One of the most tumultuous Presidential campaigns in U.S. history has reached its final stage, with voters having made their selection between Vice-President Kamala Harris, who could become the first woman President, and Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for the third consecutive election. In the immediate lead-up to Election Day, national polls showed a dead heat, with candidates’ leads in a number of critical battleground states within the margin of error. The New Yorker has begun publishing results, as reported by the Associated Press, and will continue to do so until the final vote is counted.
In addition to who occupies the White House, control of the Senate, House, and eleven governors’ mansions will be decided. In the Senate, thirty-four seats are at stake, twenty-three of them held by Democrats or by Independents who caucus with the Party. A net gain of just two seats will give majority status in the chamber to the G.O.P., which will replace its leader, Mitch McConnell, in the next term. In the House, Republicans hope to grow their seven-seat majority, while Democrats seek to take back the majority after their narrow loss in 2022.
The results could prove historic in a variety of ways. If Harris wins, she will become the first person of Asian ancestry elected President. In her hundred-day campaign, which began after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, Harris has sought support by offering an economic platform that focusses on families and the middle class, and by channelling widespread anger over Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court decision that overturned the abortion rights enshrined by Roe v. Wade. Harris has confronted voter dissatisfaction on several issues, including over inflation, which many voters have blamed on President Biden’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Harris has also struggled to match traditional levels of support among several groups that have reliably functioned as Democratic voting blocs, including Latinos and Black men, and Arab Americans and young people angered over American support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and Lebanon.
Trump, at age seventy-eight, hopes to become the oldest person elected to the Presidency, and the second politician to win the White House after failing in his initial bid for reëlection. In the four years since he left office, Trump has been convicted of thirty-four felony counts in a New York trial over hush-money payments to an adult-film actress, making him the first former President to become a convicted felon. Trump survived two assassination attempts in the final months of the campaign, including one in which a bullet grazed his ear. As his White House bid wound down, Trump returned to the xenophobia and sexism that have characterized his career in politics, and continued lying about his loss in the 2020 election, refusing to commit to accepting a possible defeat in this one.
Throughout Election Night, New Yorker reporters and columnists will provide live news coverage and analysis. Subscribe to our politics podcast to hear in-depth interviews and commentary in the days and weeks ahead, and, to be sure you never miss an important story, sign up for The New Yorker’s daily newsletter.
