Live Blog

• Vermont’s Republican governor says he voted for Harris

  Vermont’s Republican governor Phil Scott told reporters he voted for Harris over Trump, his party’s presidential candidate.

  Scott said it was “not an easy thing to do being the Republican sitting governor and voting against your party’s nominee.”

  But Scott said he “came to the conclusion that I had to put country over party.”

  Scott also voted for the Democrat – Joe Biden – in 2020.

• First results in Indiana

  The first results have started coming in with Donald Trump ahead in Indiana.

  Trump is up 63.2 per cent with 113,571 votes to Harris’ 35.5 per cent and 63,722 votes.

  All the polls will close in the state at 7pm local time, or midnight in the UK.

• Boris Johnson and Stormy Daniels clash over Trump

  In a rather surreal election night moment, ex-British PM Boris Johnson and porn actress Stormy Daniels had a telly dust-up on Trump’s character. 

  Daniels – who notoriously accused Trump of paying her hush money – said she is still being hounded by his supporters. 

  She said she gets “tons of crazy threats” and has been living out of a truck because she is too afraid to go home.

  Pressed by Daniels over his close relationship with Trump, Johnson said: “I mean, nothing like that came up. 

  “But actually, I could say this in all sincerity, I never in my time with him was treated with anything other than complete courtesy. 

  “You had a very different experience. But I can only talk about my experience.”

• Donald Trump’s favourability

  Another exit poll asked what voters’ thoughts of the Republican nominee Donald Trump are.

  NBC found that fewer white voters had a favourable opinion of the former president than 2020.

  While more Latinos and Blacks had a favourable view of Trump than the last election.

• More exit polls

  A number of questions have been asked of voters as they went to cast their ballot today.

  Almost three-quarters of the total voters hold a negative view about the issues in the US, the first exit poll by CNN has found.

  Only about one-fourth say they are happy with where America stands today with six in 10 voters say America’s best days are in the future.

• Voting hours extended in Georgia

  Voting hours have been extended at five polling places in Georgia’s Fulton County that were closed earlier in the day.

  The poll sites were shut after they received bomb threats from Russia, the Secretary of State (SoS) claimed.

  The threats were deemed non-credible and the sites were reopened.

  The extensions range from 10 minutes to 45 minutes.

  “They’re up to mischief it seems,” SoS BradRaffensperger said about the Russians.

  “They don’t want us to have a smooth, fair and accurate election.”

• Polls have closed in first states

  Polls have closed in eastern Kentucky and most of Indiana.

  Neither is expected to be a swing state, but results could offer hints about where tonight is heading.

  Results have now begun to trickle in, but the states won’t be called until voting has ended in all the counties.

• Paul Rudd hands out water in swing state

  Paul Rudd has been interviewed while handing out water to people in line at Temple University in Philadelphia.

  The Ant Man actor was interviewed on MSNBC as he did the good deed with voters also taking selfies with him.

  Rudd said: “We’ve been doing lots of stuff today in Pennsylvania, we wanted to come out and tell these students they’re doing really great things.”

  

• Milwaukee forced to re-run 30,000 absentee ballots

  Officials in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, have announced they will be re-running around 30,000 absentee ballots “out of an abundance of caution”.

  City spokesperson Jeff Fleming said they had found evidence that the doors on its tabulating machines hadn’t been closed properly.

  He said the issues were caused by human error and weren’t tampered with.

  Fleming added: “We don’t want any questions about the accuracy of the results.

  “So we’re going to make sure that they are run correctly.”

  All of the tabulating machines have now been set back to zero with the ballots being put through the machines again.

  The move could potentially add hours on to the final result, Fleming warned

• Elon Musk sends “emergency squad” to Pennsylvania to secure last-minute votes

  Musk’s America (PAC) has sent an “emergency squad” to win some last-minute votes for foe-turned-pal Donald Trump.

  He is understood to have been helping out potential Trump voters who filled their initial ballots with errors, which would get rejected during the final count.

  Musk’s PAC is trying to resolve the issue with a legal mechanism called “Ballot Curing”, the New York Post reports.

  It is understood to be an expensive method, but could help Trump win a small number of last-minute voters which could potentially flip the battle in the key swing state.

  Musk, who has been dubbed Trump’s “shadow vice president”, has gone all in to support and campaign for the former president.

  Not only has he become a mega-donor for the Republican nominee, pumping millions of dollars into the GOP campaign, but also a social media strategist and a PR expert who has been working to promote Trump’s MAGA agenda.

  

• Boris: Trump won’t abandon Ukraine 

  What would a Trump presidency mean for Ukraine’s war against Russia? 

