As Americans head to the polls to cast their votes, the presidential candidates are making their final rounds in different parts of the country before heading to their respective election night watch parties.
Republican candidate former President Donald Trump cast his vote in Palm Beach, Florida near his Mar-a-Lago club. He told reporters afterward he was feeling "very confident" and that he would acknowledge the results win or lose "if it's a fair election."
Trump did not specify what he meant by fair but said he believes it has been fair "so far."
Meanwhile, Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris did phone interviews with radio stations in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada Tuesday morning before making an appearance at the Democratic National Convention headquarters in Washington.
Harris took some phone calls from supporters at the headquarters, even stopping to wave to them on camera.
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She stands to be the first female president if elected and has promised to work across the aisle to tackle economic worries and other issues without radically departing from the course set by President Joe Biden.
Trump has vowed to replace thousands of federal workers with loyalists, impose sweeping tariffs on allies and foes alike, and stage the largest deportation operation in U.S. history.
Harris and Trump entered Election Day focused on seven swing states, five of them carried by Trump in 2016 before flipping to Biden in 2020: the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin as well as Arizona and Georgia. Nevada and North Carolina, which Democrats and Republicans respectively carried in the last two elections, also were closely contested.
The closeness of the race and the number of states in play raised the likelihood that, once again, a victor might not be known on election night.
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In 2020, it took four days to declare a winner. Regardless, Trump has baselessly claimed that if he lost, it would be due to fraud. Harris' campaign was preparing for him to try to declare victory before a winner is known on Tuesday night or to try to contest the result if she wins. Four years ago, Trump launched an effort to overturn the voters’ will that ended in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump said Tuesday that he had no plans to tell his supporters not to refrain from violence if Harris wins, because they “are not violent people.” He visited a nearby campaign office to fire up staffers before a party at a nearby convention center.
Harris voted by mail in her home state of California. She'll have a watch party at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington.
