Donald Trump, Kamala Harris battle for White House as first polls close on Election Day

In the Indiana governor’s race, Republican Mike Braun has a lead against Democrat Jennifer McCormick. There isn’t enough data to make a call. And in Vermont, Republican Phil Scott will win a fifth term.

First lady Jill Biden casts her vote on Election Day

A social media fire storm erupted after first lady Jill Biden was spotted wearing a GOP-colored pantsuit to cast her ballot on Election Day.

The Republican Party is typically identified with the color red, and the color is even used to indicate which states support former President Trump when election coverage features maps on television.

"Jill Biden is wearing the GOP's shade of red to cast her vote. Joe Biden is skipping the Kamala Harris watch party. Do the math," conservative influencer Ian Miles Cheong posted on X.

Many took to X to mock that the first lady voted for Trump, as there has been speculation the Bidens are not thrilled with the way the president was forced to end his re-election bid.

"Jill wore all red to vote. As the wife of a democrat politician, there’s no way she doesn’t know how this looks. Biden and Jill are pissed," one user responded on X.

This is an excerpt from an article written by Fox News' Brian Flood

Citizens cast their votes for presidential and congressional elections in Atlanta, Georgia on November 5, 2024. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The polls have closed across several states, including Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Virginia and Vermont, at 7 p.m. ET, as some of the first Election Day results come in.

All eyes will be on Georgia, which is one of a handful of swing states where former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have been courting voters during the campaign.

President Biden narrowly won the state in 2020 by less than 12,000 votes, flipping it blue for the first time in decades. Trump beat Hillary Clinton there in 2016.

This year, the state has broken records in early turnout.

Indiana, Kentucky and South Carolina usually go Republican, while Vermont and Virginia lean Democratic.

Polls in other swing states such as North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada will close over the next few hours.

Fox News co-anchor Sandra Smith broke down state-to-state approval ratings related to the 2024 election on "The Five" Tuesday.

The issues that Americans were polled on ranged from FEMA to abortion access to the state of the U.S. economy.

Voters were also asked about their family's financial situations, their opinions of asylum seekers and what they thought the direction of the U.S. is.

Fox News

Immigration is one of the top issues across the country. When asked about reducing the number of immigrants allowed to seek asylum in the U.S., twice as many favor reducing the number of immigrants allowed to do so.

- Fox News Polling Unit

With the first polls closing across the country, results are starting to come in and critics of Donald Trump are already having meltdowns.

Several are pushing “insane Doomsday scenarios” even suggesting that Trump could ban historians from banning books.

One of the hosts pointed out that Nicole Wallace, of MSNBC, having one of the biggest meltdowns on Vice President potential JD Vance.

“JD Vance, you just effed up in way that I’ve never seen in my political life and I worked for Sarah Palin,” Wallace said.

The cast recounted the last election and if the Democrats would continue their divisive rhetoric and react as they did in 2016.

“MSNBC is going to be a psych ward,” co-host Jesse Watters predicted.

Many businesses have boarded up their businesses in anticipation of the results.

POLITICS

Fox News Voter Analysis: Is this a change election? Top issues and mood of the nation as voters weigh in

As the nation waits for the election results, voters way in on the issues facing the country and which candidate will being the change they are looking for.

As the nation waits for election results, voters weigh in on the issues and whether former president Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris will bring the kind of change they are looking for. Because it appears change is very much what they want.

Economic concerns and worries about the future are major considerations as voters make their choice in this year’s election. 

Preliminary data from the Fox News Voter Analysis, a survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide provide an early look at the mood of voters as they cast their ballots.   

This year, more voters headed to the polls believing the country was on the wrong track (70%) than in 2020 (60%).  And voters across the country are seeking something different: most want a change in how the country is run, with a quarter (26%) seeking complete and total upheaval. 

This is an excerpt of an article by the Fox News Polling Unit.

Dr. Ben Carson said he was glad to see many Americans going out to vote, saying the United States was at a "crossroads."

"I think they recognize that we're at a crossroads. Which way are we going to go?" Carson asked Neil Cavuto on "Your World Cavuto." "Are we going to be a country that is of, by and for the people or of, by and for the government?"

"And our founders knew that we would come to this point because they studied every government that ever existed and they see that no matter how righteous they are when they start, they grow, they infiltrate and they dominate," he added.

Carson also stressed the need for governments to address health issues among its citizens as well as the consumption of processed foods.

