LIVE: US entitled to know the winner on election day, says Donald Trump

The 2020 US elections, including presidential and congressional races, comes amid the surging Covid-19 pandemic in the country. Stay tuned for Latest LIVE news

2:49 AM

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1:51 AM

Doing 'very well' in Florida, Arizona, Texas; going to have great 4 years: Trump

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday expressed confidence ahead of the results of the US Presidential polls, saying that he is hearing that Republicans are performing well in key states like Florida and Arizona and they are going to have "great four years".

 

Speaking at the RNC headquarters in Virginia, Trump said, "I hear we're doing very well in Florida, very well in Arizona, incredibly well in Texas, we're doing very well all over here. I think we're going to have a great night and more importantly, we're going to have a great four years."

 

On the question of whether he has prepared any acceptance speech, the US President replied, "Not thinking about concession speech or acceptance speech yet. Hopefully, we'll be doing only one of those two. Winning is easy, losing is never easy - not for me, it's not. When you see rallies, there's tremendous love going on in this country, tremendous unity."

 

Over his campaign trail, he added, "We have done rallies and there was love at those rallies. There has never been anything like we had. I think it was the combination of rallies and the second debate...I think we took off."

1:20 AM

US election results: what to expect

US election day is finally here, and 100 million people have already voted by mail or in person. 

Millions more were to vote in person on Tuesday, and the winner -- Republican President Donald Trump or Democratic challenger Joe Biden -- won't be known until the evening at the earliest.

But the battle to achieve a majority 270 electoral votes, earned by winning the popular vote in individual states, has been so close that knowing the winner could spill over into Wednesday or even longer, and result in legal battles over the vote count.

 

When are the first vote tallies reported?

 

Numbers start to come in after in-person voting closes at 6:00 pm Eastern Time (EST) (2300 GMT) in parts of two states, and then build as more states stop allowing votes in the hours after.

 

Most close by 9:00 pm EST, opening the way for a gusher of vote tallies over the following hours, with some districts and states reporting faster than others.

 

Several, including California, the largest, only close at 11:00 pm EST, and Hawaii and Alaska, small voter-wise, vote until midnight and 1:00 am EST, respectively.

 

States to watch

 

Given that opinion polls already indicate clearly which way 38 of the 50 states will go, the focus is on 12 key states. 

 

The first ones to watch are the eastern states of Georgia, where polls close at 7:00 pm; Florida, where, depending on the district, polls shut at 7:00 pm or 8:00 pm; North Carolina where polls close at 7:30 pm; and the western state of Arizona at 8:00 pm EST.

 

Based on projections for the "decided" states, it is possible that if Biden captures Florida and two of the above others, he could be judged the overall winner of more than 270 electoral college votes early in the night.

1:15 AM

Oil rises 2% but traders brace for wild ride

Oil prices rose over 2 per cent on Tuesday, advancing with other financial markets on US Election Day although traders were bracing for volatility depending on the voting results and as surging coronavirus cases around the world fed worries about fuel demand.

 

Brent futures rose 84 cents, or 2.2 per cent, to $39.81 a barrel by 1:58 p.m. EST (1858 GMT), while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose 89 cents, or 2.4 per cent, to $37.70.

12:57 AM

'Vote and get home': Anxious voters say on Election Day

She carefully planned a five-hour drive to the polling place in her Tennessee hometown to vote on Election Day. She considered the traffic, the weather, the surging coronavirus pandemic and something she never imagined having to contemplate the possibility of civil unrest in the aftermath of an American election.

 

The last four years have delivered so many shocks that anything seemed possible to Lacey Stannard, the wife of a soldier. She had tried to get an absentee ballot sent to her home on a military base on the other side of the state. But the clerk in her hometown refused. A part of her thought it was crazy to drive 10 hours roundtrip to cast a Democratic vote in deep-red Tennessee, but a larger part thought it was worth it to register her displeasure.

 

Americans voting on Election Day are exhausted from constant crises, uneasy because of volatile political divisions and anxious about what will happen next. Like those who cast ballots early, their agony is not in deciding between President Donald Trump or his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden. Most made that choice long ago.

