- Harris leads among women, Trump among men, polls show.
- Trump may declare victory on election night despite uncounted votes.
- Harris would be the first South Asian woman, black woman, president of the United States.
Nearly three-quarters of voters in Tuesday's presidential election say American democracy is threatened, according to preliminary national exit polls from Edison Research, reflecting the country's deep anxiety after a contentious campaign between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.
Democracy and the economy were by far the most important issues for voters, with about a third of respondents citing each, followed by abortion and immigration at 14% and 11%, they showed. the data. The poll showed that 73% of voters believed democracy was in danger, compared to just 25% who said it was safe.
The data underscores the depth of polarization in a nation whose divisions have only grown starker during a fiercely competitive race. Trump has employed increasingly dark and apocalyptic rhetoric, while stoking unfounded fears that the electoral system cannot be trusted. Harris has urged Americans to unite and warned that a second Trump term would threaten the foundations of American democracy.
The numbers represent only a portion of the tens of millions of people who voted both before and on Election Day, and preliminary results are subject to change overnight as more people are surveyed.
Harris was banking on a large turnout of female voters to offset her electoral weakness among men. Exit polls showed women made up 53% of the electorate, virtually unchanged from 52% in 2020 exit polls.
The share of voters without a college degree who favor Trump was 57%, down slightly from 59% in 2020, according to the data.
The two rivals were hurtling toward an uncertain end Tuesday after a breakneck campaign as millions of American voters waited in calm, orderly lines to choose between two starkly different visions for the country.
A race shaken by unprecedented events — two assassination attempts on Trump, the surprise withdrawal of President Joe Biden and the rapid rise of Harris — remained close after billions of dollars in spending and months of frenetic campaigning.
Trump, who has frequently spread false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election and whose supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, voted near his home in Palm Beach, Florida.
“If I lose an election, if it's a fair election, I will be the first to admit it,” Trump told reporters.
Harris, who had previously mailed her ballot to her home state of California, spent part of Tuesday in radio interviews encouraging listeners to vote. Later, he was to address students at Howard University, a historically black college in Washington where Harris was a student.
“To return tonight to Howard University, my beloved alma mater, and to be able to, hopefully, recognize this day for what it is, is really coming full circle for me,” Harris said in a radio interview.
History in the making
Exit polls showed Harris was viewed more favorably than Trump in Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Georgia, four of the seven states likely to decide the election, although her ratings were still lower than Biden's in the polls. 2020 exit polls.
Trump was viewed more favorably than Harris in two of the swing states, Nevada and Pennsylvania, and the two candidates were tied in Arizona.
The results of national exit polls provide an important window into the nation's thinking, but may not align directly with the seven battleground states expected to decide the presidential election.
Exit polls capture variations between turnout in various demographic groups, such as men and women or college-educated and non-college-educated voters, and can provide information about how turnout has changed from past elections.
A key advantage of exit polls is that all people surveyed are, by definition, people who are voting in this election.
Opinion polls before the election showed the candidates running neck-and-neck in each of the seven states likely to determine the winner: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
No matter who wins, history will be made.
Harris, 60, the first female vice president, would become the first woman, Black and South Asian American, to win the presidency. Trump, 78, the only president to be impeached twice and the first former president to be criminally convicted, would also become the first president to win non-consecutive terms in more than a century.
Control of both houses of Congress is also at stake. Republicans have an easier path in the U.S. Senate, where Democrats are defending several seats in Republican-leaning states, while the House of Representatives appears to be a tie.
Trump's campaign has suggested he could declare victory on election night even with millions of votes yet to be counted, as he did four years ago. The winner may not be known for days if the margins in the battleground states are as close as expected.
In Dearborn, Michigan, Nakita Hogue, 50, joined her 18-year-old college student daughter, Niemah Hogue, in voting for Harris. Niemah said she takes birth control to help regulate her period, while her mother recalled needing surgery after suffering a miscarriage when she was 20, and both feared Republican lawmakers would try to restrict reproductive health care.
“For my daughter, who is going out into the world and making her own path, I want her to have that option,” Nakita Hogue said. “She should be able to make her own decisions.”
Felicia Navajo, 34, and her husband Jesse Miranda, 52, arrived at a library in Phoenix, Arizona, with one of their three young children to vote for Trump.
Miranda, a union plumber, immigrated to the United States from Mexico when he was four years old and said he believed Trump would do a better job fighting inflation and controlling immigration.
“I want to see good people come to this city, people who are willing to work, people who are willing to live the American dream,” Miranda said.
