A sharply divided America decides between Trump and Harris
WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided America weighed a stark choice for the nation’s future Tuesday as a presidential campaign marked by upheaval and rancor approached its finale.
Voters were deciding whether to send Republican Donald Trump back to the White House or elevate Vice President Kamala Harris to the Oval Office. With just hours until polls closed, tens of millions of Americans added their ballots to the 84 million cast early as they chose between two candidates with drastically different temperaments and visions for the country.
Voters said the economy and immigration are the top issues facing the country, but the future of democracy was also a leading motivator for many Americans casting a ballot in Tuesday’s presidential election. AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide, found a country mired in negativity and desperate for change.
Those casting Election Day ballots mostly encountered a smooth process, with isolated reports of hiccups that regularly happen, including long lines, technical issues and ballot printing errors.
Harris 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.
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The Latest: Polls begin to close in some counties as Americans cast ballots in historic election
Election Day is here. Voters are gearing up to head to the polls to cast their ballots for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in one of the nation’s most historic presidential races. They'll also be determining which party will control the House and Senate.
Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
Here’s the latest:
Election officials in Milwaukee are recounting more than 30,000 absentee ballots because doors on the ballot tabulators were not properly sealed.
The recounting was being done “out of an abundance of caution,” said Melissa Howard, spokesperson for the Milwaukee Election Commission.
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AP VoteCast: Economy ranked as a top issue, but concerns over democracy drove many voters to polls
WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters said the economy and immigration are the top issues facing the country, but the future of democracy was also a leading motivator for many Americans casting a ballot in Tuesday’s presidential election.
AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide, found a country mired in negativity and desperate for change as Americans faced a stark choice between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump, the Republican, sought to define the election as a referendum on the Biden-Harris administration and blamed it for inflation and illegal crossings at the U.S. border with Mexico. Harris, the Democrat, tried to brand herself as being more focused on the future and described Trump as old, tired and a threat to the Constitution.
About 4 in 10 voters considered the economy and jobs to be the most important problem facing the country, as frustration with inflation spiking in 2022 lingered in the form of higher grocery, housing and gasoline costs. Roughly 2 in 10 voters said the top issue is immigration, and about 1 in 10 picked abortion.
But when asked what most influenced their vote, about half of voters identified the future of democracy as the single most important factor. That was higher than the share who answered the same way about inflation, the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border, abortion policy or free speech.
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Voting period marked by massive early turnout ends with few problems, generally smooth Election Day
WASHINGTON (AP) — After an election season marked by concerns over disinformation, foreign influence and worrisome threats to election workers and voting systems, Election Day unfolded relatively smoothly nationwide with only scattered disruptions and delays.
Leading into Tuesday, more than 82 million Americans had already cast their ballots in a largely successful early voting period with high turnout despite some hiccups and frustrations in the presidential battleground of Pennsylvania.
And when the final day of voting came, the problems that cropped up were “largely expected routine and planned-for events,” said Cait Conley, senior adviser to the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. She said the agency was not currently tracking any national, significant incidents impacting election security.
Issues affecting voters on Tuesday included typical election mishaps, from a worker forgetting a key in Arizona's largest county to an election judge failing to show up at the polls in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County. Some precincts around the country faced issues with voter check-in processes and e-pollbooks, causing some delays for voters trying to cast ballots. Some areas had ballot printing mistakes and were printing new ballots and extending voting hours accordingly. Extreme weather across the midsection of the country also caused flooding and some other isolated problems, including knocking out power for at least one Missouri polling place that resorted to a generator to keep voting up and running.
Still, in various states affected by rain, voters enthusiastically huddled under umbrellas as they lined up to cast their ballots, not deterred in a presidential election that many U.S. voters view as crucially important to the future of U.S. democracy.
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Voters deciding dozens of ballot measures affecting life, death, taxes and more
While electing officials to make and enforce laws, voters in dozens of states are also deciding on more than 140 ballot proposals affecting the way people legally live, work and die.
As 10 states consider measures related to abortion or reproductive rights on Tuesday's ballots, about a half-dozen states are weighing the legalization of marijuana for either recreational or medical use. About two dozen measures are focused on future elections, including several specifically barring noncitizens voting. Other state measures affect wages, taxes, housing and education.
Many of the ballot measures were initiated by citizen petitions that sidestep state legislatures, though others were placed before voters by lawmakers.
Voters in Florida, North Dakota and South Dakota are deciding whether to legalize recreational marijuana for adults. The election marks the third vote on the issue in both North Dakota and South Dakota. In Nebraska, voters are considering a pair of measures that would legalize medical marijuana and regulate the industry.