12:56 AM

Bill & Hillary Clinton cast votes for Biden-Harris

12:52 AM

US postal service ordered to check for delayed ballots in key battleground states

A judge ordered the US Postal Service to sweep some mail processing facilities on Tuesday afternoon for delayed ballots and immediately dispatch them for delivery in election battlegrounds such Pennsylvania and Florida among other places.

 

Affected by the order are central Pennsylvania, northern New England, greater South Carolina, south Florida, Colorado, Arizona, Alabama and Wyoming as well as the cities of Atlanta, Houston, Philadelphia, Detroit and Lakeland, Florida.

 

US District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered postal officials to complete the inspections by 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT) and certify by 4:30 p.m. EST (2130 GMT) that no ballots were left behind.

 

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought by groups such as Vote Forward, a voting rights organization, and Latino community groups.

12:51 AM

How liberal Americans are coping with Election Day anxiety

Rachel Richardson, a lifelong Democrat, is spending Election Day hiking trails along the Pacific Coast with her two daughters and a fellow mom with her kids in tow.

 

The 41-year-old Berkeley, California, native who already voted for Joe Biden said she decided to plan a three-day camping trip to stay away from minute-by-minute election news and keep anxiety over the potential reelection of President Donald Trump and the pandemic at bay.

 

“I think it’s now time for me to get a good night’s sleep, a few nights in the fresh, clean air with no WiFi signal anywhere in sight,” she told Reuters. “Away from the noise of people’s responses.”

 

Richardson and husband David Roderick spent the past months educating their children about the election and government along with about two dozen families from one of the most liberal US cities while supporting candidates in key senate races.

12:48 AM

Appeals court declines to ban Houston drive-thru voting

A panel of federal appeals court judges has rejected an eleventh hour Republican effort to bar Election Day drive-thru voting in Houston.

 

The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals denied the request in a one-sentence ruling issued late Monday. The court hadn't been asked to invalidate votes already cast at drive-thru sites in the area.

 

The request stemmed from a lawsuit brought by conservative Texas activists, who have railed against expanded voting access in Harris County, where a record 1.4 million early votes have already been cast. The county is the nation's third-most populous and a crucial battleground in Texas, where President Donald Trump and Republicans are bracing for the closest election in America's largest red state in decades on Tuesday.

12:38 AM

Anxious Americans show up for an election like no other

Whether she knew it or not, Claire D'Angelo spoke for millions of Americans as she stood in the cold after voting early Tuesday morning, a black mask covering her face.

"To say that I'm nervous or anxious about it is an understatement," said the 45-year-old restaurant worker who voted for Joe Biden in the city of Easton in Pennsylvania, an important swing state in the election.

"I just hope people come out today and speak their voice for what they want for their children and their future."

 

Across the country, Americans formed lines at polling stations to make their voice heard in an election unlike any before in the United States.

 

Polls opened with the country shaken from the coronavirus pandemic, waves of protests over police killings of minorities and President Donald Trump's efforts to sow doubt over the counting of votes.

12:30 AM

Kamala Harris on chances of winning

12:29 AM

We're going to have a great night and more importantly we're going to have a great 4 years: US President Trump

12:06 AM

12:05 AM

12:02 AM

US 'entitled to know' winner on election day, says president Trump

12:01 AM

Wall Street jumps on bets of Biden victory

US stocks jumped on Tuesday as investors bet that one of the country's most divisive presidential races would end with a clear victory for Democratic nominee Joe Biden and a swift deal on more fiscal stimulus.

 

All 11 major S&P indexes were up in early trading, led by financial, healthcare and industrial stocks.

11:33 PM

We are all Pennsylvania pundits now: US election binge watcher's guide

The whirr of carpenters' buzzsaws boarding up glass windows on main street, heightened police mobilisation, overdose of Pennsylvania math, Trump supporters trying to shove a Biden bus off the freeway, fears of violence, undelivered ballots turning up on social feeds via whistleblowers - US election bingewatchers think it's all mostly "nuts!" and "bananas!"

 

That's not all. The quest for the shy Trump voter continues. That shiny word was coined in 2016 as an explanation for the Trump bombshell win. Now that pollsters have hit the submit button on final 2020 projections, the spaces between what pollsters' projections tell us and what could happen is often punctuated by the 'shy Trump voter' question mark that hangs around in the thick, wintry air.

