WASHINGTON — Millions of door-knocks, TV ads and a record-shattering $14 billion later, the polls are soon to close across the country in the 2020 campaign.
A tense and stressed-out nation is waiting for the early results in key states of an unprecedented presidential election to see whether President Donald Trump will get another four years in the White House or be replaced by Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
More than 100 million voted early this year, doubling the total from 2016, but millions more headed to the polls Tuesday to vote in-person even as cases surged in the worst pandemic in a century.
Polls begin to close in some places at 7 p.m. ET and results will not be released in any state until all the voting has ended there.
Southern battlegrounds like Florida, North Carolina and Georgia are expected to count their votes relatively quickly while Northern ones like Pennsylvania, the late focus of both campaigns, Wisconsin and Michigan have historically taken longer to release results.
Experts have warned that initial results could be misleading by presenting a blue or red "mirage" that makes it appear as if one side is doing better than it really is, but is really just an artifact of whether officials count mail ballots or ones cast in-person first, since more Democrats opted to vote by mail than Republicans this year.
Biden has a comfortable 7.4 percentage point national lead in the NBC News polling average and is ahead in almost every swing state, although by narrower margins. That offers Biden more possible paths to the 270 votes needed to win the Electoral College than Trump, whom most analysts say must win Florida and Pennsylvania, though Biden leads both.
But polls missed Trump's 2016 win and the pandemic has disrupted voting in unpredictable ways, so anything is possible.
Despite fears of massive voter fraud or voter intimidation schemes, polling places appeared to be mostly quiet across the country and few reports of long lines. Still, the post-election period is when many have warned of civil unrest as businesses boarded up their storefronts in anticipation of chaos.
Trump, the reality TV mogul who shocked his party and then the country by winning the GOP nomination and then the presidency four years ago, spent what could be his final day as a non-lame-duck president thanking the faithful.
He called into Fox and Friends TV show and visited the offices of the Republican National Committee to thank staff before preparing for a watch party at the White House Tuesday night.
Biden, who was counted out as a political has-been in the early months of his third presidential bid, started what could be his election on a more somber note. He attended church, visited the grave of his late son, Beau, and stopped by his childhood home, where he wrote, "From this house to the White House with the grace of God. Joe Biden 11-3-2020."
He'll spend election night at a socially distanced event at the Chase Center near his home in Wilmington, Delaware.
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November 04, 2020 at 05:04AM
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First polls set to close soon in Trump-Biden presidential race - NBC News
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