Trump or Harris? Voters near a final decision in historic presidential election

3

It is election day, at last.

Millions of Americans will cast their ballots Tuesday for Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Trump, capping an extraordinary campaign that will make history either way by sending either the first woman or the first convicted felon to the White House.

Polls will be open in California from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The presidential race likely will be determined by seven closely watched battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The election also will determine which party controls both houses of Congress — which, in turn, will greatly affect how much the newly elected president will be able to carry out his or her agenda. California is home to at least half a dozen highly competitive House races, making the state a consequential battleground for downballot races this year.

It is possible the winner of the presidential election might not be known on election night. In 2020, the race was called four days later, then became the subject of numerous lawsuits and a torrent of lies from Trump and his allies, who falsely claimed the election had been stolen.

Nationwide, more than 78 million people nationwide have voted early, with many standing in line for hours to cast their ballots in a presidential race that, polls have shown, is a dead heat.

To become president, a candidate must win 270 electoral votes. The electoral college is made up of 538 electors — one for every representative and senator in Congress, plus three for the District of Columbia.

Harris enters election day presumed to capture 226 votes from Democratic-leaning states, according to the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper. Trump is expected to win 219 from red states.

There are 93 electoral votes from seven swing states that are up for grabs.

The stakes could hardly be higher.

Harris has cast Trump as a dangerous, revenge-seeking tyrant who would use the military against American citizens who disagree with him, help only the wealthy and his “billionaire donors,” and threaten the lives of women by further eroding their rights to abortion and other medical care.

“America, this is not a candidate for president who is thinking about how to make your life better,” Harris said of Trump in a speech near the National Mall in Washington, D.C., last week. “This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance and out for unchecked power.”

Trump also has tried to portray his opponent as an extremist — calling her “a Marxist” and “a fascist” — and has blasted her for inflation and the high cost of groceries over the last four years. He has accused her of allowing an “invasion” of violent criminal migrants into the country and falsely asserted that she would push for open borders if elected.

“Kamala Harris is a train wreck who has destroyed everything in her path,” Trump said in a speech at Madison Square Garden in New York City last week. “To make her president would be a gamble with the lives of millions and millions of people. She would get us into World War III.”

Election day marks the end of a head-spinning campaign that, for Harris, began in July after President Biden, 81, dropped out of the race following a disastrous debate performance in which he struggled to complete sentences and did not push back on Trump’s falsehoods.

Harris, riding a wave of enthusiasm from Democrats who had grown concerned about Biden’s age and mental acuity, initially surged in the polls. She and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, framed their campaign as one that would bring joy back to America’s bitter politics.

The California-born Harris — the country’s first female, first Black and first Asian American vice president — has already secured her place in history as a first many times during her career.

A former prosecutor, she served as San Francisco’s first female district attorney, California’s first female attorney general, and the second Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate.

After her exuberant entrance into the presidential race, Harris’ campaign of joy gave way to warning, with the vice president saying Trump was a threat to American democracy and that he would have few guardrails after the U.S. Supreme Court decision this summer that he was entitled to substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts in office.

Harris frequently campaigned with Republicans disaffected with Trump, including former Rep. Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Trump repeatedly tried to delegitimize Harris’ candidacy, falsely describing Biden’s voluntary decision to quit the race as an illegal “coup” carried out by Democrats.

Trump survived two assassination attempts during the 2024 campaign.

During a July rally in Butler, Pa., a rooftop gunman clipped Trump in the right ear and killed an attendee. Flanked by Secret Service agents, the bloodied former president pumped his fist and said “fight” three times before being whisked away.

At the Republican National Convention days later, Trump was hailed as a martyr, with attendees wearing bandages over their ears in solidarity with him. Biden was still in the race, the GOP appeared unified behind their candidate, and Trump’s victory seemed, to many, all but inevitable.

But just three days after Trump accepted his party’s nomination, the race was upended yet again when Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris.

A second assassination attempt came in September, while Trump was golfing at his club in Florida. A Secret Service agent fired shots at a man with a gun who had hidden himself in foliage less near the former president. Trump was not injured.

Trump’s return to the top of the Republican ticket marks an extraordinary political comeback after he lost to Biden in 2020, attempted to overturn the election results, and left Washington in disgrace after his most ardent supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on his behalf during the deadly insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

Earlier this year, the twice-impeached former president was convicted of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, the porn actress who said she had sex with Trump, who was married.

Last month, Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, warned that his former boss fit the “definition of fascist,” that he lacks empathy, and that he had made admiring statements about Adolf Hitler. Soon afterward, Harris began blatantly calling Trump a fascist.

Trump, who has dubbed his opponent “Comrade Kamala,” has called Harris “mentally disabled” and a “low-IQ individual.” He has questioned the Black identity of Harris, the biracial daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, falsely accusing her of shifting her racial and ethnic identity over time.