"We do need to talk about it. We're falling behind alot of the the other countries in the world who do take a more proactive stance when it comes to health," he said while praising Robert Kennedy Jr., for raising various health-related issues that need to be addressed.

"I'm glad RFK is sounding the alarm," Carson said.

Fox News

On a personal level, what do voters across the country think about their family’s financial situation?

A majority say they’re holding steady. But just about 1-in-10 say they’re getting ahead, while three times that say they are falling behind. That’s 13 points worse than four years ago.

- Fox News Polling Unit

People cast their votes during Election Day at TC Roberson High School, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024 in Asheville, N.C. AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek

Several battleground states extended the hours of polling sites on Tuesday, citing unexpected wait times, technical issues, and other issues for voters in key precincts. 

Here's a rundown of the states and precincts impacted so far. 

In Pennsylvania, where state polling locations are scheduled to close at 8 p.m. voters saw extensions in Luzerne County, where local election officials said residents will have until 9:30 p.m. to cast their ballots.

Georgia also announced an extension for voters in the Atlanta-area precincts of Cobb County, Fulton County, and Gwinnett County.

In North Carolina, state election officials extended voting hours by 30 minutes in the precincts of Burke County and Wilson County. Voters there will have until 8 p.m. to cast their ballots — longer than the 7:30 p.m. deadline in the rest of the state.

Could tonight deliver a populist surprise, part II? That's the subject of the riff. As we talked about last night, all the ace pollsters could be missing a number of built-in advantages for former President Donald Trump : a big voter registration shift favoring Republicans in more than thirty states, and a big GOP early voting turnout. Both are completely unlike 2020.

Here's a quick example from the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania. In 2020, Democrats had a 1.1 million advantage in early voting ballot. This year, that margin has been cut down to only 400,000. Staying in Pennsylvania, party registration favored Democrats by 1.2 million during the Obama years and 686,000 in 2020. Now, in 2024, that registration margin has been cut down to only 281,000.

What's more, the GOP is basically keeping its gains. In recent years, 203,000 Democrats switched to the Republican column, but only 97,000 Republicans switched to the Democratic column. Big hat-tip to James Freeman's Wall Street Journal column. So, have pollsters picked up on this? Kinda don't think so.

The Democratic slump in early voting spans across all the swing states. The Republican advantage in registration covers over thirty states throughout the country. Not only are these trends a function of better GOP political management of the election machinery, but they also reflect how much Mr. Trump has widened his working-class coalition.

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the Nov. 5, 2024, edition of "Kudlow."

Elon Musk speaks before former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27 in New York City. (AP/Evan Vucci)

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk will spend election night with former President Donald Trump in Florida, sources with knowledge confirmed to Fox News Digital. 

The New York Times first reported the news, citing two people familiar with Musk’s schedule, that Musk will be among a small group of people watching the election results with Trump as they come in. 

Trump later in the evening will host a larger audience at the Palm Beach County Convention Center. 

The former president has already cast his ballot Tuesday in Palm Beach, Fla., where his Mar-a-Lago residence is located. 

Musk, following the first assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pa., in July, wrote on X "I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery."

Musk has since campaigned for Trump heading into Election Day.

Fox News Digital's Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump visits his campaign headquarters, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Some U.S. embassies in Europe are ditching the usual festivities that come with election watch parties over another possible victory for former President Trump.

Politico reported that embassies in Brussels to London, Paris and Berlin have decided against holding their usual watch parties.

“I don’t think there was appetite to watch another Trump victory,” said a senior diplomat based in Europe, adding that the 2016 embassy events had been “calamitous.”

Most of the State Department’s top envoys around the world are political appointees and allies or donors of the sitting president, in this case, President Biden.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in London told the news outlet that it “appreciates the long-standing energy and excitement around U.S. presidential elections which have been carried out over nearly 250 years of democracy.”

However, “election day does not end on election night. Time may be required to count votes and let the electoral process work.” 

Voters line up to cast their ballots at the Highview Baptist Church East Campus in Louisville, Ky., Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

Polls in Kentucky and certain parts of Indiana have officially closed as of 6 p.m. ET.

The Indiana polling locations that are in the Eastern Standard Time Zone have officially wrapped up, but the 12 Indiana counties that are in the Central Time Zone are open until 7 p.m. ET.

The states are the first in the country to close their polls on Election Day 2024. Both Indiana and Kentucky are considered red states.

