Donald Trump is poised to become US president once again after winning several key battleground states.
North Carolina with its 16 electoral college votes was the first swing state to be called for Trump in the early hours of the morning, with Georgia and Pennsylvania following soon after. Trump won other major states, from Iowa to Texas, with a strong showing at the polls.
As well as this, Republicans have taken back control of the Senate as they were forecast to, after Democrats lost their slender lead, and may also win the House of Representatives. If Trump is victorious on all fronts, this will provide him with the congressional support he needs to get his appointees ratified and pass laws without obstruction.
Turnout has been impressive and initial speculation is that Trump has surpassed his rural support from 2020 while Democrat Kamala Harris only matched the suburban numbers that Biden achieved four years ago. NBC exit polls also showed Trump had more support from voters under 30 than any Republican candidate since 2008.
The BBC reported that early exit polls indicated that voters were most concerned with the state of the democracy (35%) with the economy coming a close second (31%).
These concerns have led to a turnout that will be just below the 2020 figures, according to Professor Michael McDonald, of the University of Florida.
In crucial battleground state Pennsylvania, it was reported that voters were queueing in their hundreds over an hour before the polls opened at 7am.
In Michigan, another key state in the election, officials said that those voters who had voted early – both the absentee and in-person votes – numbered almost as many as the total votes for the 2020 election.
Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, said that the state was “on pace to see another high turnout election with voters all across the state enthusiastic and engaged”. And much of it was done in a good atmosphere with election chairperson Jennifer Jenkins telling reporters that it was “good vibes all around”.
Safety concerns
Concerns about whether election day would pass peacefully have not kept voters away.
As revealed in a memo obtained by the non-partisan group, Property of the People, the Department of Homeland Security had issued a warning in September that election infrastructure was “an attractive target for some domestic violent extremists” particularly those with “election-related grievances” who seek to disrupt the democratic process and election operations.
In the nation’s capital, Washington DC, police arrested a man who was stopped during the screening process at the US Capitol visitor centre. Authorities stated that he smelled like gasoline and had a torch lighter, flare gun and papers he intended to deliver to Congress.
Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger, speaking at a press conference shortly after the incident, stated that “there is no indication right now that it had anything to do with the election”.
The greatest threat to the smooth running of the election on polling day seemed not to come from domestic perpetrators but from foreign interference, particularly in the crucial swing state races.
Several polling stations in Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin were the victims of hoax bomb threats that caused temporary closures of the sites. The threats were believed to be sent by emails that were traced back to Russian email domains.
In Navajo County in Arizona, four polling stations were the target of bomb threats. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told reporters that election officials in the state had “no reason to believe that any of our voters or any of our polling places are in any sort of jeopardy.”
“We also have reason to believe, although I won’t get into specifics, that this comes from one of our foreign enemies, namely Russia,” he continued.
In Pennsylvania, Governor Josh Shapiro announced at a press conference that there had been multiple bomb threats at polling stations and municipal centres across the state.
Shapiro, who was at one time thought of as a potential running mate for Harris, revealed that “state and local law enforcement – along with the FBI – are investigating these threats and thus far, there is no credible threat to the public”.
This came after reports emerged of at least ten polling locations in Philadelphia and in surrounding areas were sent a bomb threat via email at 6pm local time.
Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger accused Russia of being the cause of the threats aimed at polling locations in the southern state. “They don’t want us to have a smooth, fair and accurate election, and if they can get us to fight among ourselves, they can count that as a victory,” he told reporters.
The FBI stated that it was aware of the threats and that many appeared “to originate from Russian email domains”. The Russian embassy in Washington denied the threats.
Last Thursday, Georgia was also the subject of what the US intelligence community called a disinformation campaign designed to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election result through an online video that “depicted individuals claiming to be from Haiti and voting illegally in multiple counties in Georgia”.
Researchers at Clemson University in South Carolina identified the work as being that of Russian disinformation group Storm-1516. Darren Linvill of Clemson University, stated that Russian group had “turned their focus squarely on the US election.”
And the integrity of this election took a further hit when Republican candidate Donald Trump made unfounded accusations on social media platform Truth Social of election fraud in Philadelphia, a must-win state for the former president.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said through a spokesperson that “the only talk about massive cheating has come from one of the candidates, Donald J. Trump. There is no factual basis whatsoever within law enforcement to support this wild allegation”.
Experts have warned that such campaigns could give momentum to accusations that the election is not legitimate and that this, in turn, could trigger post-election violence.
As the results come in, America holds it breath that any potential transition of power will be more peaceful than four years ago.