  There have been mounting concerns the Republican strongman would pull the plug on American support for Zelensky. 

  But former British PM Boris Johnson – a staunch champion of Ukraine – thinks such fears are overblown.

  Speaking on Channel 4, he said that above all else “he’s going to be thinking about the reputation and legacy of Donald J Trump. 

  “I don’t think he’s going to allow the US, the West, Nato to be humiliated by Vladimir Putin.
  “I think faced with that choice, he will be tough.”

  Yet Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton disagrees, and thinks American enthusiasm for the war would wane. 

• Donald Trump has accused a key swing state of ‘massive cheating’

  Presidential candidate Donald Trump has hit out at Philadelphia with claims of cheating in the largest city in Pennsylvania.

  The Republican took to his social media platform Truth Social to say: “A lot of talk about massive CHEATING in Philadelphia. Law enforcement coming!!!”

  Responding to the serious comments the Philadelphia Police Department told CNN they are not aware of any issues in the city.

  They confirmed that no law enforcement has been asked to respond to any incident regarding voting in the area.

  Trump has made similar baseless claims about election fraud in Philadelphia in the past.

  In September he came out with a remark on Philadelphia saying: “They cheat in this state, especially in Philadelphia.”

• What do the US exit polls mean?

  The exit polls for the US election have just dropped but what does this data actually show?

  These polls are made from a series of surveys that asked thousands of people who they voted for and several political questions.

  These included people’s thoughts on topics like abortion, immigration, and what qualities they appreciated in each candidate.

  Different networks have commissioned polls, for example, CNN and NBC have their own.

  Data for these ballots were collected today and also at early in-person voting locations in some states.

  These exit polls are thought to hint at how the night might go and do not provide voting or electoral college projections.

• First wave of exit polls revealed by CNN

  Almost three-fourth of the total voters hold a negative view about the issues in the US, the first exit poll by CNN has found.

  Only about one-fourth say they are happy with where America stands today, with more than 4 in 10 dissatisfied and roughly 3 in 10 saying they are angry.

  However, more than 6 in 10 voters say America’s best days are in the future, and only about one-third that they’re already in the past.

  Exit polls are likely to change eventually and have a margin of error.

• Exit polls revealed as voters voice concerns over democracy, economy and abortion rights

  Voters have spoken out on some of their biggest concerns they think US is facing with democracy and the economy coming out on top, according to an NBC exit poll.

  Democracy ranked as the most important issue for Americans with 35 per cent of voters saying it was their top worry.

  The current state of the economy come in as a close second with 31 per cent of people raising concerns.

  Other major talking points from the exit polls included two very divisive topics on abortion and immigration.

  Abortion was picked as the biggest issue by 14 per cent of voters on average but only eight per cent of men listed it as a concern.

  Compared to 19 per cent of women.

  Just four per cent of voters named foreign policy as their most important issue. 

  Trump fans made it clear they were most anxious about the economy and then immigration and democracy.

  However Harris supporters felt stronger about the issues of democracy, abortion and then the economy.

• Multiple states have announced extended voting times

  A pair of polling stations in Georgia’s Gwinnett County are set to remain open for an extra hour tonight to allow more people to vote, according to a court order.

  Another two voting precincts in Cobb County, Georgia have also been granted permission to stay open late due to delays in opening times.

  North Carolina’s elections board have also held an emergency meeting in order to allow for two voting precincts to be open for longer.

  One in Burke County and another in Wilson County will now close at 8 pm ET – half an hour earlier than originally planned.

  State election board spokesperson Patrick Gannon said “printer issues” were to blame for delays earlier today.

  Voting has also been extended by 90 minutes in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania – a pivotal swing state in the election.

  Officials say it is due to the late opening of polling stations.

• Jill Biden casts her vote in Delaware

  First Lady Jill Biden has cast her vote at a local polling station in Delaware.

  Social media users are going wild after she was captured wearing a red outfit outside the station.

  “That’s an interesting suit color choice, Jill,” one user commented on X/Twitter.

  “Biden voted Republican for the first time,” joked another person.

  “Is this a sign,” wrote a third user.

  

• President Joe Biden not to be with Kamala Harris on Election Night

  Sitting US President Joe Biden is not expected to attend his Vice President Kamala Harris’ watch party in Washington tonight.

  The Democrat duo of Harris and Tim Walz are going to watch the election unfold from Harris’ former university in Washington.

  After several gruelling months on the campaign trail Harris is due to attend a watch party at Howard University as the results begin to flood in.

  The current VP is remaining confident that she will defeat Donald Trump at the polls and has declared tonight a “full circle moment”.

  But a US official has told NBC News that the president and first lady Jill will watch the results from the White House with long-time aides and senior staff.