 

"There are no shy Trump voters!", we heard from the Trump campaign bullhorn this week.

 

On the beat, in speaking with the voters, we find nuance to that soundbite.

 

Some voters just don't want to be named, they are haunted by the prospect of turning up on their "wife's Facebook feed", as one voter in Westfield, New Jersey, told IANS.

 

"Five hops later, what you said to someone becomes something else and I don't want to deal with that. Nah," he said.

11:32 PM

Trump or Biden? US presidential race reaches climax

Americans were voting in large numbers across the nation on Tuesday in one of the most divisive and bitter presidential elections in decades in which incumbent Republican Donald Trump is challenged by Democrat Joe Biden.
 

Amidst a resurgent Covid-19 pandemic, over 100 million people have already cast their ballots in early voting, putting the country on course for its highest turnout in a century. Some 239 million people are eligible to vote this year.
 

The mail-in ballots could take days or weeks to be counted in some states - meaning a winner might not be declared in the hours after polls close on Tuesday.

Biden has pocketed his first election victory by winning all five votes of a small New Hampshire town that's always quick to declare its result.

11:18 PM

Trump readies lawyers, anticipating counting tussle

President Donald Trump is pledging a legal fight over vote counting that drags on after polls close -- all but guaranteeing an ongoing struggle over pandemic-related voting rules if the election result is close.

 

Matthew Morgan, a longtime adviser to Vice President Mike Pence and now the Trump campaign’s general counsel, is leading the litigation strategy, which has so far been largely aimed at curtailing Democratic efforts to loosen rules for voting by mail. Read more here

11:07 PM

Early Voting Passes 100 Million Ballots, 75% of 2016 Turnout

More than 100 million Americans have cast their ballots ahead of Election Day, the equivalent of about three-quarters of all the voters in the 2016 election, the US Elections Project reported Tuesday.
 

With one day to go before Election Day, the number of early votes this cycle is about 73% of the 137.5 million ballots cast in the 2016 election as a whole, and more than double the 47 million early votes.
 

The surge in early voting across the US reflects concern about the coronavirus pandemic as well as increased enthusiasm for the election. As the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the country in March, state legislatures across the country eased barriers to early and mail-in voting.

10:54 PM

Kamala Harris as president would be 'terrible thing' for US and women: Trump

Democratic vice presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris becoming US president would be a "terrible thing" for both the country and women, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday as Americans were voting in one of the most divisive bitter presidential polls in decades.

 

Trump, 74, is seeking his re-election in the presidential elections. He is facing the toughest electoral battle of his life by the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, 77, and his running mate Harris, 56. They are leading in opinion polls.
 

The Republican leader said that the US would never remain the same if Biden-Harris ticket are the winner. "Our country could never be the same country if they win, because they are radicalised left," Trump said as he launched a scathing attack against Harris.
 

"Joe Biden will never call the shots and if he does, he's not going to be there very long. He's got a vice president who's further left than (Senator) Bernie Sanders, who is not a particularly good person and she would be, I think, a terrible first representative," Trump alleged.

 

"If she became the first woman president, I think it would be a terrible thing for our country. I think it would be a terrible thing for women," he said.

10:31 PM

Feel 'very good' about chances of winning: Trump

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he feels very good about his chances of winning the presidential elections against his Democratic rival Joe Biden, hoping that the large crowds at his rallies in key battleground states would turn into votes for him.

 

Trump addressed as many as 14 rallies in the last three days in the key battleground states, almost all of which were attended by thousands of people.

 

The top battleground States are Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona.

 

We feel very good. We have crowds that nobody's ever had before, it's insane and I think you can agree. It's been incredible. The crowds have been incredible, Trump told Fox News in an interview on Tuesday morning.

10:05 PM

Majority in UK think US election will impact bilateral trade deal: polls

UK citizens feel that the 2020 presidential elections in the US would affect potential trade agreement between London and Washington, YouGov polling company said on Tuesday.

 

According to Sputnik, as the United Kingdom prepares to exit the European Union, it is involved in negotiating separate trade deals with other countries, including the US.

