(Bloomberg) -- Vice President Kamala Harris made an Election Day push to win over swing-state 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, did interviews on drive-time radio in battleground states. She told an Atlanta station that 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.”
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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.
“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. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 rose more than 1%, fueled by gains in Nvidia Corp. and Tesla Inc. Treasuries pared some of their earlier losses after a $42 billion auction of 10-year notes drew good demand.
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.
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.
“He’s way out there in another world and if he gets selected, it’s going to be a disaster,” Steve Wyche, 65, said after voting in Roswell, Georgia. A longtime Republican, Wyche said he voted for Harris rather than Trump because “I just want him to go away.”
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 that 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.
In Las Vegas, many voters cast ballots at Allegiant Stadium. Ian Stumbaugh, 46, said securing the border was his top priority followed by the economy, and he voted for Trump.
This is “an election that we definitely want to be a part of,” said Stumbaugh. He said he used to live in California. “My vote didn’t matter over there,” he said.
There are also 67.2 million voters who requested mail-in ballots that they haven’t yet returned. In most states, voters must 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. On Tuesday, the FBI said non-credible bomb threats that appeared to have originated from Russia had been received at polling locations in several states.
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 undocumented 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.
