Election Day is fast approaching. In just a few hours, the final votes in the 2024 presidential election will be cast to choose between Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump to lead the United States for the next four years.
Donald Trump is likely to spend the early hours of Election Day 2024 in Michigan, according to AP, where he is expected to hold a rally from midnight to dawn in Grand Rapids.
The Republican nominee plans to spend the rest of the day in Florida, where he plans to vote in person, despite previously announcing he would vote early. The former president also plans to host an election day watch party in Palm Beach on the evening of November 5.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris plans to attend an election event at Howard University in Washington, a historically black college where she earned a degree in economics and political science in 1986 and is an active member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
Kamala Harris has no public schedule for Election Day other than Howard University. On November 3, the US Vice President said that she had just filled out her mail-in ballot for the US president and that it was “on its way to California”.
According to AP, so far, more than 77 million voters have participated in early voting, either in person or by mail.
With all the complex developments of recent months, this election is historic. If elected, Ms. Harris will become the first female president in the 248-year history of the United States. She will also be the first woman of color and the first person of South Asian descent to hold the position.
US Election Day is now often considered election week because each state has its own rules and practices for counting votes, not to mention legal challenges, which can delay results.
AP emphasized that, in fact, no one knows how long it will take for the winner of the 2024 US presidential election to be announced.
In the 2020 election, the AP called Joe Biden the winner four days after Election Day. In fact, the AP called Trump the winner in North Carolina 10 days after Election Day and Biden the winner in Georgia 16 days after Election Day after the manual recount was completed.
Four years earlier, the 2016 US presidential election was decided just hours after most of the polls had closed, with the AP declaring Mr Trump the winner at 2:29 a.m. the day after Election Day.
In the 2024 US presidential election, experts say that if there are no sudden changes, 7 battleground states will decide the outcome of this year's US presidential election, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
However, the size of the states and the gap in support between the two candidates in US election polls before Election Day mean that the timing of the announcement of the winner will be difficult to predict.
