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US Election 2020 latest updates: Donald Trump, Joe Biden watch as voters decide who wins White House seat
US Elections 2020 Result Live updates: While Republican candidate and current incumbent Donald Trump is seeking a return to office for a second term, his challenger and Democrat leader Joe Biden has campaigned aggressively to grab the White House for himself.
A spectacle of global significance is taking place in the United States of America and is being keenly watched across the world. The Americans have started queuing up to vote for the next President.
While Republican candidate and current incumbent Donald Trump is seeking a return to office for a second term, his challenger and Democrat leader Joe Biden has campaigned aggressively to grab the White House for himself.
Almost 100 million American voters have already cast votes - nearly doubling the total from 2016. Another 60 million are likely to vote in person on Tuesday. On their final full day on the campaign trail, Trump and Biden broke sharply over the mechanics of the vote itself while visiting the most fiercely contested battleground, Pennsylvania.
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Here are all the latest updates on US Election 2020:
00:04 am: Early voting passes 100 million ballots, 73% of 2016 turnout
More than 100 million Americans have cast their ballots ahead of Election Day, the equivalent of about three-quarters of all the voters in the 2016 election, the U.S. Elections Project reported Tuesday.
With one day to go before Election Day, the number of early votes this cycle -- at least 100.8 million -- is about 73% of the 137.5 million ballots cast in the 2016 election as a whole, and more than double the 47 million early votes.
23:50 pm: US ‘entitled to know’ winner on election day: Donald Trump
US president Donald Trump says the country is “entitled to know winner on election day” as America vote, according to a report in AFP.
23:38 pm: Kamala Harris’s Husband Rallies Supporters in Ohio
“We are a nation in pain,” Douglas Emhoff, husband of Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris, told supporters at a noon rally in Columbus, Ohio.
He also had a message for Donald Trump.
“Don’t mess with the mail, don’t mess with your vote and don’t talk about staying in office when you get voted out,” Emhoff told a socially distanced crowd of about 50 gathered in the beer garden of Land Grant, a popular Columbus microbrewery. “People are sick and tired of it.”
23:19 pm: US presidential race reaches climax; long lines seen outside polling stations
Americans were voting in large numbers across the nation on Tuesday in one of the most divisive and bitter presidential elections in decades in which incumbent Republican Donald Trump is challenged by Democrat Joe Biden.
Amidst a resurgent Covid-19 pandemic, over 100 million people have already cast their ballots in early voting, putting the country on course for its highest turnout in a century. Some 239 million people are eligible to vote this year, according to a report in PTI.
23:00 pm: ‘Vote and get home,’ anxious voters say on Election Day
Many Americans who lined up before dawn to vote on Election Day in the US are exhausted from constant crises, uneasy because of volatile political divisions and anxious about what will happen next, Like those who cast ballots early, their agony is not in deciding between President Donald Trump or his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden. Most made that choice long ago, news agency AP reported.
Instead, those voting in record numbers say basic democratic foundations feel suddenly brittle: Will their vote count? Will the loser accept the result? Will the winner find a way to repair a fractured, sick and unsettled nation?
22:45 pm: Anxious Americans show up for an election like no other
Across the country, Americans formed lines at polling stations to make their voice heard in an election unlike any before in the United States. Polls opened with the country shaken from the coronavirus pandemic, waves of protests over police killings of minorities and President Donald Trump’s efforts to sow doubt over the counting of votes.
22:29 pm: Biden visits childhood home
“From this house to the White House, with the grace of God,” Joe Bide, the Democratic nominee, wrote on a wall of his childhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania Tuesday.
Biden, who voted early, took his grandchildren to his Scranton, where his family had lived before moving to the adjoining state of Delaware, which has been home since.
Biden began the day with a visit to the church and then to the grave of his elder son, Beau Biden, who died in 2015 of brain cancer.
“I watch ya all the time,” Anne Kearns, the present occupant of the house told Biden. “I’m so proud of you.” Biden introduced his granddaughters briefly before saying they hadn’t been to Scranton before.
They went inside as Biden said he wanted to look at the kitchen. “I’m told from a person familiar with the house that the kitchen hasn’t been remodeled or anything.”
22:22 pm: Will declare a victory only when there’s a victory, says Trump
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would declare victory in the presidential elections “only when there is a victory”.
“There’s no reason to play games. I look at it as being a very, very solid chance of winning here. I don’t know how they rate the chances,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends” during a morning phone interview, as quoted by CNN and added, “I think a lot of that has to do with the tremendous crowd size.”
22:17 pm: Melania Trump votes
The First Lady Melania Trump cast her vote at Palm Beach in Florida, the family’s adoptive home, on Tuesday.
She was feeling “great”, she told reporters and when asked why she did not vote with her husband last week, she said, “It’s Election Day, so I wanted to come here to vote today for the election.”
The first lady, who had contracted Covid-19 as did her husband and their son, and has recovered since, wore no mask.
22:05 pm: Democrats push to extend control of House for two more years
Democrats pushed to seal control of the House for two more years Tuesday as they banked on their health care focus, dominant fundraising and broad suburban indignation with President Donald Trump to make their majority in the chamber even larger.
