Election 2024 live updates: Polls open as Trump and Harris locked in neck-and-neck race – UK Times

As you might have guessed, the Democrats are posting positivity, encouraging citizens to vote and urging them to take part in last-minute local volunteering while Donald Trump issues an astonishingly bitter campaign video urging his supporters to be part of an anti-woke “Great American Comeback”.

At least JD Vance is more focused on his dog’s birthday…

The mood couldn’t be more different among the staffers accompanying the two presidential candidates, Andrew Feinberg reports.

The popular podcaster Joe Rogan has endorsed Donald Trump, shoring up the former president’s appeal to young men in the final 24 hours of the election.

In a social media post on Monday night, Rogan – whose podcast The Joe Rogan Experience is widely estimated to be the most listened-to in the world – said his most recent guest Elon Musk had made a “compelling” argument for four more years of Trump.

Io Dodds has the full story.

If you’re new to US presidential elections, here’s an invaluable guide to what’s about to play out from Justin Rohrlich.

As campaigning comes to an end and the American public prepares to cast its votes on who will be the country’s next commander-in-chief, here’s our data correspondent Alicja Hajopian to take a reading of the very final polls.

The candidates are no doubt utterly exhausted from their non-stop campaign schedule of recent weeks but cannot afford to rest on their laurels just yet.

They need to vote themselves (for themselves), for one thing.

According to USA Today, Harris will be spending her day in Washington DC and plans to celebrate election night at Howard University, where she studied political science and economics from 1983 to 1986.

If she wins, the Vice President will be the first American president to graduate from a historically-Black college and university.

Her running mate Tim Walz will meanwhile be in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, with his wife Gwen before they head to DC themselves for a Harris-Walz election night event with supporters.

Donald Trump is meanwhile expected to be at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida and will host a watch party at a convention centre in West Palm Beach.

The Republican nominee, looking exhausted and more orange than ever, delivered four rallies in three states yesterday and continued to stray off script and voice violent revenge fantasies, notably at his final event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the same city in which he ended his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.

Here he is lashing out at Harris, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and their fellow California Democrat Adam Schiff, as well as his own former White House chief of staff General John Kelly, who recenty labelled him a “fascist”.

He also insulted Detroit again, surely an unwise tactic this late in the game in a vital swing state.

Well, we’ve made it. Who knows what happens next.

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris concluded her astonishing three-month long campaign with a rousing address in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, last night where she outlined her positive vision for America without once mentioning the name of her Republican challenger.

Before that, her husband Doug Emhoff paid touching tribute to his wife and Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey urged their audience against complacency, stressing the importance of getting out to vote and making their voices heard.

The Harris campaign deployed their celebrity supporters further afield too, with Katy Perry doing the honours in Pittsburgh and Christian Aguilera in Las Vegas.

Here’s Alastair Jamieson to set the scene.

Good morning and welcome to The Independent’s coverage of Election Day as the hard-fought race for the White House between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump reaches its climax