(Bloomberg) -- Vice President Kamala Harris made an Election Day push to win over Black voters while former President Donald Trump said there would be no violence from his supporters, as Americans streamed to the polls to cast their ballots in one of the tightest races in modern US history.
Anxiety about the outcome of the race — and when the winner will be known — hung over Election Day with at least 83 million people having voted early. Long lines were reported at polling stations in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania but otherwise voting appeared to be going smoothly so far.
Harris, who is looking to become the first woman to lead the US, sought to shore up support among Black voters given polling that indicates Trump has chipped away at a crucial voting bloc. Her focus for Black men “ranges from access to capital to what we need to do for health care, what we need to do for our fathers and our young fathers,” she told an Atlanta radio station in one of a blitz of interviews she had planned. “It’s a full picture.”
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In earlier speeches, the vice president branded Trump a threat to democracy and pledged to protect reproductive freedoms and lower prices for housing and health care. Yet she struggled to define herself in one of the shortest presidential campaigns, after Joe Biden stepped aside in July.
Trump is hoping to capitalize on surveys that widely show Americans trust his ability to steward the economy. He’s vowed to crack down on immigration, promising to deport millions of undocumented migrants and slash taxes. He’s also cast his political opponents as the “enemy from within” — a dark vision that was fueled by a sense of threat after a would-be assassin’s bullet grazed his right ear at a July rally.
A victory would mark an extraordinary political comeback for Trump, who left office in 2021 weeks after a mob of his supporters attacked the US Capitol to reverse his electoral loss. He regained the support of Republicans, some of whom had abandoned him after the Jan. 6 Capitol assault. He was found guilty earlier this year on 34 felony counts linked to a payment to an adult film actress before the 2016 election.
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“I may regret that statement, but I’m hearing we’re doing very well,” Trump told reporters after he voted in Palm Beach, Florida. Addressing concerns of civil unrest once the results are known, Trump said there would be no violence.
‘My supporters are not violent people,” he said. “I certainly don’t want any violence.”
After refusing to concede the 2020 election and earlier accusing Democrats of trying to steal this year’s vote, Trump struck a more slightly more conciliatory tone Tuesday. “If I lose an election — a fair election — I’ll be the first one to acknowledge it,” he said.
US stocks stayed higher Tuesday as Treasuries fell. The S&P 500 rose 1%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 was buoyed by gains in Nvidia Corp. and Tesla Inc. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. strategists said there’s a possibility of a burst of volatility in the aftermath of the election, but also suggested the resilient US economic backdrop would support equities.
Trump planned to hold his election night rally at the convention center in Palm Beach. Harris, who is registered to vote in California, cast her ballot by mail. Her rally was planned for Washington’s Howard University, her alma mater.
Turnout is “very good and very young” in Germantown, a majority Black neighborhood in northwest Philadelphia, according to Veatrice Johnson, a poll worker. “They were coming out the doors this morning, and that was before the place was even open,” Johnson said.
The two candidates offered opposite visions of how to lead in what’s set to become the costliest campaign in US history. Trump promised an amplified version of his playbook-shredding first term, with its emphasis on “America First.” Some of his former White House aides have questioned his fitness for a second term, including his one-time chief of staff John Kelly, who said in the final weeks of the campaign that Trump was a “fascist.”
Harris ran a cautious campaign that saw her reintroduce herself to voters after her 2020 election run. She sought to distinguish herself from Biden without criticizing the president who endorsed her to replace him. Harris has espoused a similar foreign policy doctrine to Biden, who corralled support for Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia. She’s also navigated intra-party angst over Israel’s war against Hamas.
“She has the better plan for the future,” said Tyler Scherrer, 29, a student at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. “I think she’s more qualified for the position and she has more empathy for the people she’s working for.”
While Biden emphasized democracy in his campaign against Trump, Harris leaned on freedom as a way to encompass democracy, women’s reproductive rights and civil rights. She’s promised to expand the child tax credit and make housing more affordable.
With the Republican ticket still refusing to concede Biden won last time, anxiety is running high over the potential for a drawn-out battle and when the next president will be known. Trump made little secret of his party’s plan for legal challenges should Harris win.
“He’s the best person to lead our country right now, and our country really really needs a lot of good strong leadership,” Robert Andrews, 89, said after voting for Trump in Roswell, Georgia. “I don’t think it’s had it in the last four years.”
There are also 67.2 million voters who requested mail-in ballots that they haven’t yet returned. In most states, voters need to return those ballots by the time polls close or cast a vote in person — although 18 states will count mail-in ballots as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day.
The stakes couldn’t be higher globally. The election winner will inherit the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and must face down an increasingly assertive China. The night before Election Day, US intelligence agencies issued an unprecedented statement saying adversaries — with Russia as the “most active threat” — were stepping up a push to undermine confidence in the elections.
There were worrying developments in the waning days of the race when early-voting boxes in Oregon and Washington were set on fire, destroying hundreds of ballots. Recent polling reflected the national mood, with about half of swing-state voters worried about violence surrounding the election, according to a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll from earlier this year.
Voters also voiced fears about misinformation — which were borne out by recent deep-fakes of Harris’ running mate Tim Walz.
It was a campaign of unprecedented vitriol. The candidates — and their vice presidential picks, Walz and Republican JD Vance — spurred supporters on with dark warnings about their rivals winning control of the White House.
Trump cast America as a “garbage can for the world,” a weak nation unable to outfox its rivals and buckling under the weight of illegal immigrants. At a rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden, a comedian opening for the former president called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” while another speaker referred to Harris’ “pimp handlers.”
Yet Vance made a plea for unity after he voted in Cincinnati, Ohio.
“The best way to heal the rift in the country is to try to govern the country as well as we can create as much prosperity as we can for the American people, and remind our fellow Americans that we are all fundamentally on the same team,” Vance said.
--With assistance from Gregory Korte, Stephanie Lai, Ted Mann, Michael Sasso and Mark Niquette.
(Updates with comments from Harris and Trump, additional details.)
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