About half the states currently allow recreational marijuana and about a dozen more allow medical marijuana. Possessing or selling marijuana remains a crime under federal law, punishable by prison time and fines.
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Control of Congress is at stake and with it a president's agenda
WASHINGTON (AP) — Control of Congress is at stake Tuesday, with ever-tight races for the House and Senate that will determine which party holds the majority and the power to boost or block a president’s agenda, or if the White House confronts a divided Capitol Hill.
The key contests are playing out alongside the first presidential election since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, but also in unexpected corners of the country after what has been one of the most chaotic congressional sessions in modern times.
In the end, just a handful of seats, or as little as one, could tip the balance in either chamber.
Voters said the economy and immigration were the top issues facing the country, but the future of democracy was also a leading motivator for many Americans casting ballots in the presidential election.
AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide, found a country mired in negativity and desperate for change as Americans faced a stark choice between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
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When polls close in battleground states on Election Day
WASHINGTON (AP) — The results on Election Day will come down to seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have visited them the most. Together, these states are likely to deliver the Electoral College votes needed for the winning candidate to get a majority of 270.
It will be a game of hopscotch to keep up with key times in each of the states, which stretch across four different time zones.
A look at the Election Day timeline across the seven, with all listings in Eastern Standard Time:
Polls opened at 8 a.m. in Arizona, which Joe Biden carried in 2020 by 0.3%. He was only the second Democratic presidential candidate to do so in nearly 70 years. Polls will close at 9 p.m.
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Israel's Netanyahu dismisses his defense minister as wars rage. Protests erupt across country
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday dismissed his popular defense minister, Yoav Gallant, in a surprise announcement that came as the country is embroiled in wars on multiple fronts across the region. The move sparked protests across the country, including a mass gathering that paralyzed central Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu and Gallant have repeatedly been at odds over the war in Gaza. But Netanyahu had avoided firing his rival before taking the step as the world's attention was focused on the U.S. presidential election. Netanyahu cited “significant gaps” and a “crisis of trust" in his Tuesday evening announcement as he replaced Gallant with a longtime loyalist.
“In the midst of a war, more than ever, full trust is required between the prime minister and defense minister,” Netanyahu said. “Unfortunately, although in the first months of the campaign there was such trust and there was very fruitful work, during the last months this trust cracked between me and the defense minister.”
In the early days of the war, Israel's leadership presented a unified front as it responded to Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack. But as the war has dragged on and spread to Lebanon, key policy differences have emerged.
While Netanyahu has called for continued military pressure on Hamas, Gallant had taken a more pragmatic approach, saying that military force has created the necessary conditions for at least a temporary diplomatic deal that could bring home hostages held by the militant group.
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'Fat Leonard,' Navy contractor behind one of the military's biggest scandals, sentenced to 15 years
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Former military defense contractor Leonard “Fat Leonard” Francis was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison for masterminding a decade-long bribery scheme that swept up dozens of U.S. Navy officers, federal prosecutors said.
U.S. District Judge Janis L. Sammartino also ordered Francis to pay $20 million in restitution to the Navy and a $150,000 fine, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office. He was also ordered to forfeit $35 million in “ill-gotten proceeds from his crimes,” the statement said.
Prosecutors said the sentence resulted from Francis' first guilty plea in 2015 concerning bribery and fraud, his extensive cooperation with the government since then and another guilty plea Tuesday for failing to appear for his original sentencing hearing in 2022.
Shortly before he was due to be sentenced in September 2022, Francis cut off a GPS monitor he was wearing while under house arrest and fled the country. He was later arrested in Venezuela and brought back to the U.S. in December 2023.
Sammartino sentenced him to more than 13 1/2 years for the bribery and fraud charges, plus 16 months for failing to appear. The sentences are to be served consecutively.
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A week after Spain's floods, families hope that the missing are alive with 89 unaccounted for
SEDAVI, Spain (AP) — Francisco Murgui went out to try to salvage his motorbike when the water started to rise.
He never came back.
One week after catastrophic flooding devastated eastern Spain, María Murgui still holds out hope that her missing father is alive.
“He was like many people in town who went out to get their car or motorbike to safety,” the 27-year-old told The Associated Press. “The flash flood caught him outside, and he had to cling to a tree in order to escape drowning. He called us to tell us he was fine, that we shouldn’t worry.”
But when María set out into the streets of Sedaví to try to rescue him from the water washing away everything in its path, he was nowhere to be found.
The Associated Press
