The first figures from the US presidential election do not yet give any indication of the outcome of the tight race.
Keystone-SDA
06.11.2024, 03:04
SDA
As expected, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump prevailed after voter surveys and initial vote counts in several states where their victory was considered certain.
These include Florida, Indiana and South Carolina for Trump and Maryland, Massachusetts and Illinois for Harris. So far, Trump has received just over 100 electoral votes and Harris over 70.
There is a lot at stake in the election: the domestic political stability of the USA and the already shaky balance of world politics. To win, a candidate needs 270 electoral votes from various states. As the majority of states vote reliably for Democrats or Republicans, the result in seven so-called swing states, where both parties have a realistic chance of success, will ultimately be decisive.
What is the situation in the swing states?
The swing states are Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and North Carolina - as well as Arizona and Nevada in the west of the USA. Pennsylvania in particular, with 19 electoral votes, is considered potentially decisive. Both Harris and Trump were particularly active there in the home stretch of the election campaign.
In Georgia and North Carolina, with 16 electoral votes each, the votes were expected to be counted fairly quickly. Should Trump win Georgia and North Carolina, Harris would have to win Pennsylvania to become president.
Economy or women's rights?
Trump built his election campaign on Americans' dissatisfaction with high inflation in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and also stoked fears of an alleged increase in crime caused by criminal immigrants. Harris described Trump as a threat to democracy and focused on women's rights in light of the abortion bans in several Republican-dominated states.
The outcome of the election will show whose messages resonated better with voters. Many who wanted to vote for Trump said that economic development was more important to them than the personalities of the candidates.
No clear line in the polls
At the same time, 80 percent of voters said in a poll conducted by the news channel CNN at polling stations that they had already decided who they would vote for before September. Previous polls also showed that Harris was ahead by a wide margin among women, while Trump was able to win over more black and Latino voters compared to the 2020 election.
A potential red flag for Harris in Georgia is that, according to CNN's post-election polls, 54% of voters registered as independent voted for Trump. Joe Biden, who beat Trump four years ago, had a nine percentage point lead in this group at the time.
Trump paints the picture of election fraud again
As he did four years ago, Trump again claimed that there was "massive fraud" - specifically referring to Philadelphia in Pennsylvania and Detroit in Michigan. Security forces were on their way. In Philadelphia, public prosecutor Larry Krasner quickly dismissed the allegations as completely unfounded, and the mayor's office in Detroit was also unable to confirm them.
Decision on congressional majorities too
The majorities in the US Congress will also be decided. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and around a third of the 100 seats in the Senate are up for election. The party that controls Congress can severely limit a president's room for maneuver.
The Republicans currently hold the majority in the House of Representatives with 220 to 212 seats.
The Democrats, in turn, are threatened with losing their majority of 51 seats in the Senate. They lost one of their previous seats early in the night. Senator Joe Manchin, who had voted with the Democrats and was not partisan, did not run again. His place will be taken by Republican Jim Justice. If, as expected, Democrat Jon Tester loses his seat in the state of Montana, the Democrats would have to replace a Republican in one of the other races to retain control of the Senate.
Russia gets involved
Russia once again tried to sow chaos during the big election day. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation traced bomb threats against polling stations back to Russia. None of the threats were found to be credible. The bomb threats had been made at two polling stations in the particularly contested "swing state" of Georgia, which is why voting was briefly interrupted there.