10:02 PM

9:52 PM

Trump says he built greatest economy, which was 'horribly' interrupted by 'plague' from China

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he had built the world's greatest economy, which was "horribly" interrupted by the "plague" that came from China.

 

Trump's remarks came as Americans were voting in large numbers in one of the most divisive bitter presidential polls in decades in which he is challenged by Democrat Joe Biden.

 

"We built the greatest economy in the world, it was horribly interrupted by something that should have never happened, came in from China, the plague. The plague from China," Trump told Fox News in an interview, his first on the election day.

 

Trump has repeatedly blamed China for the coronavirus pandemic which originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year and accused Beijing of suppressing the details of the contagion.

 

The US is the worst-affected country from the virus with over 2,31,000 deaths and over 9 million infections. The pandemic devastated the country's economy, resulting in the loss of millions of jobs.

9:49 PM

Some US House of Representatives races to watch in the election

Democrats are defending their majority in the US House of Representatives in Tuesday’s election.

 

Colorado's 3rd District

 

Republican Lauren Boebert, a pistol-packing gun rights activist who defied coronavirus restrictions to open her restaurant, spoke warmly of the unfounded online conspiracy theory QAnon in May, but later said “I’m not a follower.” She faces Democrat Diane Mitsch Bush, a university professor, in a largely rural district encompassing western Colorado.

 

Georgia's 14th District

 

Republican small business owner Marjorie Taylor Greene is a political newcomer who promoted QAnon in a 2017 video but later backtracked, saying it was not part of her campaign. She is expected to win a House seat in conservative rural northwest Georgia after her Democratic opponent dropped out.

 

Minnesota's seventh district

 

Long-time Representative Collin Peterson, one of only two House Democrats who opposed both articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump in 2019, faces Minnesota’s former lieutenant governor, Republican Michelle Fischbach. The district in rural western Minnesota voted strongly for Trump in 2016.

9:26 PM

These states could decide the US election

The US presidential election will be decided by about a dozen states that could swing to either President Donald Trump, a Republican, or Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

 

These states will play a critical role in delivering the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House. Due to a surge in mail voting amid the coronavirus pandemic - as well as the states’ varying rules for when ballots can be counted - the results may not be known on Tuesday’s Election Day.

 

9:02 PM

US polls LIVE: Long lines seen outside polling stations as Americans head to vote

Americans were voting in large numbers on Tuesday in one of the most divisive bitter presidential elections in decades in which incumbent Republican Donald Trump is challenged by Democrat Joe Biden.

Amidst a resurgent COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 100 million people have already cast their ballots in early voting, putting the country on course for its highest turnout in a century. Some 239 million people are eligible to vote this year.

 

8:44 PM

Nation by nation, the world watches historic Election Day in the US

For four years, the world’s nations have watched as a very different American president engages with the international community — or doesn’t.

 

Longtime alliances have been strained, agreements wiped away, tariffs erected, funding withdrawn. Some nations have been the objects of presidential derision. Others, like North Korea, have been on the receiving end of diplomatic overtures once considered unthinkable.

 

For countries around the planet, the presidency of Donald Trump in its first term has been, it is safe to say, a singular experience to watch. Now that an inflection point in Trump’s time in office is at hand with Tuesday’s US election, what’s at stake if his presidency ends — or if it continues? Nation by nation, how is Election Day in the United States being watched, considered, assessed? READ ON...

8:35 PM

Donald Trump, Joe Biden confident of big victory as US goes for polls

US President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden on Tuesday exuded confidence of a big victory in the presidential polls as Americans in large numbers headed to cast their ballots to decide the fate of the two leaders in the world's most significant democratic exercise.

 

Trump predicted that a red wave would re-elect him to the White House, while his Democratic challenger Biden is confident of a big win.

 

Addressing as many as five election rallies in as many states on the last day of the campaigning, Trump exuded confidence of winning the race with a much greater margin. We are gonna have a red wave. It's gonna be a beautiful sight, Trump told thousands of his supporters in Wisconsin on Monday. At his last rally at Grand Rapids in Michigan, which passed midnight, Trump asked his supporters to give him a bit bigger margin of victory.