made it to Spain, then to France, and then to Portugal. Eventually he managed to settle in America in 1941 because “he said fascism would never follow him here”. Junger did not need to labour the point because it may well be that the guarantee of a fascism-free America is a warranty about to expire. There is a 50-50 chance that a fascist will be heading back to the Oval Office.
Justine McCarthy: Blind acceptance of untruths could propel Trump back into the White House
- The audience behind Donald Trump’s podium is of greater anthropological interest than any of the slime that slithers from the Republican candidate’s potty mouth at his election rallies. At Madison Square Garden last weekend, females dominated the background by more than 10 to one; a jarring visual in a campaign cravenly courting angry men. Perhaps the choreographer was attempting to counterbalance the virtual men-only schedule of warm-up speakers – 17 of them, including a wrestler, a shock-jock, an unfunny comedian, a former Fox News host and a businessman who once said he would be “embarrassed” if he earned only $400,000 a year. As these oratorical Chippendales took to the microphone, the women behind the podium raised their Trump placards aloft and cheered.