“We’re seeing such optimism in terms of our camp,” Trump 2024 senior adviser Alina Habba  told Martha MacCallum as voting was underway on Election Day, adding the Trump campaign is “leading in the polls right now” but that everyone needs to get out to vote.

Habba said the campaign has also targeted younger men strategically for the first time with media appearances on podcasts, etc.

“He’s the kind of guy who could speak to anybody, unlike Kamala, which is why we’re doing so well and we’re seeing such a good turnout.”

She added that while turnout with women is high, “they are voting because we have been given more rights. We are being protected now. We are getting a choice to vote, to say what we want with our bodies. That is what President Trump did and this fearmongering as you just saw with Sen. [Mark] Kelley is the concern with the radical left and that narrative, it’s damaging and it’s frankly untrue.”

Republican National Convention Chair Michael Whatley told “America Reports” on Tuesday that Republicans are going to have “a very good night” on Election Day.

Whatley was a guest on the Fox News Channel show, when host John Roberts asked how Republicans are feeling going into Election Day.

“We feel pretty bullish,” Whatley said. “You know, what we saw during the early vote and absentee vote period over the last several weeks was a great turnout for Republicans. President Trump had pushed very aggressively this year to get Republicans to embrace early voting absentee vote, and they did.”

Whatley explained further, saying for every vote from an Election Day voter in 2020, there were two who were first time voters or who had not voted in 2020.

That means there were a lot of same day voters who are still going to vote on Election day, Whatley said, and Republicans feel very optimistic going into Tuesday.

When asked by Roberts what Whatley and other leaders of the Republican Party will be watching for as the polls close and results start to come in, the chairman said they will be watching to see if there will be a last minute surge in turnout from major cities like Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee and Atlanta.

“I think that Republicans are going to have a good night,” Whatley said. “We have seen very solid turnout in rural areas all across the country throughout the course of the day.”

He also said Republicans saw a substantial lead in most of the rural states from the early voting absentee voting period.

Social media erupted with criticism of Google on Tuesday after voters noticed the tech giant helped locate where to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris but failed to inform potential voters of former President Trump where they could cast a ballot. 

While many have insisted Google was interfering in the election, the company claims it was simply a technical glitch that has been fixed. 

When "Where can I vote for Harris?" was entered into Google, the site provided information on "where to vote" and allowed users to input their address to determine the closest voting location. However, when "Where can I vote for Trump?" was asked, Google failed to inform users where to vote and instead offered links to CNN, CBS and NBC Election Day coverage. 

"The ‘where to vote’ panel is triggering for some specific searches bc Harris is also the name of a county in TX. Happens for ‘Vance’ too bc it’s also the name of a county. Fix is coming. Note very few people actually search for voting places this way," Google posted on X in response to the backlash. 

This is an excerpt from an article written by Fox News' Brian Flood.

People line up at a polling station to vote during the 2024 U.S. presidential election on Election Day, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, U.S., November 5, 2024. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

Voters in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania will have an extra two hours to cast their ballots on Election Day following issues with voting machines and long lines.

Problems were also reported with tabulation machines in Bedford County, as well as issues in Cambria County, the New York Post reported. Authorities told voters that their ballots will be counted despite the malfunctions.

Former President Trump won both counties with 68% and 83% of the vote in 2020, respectively.

“The Cambria County Board of Election learned early this morning that a software malfunction in the County’s Electronic Voting System has prevented voters from scanning their ballots,” Cambria County Solicitor Ron Repak said in a statement.

“This should not discourage voters from voting at their voting precincts. The Board has filed a Court Order extending the time to vote within Cambria County.”

Election officials filed emergency paperwork to extend the voting time by two hours to 10 p.m. in an effort to rectify the issue and ensure all ballots are counted, according to the petition filed in county court.

“The malfunction caused voter confusion, long lines of voters, and many individuals left the polling locations without casting a ballot," Repak said in the filing.

He added that the malfunction “threatens to disenfranchise a significant number of voters in Cambria County.”

A judge quickly approved the order, but noted that any ballot cast after the standard 8 p.m. deadline would be provisional.

Read Fox News Digital's real-time coverage from the morning of 2024 Election Day.

Stickers lay on a table inside a polling place, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

We are living in a time of instant gratification —press a button to order dinner and it is delivered minutes later.

But we are in for a longer wait tonight.

It will take time for us to find out who our next president will be.

This is one of the few nights when Americans all get together to await the results -- and the excitement and dread are palpable. 

This is the longest campaign in our history.

But people don’t live in history. They live in the here and now. 