Republicans were hoping to oust some of the 29 Democrats in districts Trump won in 2016, mostly freshmen, in places like Iowa, Oklahoma City, Salt Lake City, rural New Mexico, upstate New York and Virginia.
22:14 pm: More than 100 million voted early in US election, AFP reports quoting watchdog
More than 100 million Americans cast their ballots in advance of Tuesday’s Election Day, according to the US Elections Project watchdog, a record figure largely attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The ballots, which were mailed in, deposited in drop boxes or cast at polling stations ahead of Tuesday, represent more than 72 percent of the total number of ballots cast in the 2016 presidential election, according to the tally by the watchdog based at the University of Florida.
21:56 pm: Facebook vows vigilance on Election Day misinformation efforts
Facebook pledged real-time monitoring of Election Day misinformation and manipulation efforts as voters began in-person balloting across the United States Tuesday. Along with other social platforms, the company has promised to stem misinformation around the election, including premature claims of victory, seeking to avoid a repeat of 2016 manipulation efforts.
21:30 pm: ‘Vote and get home,’ anxious voters say on Election Day
Americans voting on Election Day are exhausted from constant crises, uneasy because of volatile political divisions and anxious about what will happen next. Like those who cast ballots early, their agony is not in deciding between President Donald Trump or his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden. Most made that choice long ago.
21:14 pm: Top US security official urges patience over vote count
Donald Trump’s top domestic security official urged voters Tuesday to be patient in waiting for election results after reports that the president could rush to claim victory.
“Voters should be patient while waiting for the outcome of this year’s election,” said Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of homeland security.
21.00 pm: Biden, Harris will build a better future for all of us, says Bill Clinton
Former United States President Bill Clinton along with wife and former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton cast their ballots for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Bill through a tweet said that Biden and Harris will work tirelessly to heal our divisions and build a better future for all of us.
20:48 pm: Democrats push to extend control of House for two more years
Democrats pushed to seal control of the House for two more years Tuesday as they banked on their health care focus, dominant fundraising and broad suburban indignation with President Donald Trump to make their majority in the chamber even larger.
Nearly all Democratic incumbents in potentially vulnerable districts were outspending their GOP challengers, often by vast margins
20:08 pm: US stocks open higher in Election Day session, Dow +1.2%
Wall Street stocks rose early Tuesday, extending gains from the prior session, as voters headed to the polls in the culmination of a long and bitter US presidential campaign.
Shortly after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 27,251.58, up 1.2 percent.
The broad-based S&P 500 gained 1.0 percent to 3,342.33, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 0.7 percent to 11,035.54.
19:55 pm: America on edge as nation decides between Trump and Biden
Americans were voting on Tuesday under the shadow of a surging coronavirus pandemic to decide whether to reelect Republican Donald Trump, one of the most polarizing presidents in US history, or send Democrat Joe Biden to the White House.
A record-breaking number of early votes -- some 100 million -- have already been cast in an election that has the country on edge and is being closely watched in capitals around the world.
19:49 pm: ‘Vote like our lives depend on it, because they do’: Kamala Harris
19:36 pm: Trump says big rally crowds are ‘ultimate poll’
President Donald Trump says he believes his large rally crowds during his fast-paced weeks of campaigning are the “ultimate poll” and translate into a lot of votes for his reelection.
Trump told Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday he will spend Election Day making phone calls to people who have been loyal to him and will go to his campaign headquarters in suburban Virginia to thank the staff.
Trump said he would declare himself the winner of the election “Only when there’s victory.” There has been concern that Trump will declare victory early -- before vote counts are definitive.
19:20 pm: Biden begins Election Day visiting son’s grave
Joe Biden has started Election Day with a visit to church — and the grave of his late son, Beau.
Biden and his wife, Jill, made an early morning stop at St. Joseph’s on the Brandywine in Wilmington, Delaware, the church he typically visits on Sunday when home. Biden had granddaughters Finnegan and Natalie in tow Tuesday.
19:13 pm: Nation by nation, the world watches Election Day in the US
For countries around the planet, the presidency of Donald Trump in its first term has been, it is safe to say, a singular experience to watch. Now that an inflection point in Trump’s time in office is at hand with Tuesday’s US election, what’s at stake if his presidency ends — or if it continues? Nation by nation, how is Election Day in the United States being watched, considered, assessed?
19:01 pm: Election Day shadowed by threats of legal challenges
Even before Election Day, the 2020 race was the most litigated in memory. President Donald Trump is promising more to come.
The candidates and parties have enlisted prominent lawyers with ties to Democratic and Republican administrations should that litigation take on a new urgency if a narrow margin in a battleground state becomes the difference between another four years for Trump or a Joe Biden administration.
18:54 pm: Vice-president nominee Kamala Harris urges people to go out and vote
18:48 pm: Vote for a new day in America, tweets Joe Biden
18:34 pm: Trump ‘army’ of poll watchers led by veteran of fraud claims
A veteran Republican operative who got his start in politics by helping to persuade a judge to throw out hundreds of mail-in ballots is organizing an “army” of volunteers for President Donald Trump’s campaign to monitor voting in Democratic-leaning areas on Tuesday.
