The presidential elections, which are not remembered in the history of the United States, entered the final stage, after a campaign in which both candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, in their efforts to attract voters, claimed that they were facing a decision that would determine the fate of America.
Even after an incredible series of events in recent months, the electorate remains divided, both nationally and in the seven key states most likely to decide the winner of the election.
Trump, a 78-year-old Republican, survived two assassination attempts, one of which was narrowly fatal, just weeks after a jury in New York - the city whose tabloids first made him famous - made him the first former US president to be convicted of criminal offense.
Vice President Kamala Harris, 60, became the Democratic nominee in July, giving her the chance to become the first woman to hold the world's most powerful office, after President Joe Biden, 81, had a disastrous debate performance and three weeks later, under pressure from from his party, gave up his candidacy for re-election.
Despite all the turmoil, the frame of the race hasn't changed much, and according to surveys, Harris and Trump are tied, both nationally and in key states.
"If we lose this, it's our own fault," Trump told thousands of supporters in North Carolina, one of the seven key states. "If everyone comes out and votes, then they can't do anything to us".
Voters, both Democrats and Republicans, broke more than a century-old records in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, an indication of the passion Trump is evoking in both political parties.
In the final days of the campaign, both parties flooded social media, television and radio stations with the latest wave of ad campaigns, as they busily went door-to-door canvassing voters.
Kamala Harris' campaign staff felt that the scale of their voter mobilization efforts was a key factor, with their volunteers knocking on hundreds of thousands of doors in each of the key states over the weekend. "We're very happy with the current position," campaign chairwoman Jen O'Malley Dillon told reporters.
Harris' election press claims their internal data shows they have won over large numbers of undecided voters, particularly women in key states, and are seeing an increase in early voting among their voters, including youth and minority voters.
On the other hand, the Trump campaign has its own voter contact network, but has effectively outsourced much of the work to outside super TAKs, allied political groups that can raise and spend unlimited funds.
They focused more on contacting "low-propensity" voters, those who don't regularly go to the polls, rather than attracting moderate voters who can switch sides.
Many in that category are Trump supporters, but they are not usually reliable voters.
"The numbers show that President Trump is going to win this race," senior adviser Jason Mueller told reporters.
Trump and his allies, who claim his 2020 defeat was the result of fraud, have spent months preparing the ground to contest the results again if he loses. He vowed "retaliation," talked about prosecuting political rivals and described Democrats as "the enemy from within."
On Sunday, Trump complained about gaps in the bulletproof glass around him while speaking at a rally, and commented that an assassin would have to shoot through members of the media to hit him, adding, "I don't mind that much."
Harris portrayed Trump as a threat to democracy but sounded upbeat at a Detroit church on Sunday. "As I travel, I see Americans from so-called red states and blue states, who are willing to bend the arc of history toward justice," Harris said.
Voters who took part in a Reuters/Ipsos poll ranked threats to democracy as the second biggest problem facing the US today, behind the economy.
Trump believes that concerns about the economy and high prices, especially food and rent, will take him to the White House.
"We're going to cut your taxes, end inflation, bring down prices, raise wages and bring thousands of factories back to America," Trump said Sunday at a rally in Lititz, Pennsylvania.
Yesterday, on the last day of the campaign, he visited three of the seven key states expected to decide the winner.
He visited Raleigh, North Carolina, Reading and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as well as Grand Rapids, Michigan. After that, he returned to Palm Beach, Florida, where he will vote today and wait for the election results.
Kamala Harris also toured Pennsylvania yesterday, starting the day in Allentown, one of the most uncertain parts of the state, before heading to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
Pennsylvania is the biggest prize among key states, offering 19 of the 270 electoral votes a candidate needs to win to become president.
Independent US election analysts estimate that Harris needs about 45 electoral votes in seven key states to win the election, while Trump needs about 51, when taking into account the states where he is predicted to win easily.
It is possible that the winner will be announced in a few days
The United States presidential election takes place today, but the winner of the tight race between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump may not be known for days after the polls close.
As votes are counted, early incomplete results can give the impression that one candidate is leading, only for a rival to close the gap after more votes come in.
In 2020, some states experienced a "red illusion," in which Trump appeared to be the winner on election night, before a "blue flip" saw Democrat Joe Biden take the lead, a phenomenon Trump used to bolster his claims that the election was stolen.
Reuters estimates that such a phenomenon is not unusual, since Democratic voters mostly live in densely populated urban areas, where the counting of votes takes longer. Also, Democrats have embraced voting by mail more than Republicans after Trump's accusations that mail-in ballots are unreliable and that those ballots count longer than votes cast on Election Day.
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