This is an excerpt from an op-ed written by Fox News' Dana Perino.

Sarah Rice/Getty Images

Some top Democrats are already signaling that they may not let former President Donald Trump take the White House without a fight even if he beats Vice President Kamala Harris on Election Day.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told Axios in early October that if Trump “won a free, fair and honest election, then we would obviously accept it.”

Suggesting he did not believe that would be the case, Raskin said the ex-president “is doing whatever he can to try to interfere with the process, whether we're talking about manipulating Electoral College counts in Nebraska or manipulating the vote count in Georgia or imposing other kinds of impediments.”

It’s not unlikely that at least a few progressives would also rise to object to the certification of certain states’ ballots on Jan. 6, 2025 – just as they did in 2017.

Then-Vice President Biden, who was overseeing the certification, knocked down each and every progressive lawmakers’ objections.

However, it’s notable that this time around, Harris will be the one overseeing certification as vice president, whether she wins or loses the presidential race.

ELIJAH NOUVELAGE/AFP via Getty Images

Conservative groups are already signaling that they are poised to investigate and challenge any possible voter abnormalities if former President Donald Trump loses his bid for re-election.

Some Trump allies, meanwhile, have questioned whether the election will be fair for months.

“As things stand right now, there’s a zero percent chance of a free and fair election,” Mike Howell, executive director of Heritage’s Oversight Project, said in July, according to the Washington Post. “I’m formally accusing the Biden administration of creating the conditions that most reasonable policymakers and officials cannot in good conscience certify an election.”

It's also likely that members of Congress will seek to challenge the results – nearly 150 Republican lawmakers voted against certifying Trump’s 2020 Electoral College loss, with many citing allegations of election fraud being promoted by the former president and others in his circle.

Trump himself has laid the groundwork to accuse Democrats of voter fraud, telling supporters in October at a Wisconsin rally, “They cheat. That's all they want to do is cheat. And when you see this, it's the only way they're gonna win.”

With millions of voters expected to show up to the polls today, the world will be anxiously watching for the election results to start pouring in on Tuesday night.

Here is what you need to know about the 2024 presidential election results.

When do the polls close?

Kentucky (eight electoral votes) will be the first state to close its polls at 6 p.m. Eastern.

For most of the eastern half of the country, voting polls will close between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., while polls on the West Coast will close at 11 p.m. Eastern.

The last states to close will be Hawaii (four electoral votes) and Alaska (three electoral votes) which will close their polls at midnight and 1 a.m. respectively.

Real-time news from the morning of Election Day

When will the 2024 Election Day results be announced?

Election Day results have historically often been announced just hours after the polls close. However, recent elections have required longer waiting periods before all the votes can be tallied, and a winner can be declared.

One reason for this is the prevalence of mail-in absentee voting. Fourteen states legally require that mail-in ballots be counted only after polls close on Election Day.

This is an excerpt from an article by Peter Pinedo. 

Diana Walker/Getty Images

The 2024 election cycle has seen myriad “firsts,” including the first female non-White woman at the top of a major party ticket, and former President Donald Trump being the first nominee to run a campaign amid criminal trials and convictions.

It will join a string of other presidential races that are notably historic, including 2016, when Hillary Clinton became the first woman to be Democrats’ presidential nominee.

In 2000, the dispute over the election between former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Al Gore made it all the way to the Supreme Court, with Florida’s vote count famously a lightning rod of controversy.

And in the 1984 race, former President Ronald Reagan made history by carrying 49 states in a landslide victory for a second term.

Going back even further, the 1968 presidential election made headlines when then-President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, made a surprise address announcing he would not seek a second full term. That election wound up being won by Republican President Richard Nixon.

Fox News

It’s Election Day and our Fox News Voter Analysis has been asking voters across the country – more than 110,000 of them – who they are supporting and why. 

This is a new election survey approach conducted along with our partners the Associated Press and NORC at the University of Chicago. 

We’ll be asking questions about what traits voters think each candidate has, such as are they honest and trustworthy? Do they have the right policy ideas? And are they a strong leader? Are they voting more for their candidate or against the other? 

We’ll also be diving into the most important issues facing the country. Is it the economy? Abortion? Immigration? Election integrity? In 2020, economy voters backed Donald Trump and voters who thought health care was the top issue favored Joe Biden. 

All that and more is on deck. The survey questionnaire and results will be posted on foxnews.com after 8:00PM/ET. And keep checking back here for more news and analysis of the survey results.