  Biden dropped out of the race in the summer as he backed Harris to go on and defeat Trump.

  

• Elon Musk has been seen placing his vote in Texas

  Billionaire Elon Musk has posted a snap of him outside a polling station in Cameron County, Texas moments after he voted in the 2024 presidential election.

  Musk is expected to have stayed loyal to his pal Donald Trump and picked the Republican to win.

  The Tesla CEO is now expected be part of a small group who will await the election results with Trump at the presidential candidate’s Mar-a-Lago beach resort.

  Musk has been a key figure in Trump’s attempt at a second White House term, with the tech billionaire joining the presidential nominee at several campaign stops before November 5.

  The X owner has also given over $118 million to his super PAC backing Trump.

  

  

• Exit poll expected to be released within the hour

  The first exit poll is set to be announced at 5pm ET (10pm UK time).

  Voters are due to get the first real indicator of who has the upper hand between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris once the results are revealed.

  Pollsters have been sat switching between both presidential nominees for weeks with many expecting this election to be one of the closest in decades.

  People will have a close eye on the seven key swing states which are set to have a huge role to play in the final result.

  Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin are all still up for grabs with no clear favourite.

  Currently the polls have Trump ahead in three of the seven states and Harris slightly edging out her political foe in the remaining four.

• Kamala Harris has been seen for the first time on Election Night

  Vice President Kamala Harris has made a surprise visit to the Democratic National Convention headquarters ahead of the first exit polls later tonight.

  Harris has been meeting with her supporters and staff ahead of a tense night as states begin to count up their votes.

  She crashed a phone banking session to thank those helping with her campaign.

  Footage shows the VP on the phone speaking to potential voters at the event.

  In one clip she can be heard reminding someone down the phone that it is “so important that everybody participates” in the election.

  At one point she seemed to be talking to a child who had answered the call.

  Harris was heard saying: “I can’t wait for you to grow 10 more years.”

  She thanked another voter and said it was “so important that everybody participates”.

  Harris departed the room to cheers from volunteers who were working the phone bank.

  

  

  

• National Guard is on standby for the election fallout

  So far 15 states are currently receiving help from National Guard personnel, a spokesperson told CNN today.

  More than 250 people have been mobilised across Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia.

  Over two dozen states are also readying up National Guard troops to be sent to Washington DC if they are needed throughout the next few days, Guard officials have confirmed.

  No official request has been made yet for the troops but government officials are said to be on high alert for any violence.

  Colonel Jean Paul Laurenceau, chief of future operations for the National Guard Bureau, said: “We’re here to support DC with sustainment, lodging, transportation – anything they need to prepare for this mission.”

  Some have been fearing a repeat of the January, 6 riots in 2021 at the US Capitol by Trump admirers.

  Around 25,000 Guard troops from across the US were deployed in Washington to protect Joe Biden‘s inauguration ceremony.

• Viral ‘election fraud’ video spreading online exposed as Russian fake

  A propaganda video alleging election fraud in Arizona was spread by Russian deepfake accounts, US agencies have said.

  It comes amid fears autocratic regimes like Russia and Iran are leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create sow chaos and sway the elections.

  The video, which is understood to have been posted by a pro-Kremlin account on X/Twitter, was viewed over 200,000 times, the BBC reports.

  It shows an unnamed man who claims to be a former aide to Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.

  He goes on to allege that he saw evidence of “massive fraud against Donald Trump”.

  US authorities have dismissed the claims as false.

  The video, which is understood to have been posted by a pro-Kremlin account on X/Twitter, was viewed over 200,000 times, the BBC reports.

  It shows an unnamed man who claims to be a former aide to Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.

  He goes on to allege that he saw evidence of “massive fraud against Donald Trump”.

  Read more about it here.

  

• Man “smelling like fuel” arrested at US Capitol with torch and flare gun

  U.S. Capitol Police on Tuesday arrested a man at the visitors center who smelled like fuel and was carrying a torch and a flare gun, police said in a statement.

  Cops said The Capitol Visitor Center was closed while they were investigating.

  The man was arrested just 2.5 miles away from where Kamala Haris is set to host an event tonight.

  The U.S. Capitol Police will shortly hold a press briefing on the security incident.

  

• Tim Walz arrives in Washington DC for election night

  Democratic vice president hopeful Tim Walz has arrived in Washington DC.

  Kamala Harris and her running mate Walz are set to spend the night at her former university to watch the election unfold.

  Harris is also due to attend a watch party at Howard University as the results begin to flood in.

  She is confident that she will defeat Donald Trump at the polls and has declared tonight a “full circle moment”.