Early results from the US presidential election, pitting Donald Trump against Joe Biden, show a tight race in the potentially pivotal race of Florida.

With more than 80% of votes counted in Florida, Mr Trump, the Republican incumbent, was neck-and-neck with Mr Biden, the Democratic challenger.

It is too early to project who won in several other key states – Georgia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Carolina.

The vote caps a long and bitter campaign amid the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 100 million people had already cast their ballots in early voting.

The US appears on course for its highest turnout in a century. The first projections are expected shortly from states which are solidly Democratic or Republican.

Control of Congress is also at stake. As well as the White House, Republicans are vying to hang on to a Senate majority.

The House of Representatives is expected to stay in Democratic hands.

What are the results so far?

After polling stations closed across the US East Coast, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Ohio looked as though they could go either way in the White House race.

Both Florida and Pennsylvania are considered must-wins for Mr Trump if he is to be re-elected to a second term in office.

No surprises have emerged yet in the other states.

The BBC projects Mr Trump has won Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Oklahoma and West Virginia, all as expected.

The BBC projects Mr Biden will win his home state of Delaware, along with Vermont, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington DC.

CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, says South Carolina is leaning Mr Trump’s way, while Virginia is leaning Mr Biden’s way.

Voting ends on the US West Coast at 23:00 EST.

Mr Trump, who is watching the returns from the White House, is expected to address the nation later on Tuesday evening.

Projections are based on a mixture of exit poll data and, in most cases, actual votes counted – and are only made where there is a high degree of certainty.

National polls give a firm lead to Mr Biden, but it is a closer race in the states that could decide the outcome.

According to Anthony Zurcher BBC North American Reporter, Polls in the eastern half of the US are closing fast now. While Florida appears to be trending toward Donald Trump – on the back of better-than-expected performance among Hispanics in South Florida – attention will shift towards other battleground states.

Joe Biden has taken an early lead in Ohio, although the counties that have been reporting are Democratic ones. However, if he can do better than Hillary Clinton, who lost the state, it could give clues as to how he’ll perform in the nearby states that were much closer – Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, in particular.

Georgia continues to look like a tossup, as does North Carolina. Both are pretty much must-wins for Trump. And Texas looms on the horizon. While Florida is the big electoral prize that has been a fixation for Democrats for decades, if Texas moves to the left, it could herald an even more earth-shattering electoral realignment.

In the US election, voters decide state-level contests rather than an overall, single, national one.

Appearing in his home state of Delaware, Mr Biden said he was “hopeful” and highlighted the “overwhelming turnout particularly of young people, of women”.

A senior Biden adviser told CBS News – the BBC’s US partner – that the Biden team “feel good”. Florida was in the balance, but Democratic numbers were strong in a swathe of swing states, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona.

Speaking in Virginia, Mr Trump said he expected “a great night”.

An exit poll conducted by Edison Research and just published by Reuters suggests that four out of 10 voters nationally think the handling of the coronavirus pandemic in the US is “going very badly”.

A third of voters cited the economy as the issue that most concerned them, according to the poll.

Both candidates have been using election day as an opportunity to drive home the messages they have been hammering to voters for the last few weeks.

The two rivals have radically different policies on key issues. They have clashed bitterly during the campaign over how to handle the Covid-19 pandemic, and how to best handle the economy during this difficult period.

Mr Biden has accused Mr Trump of a haphazard response to the pandemic that he says has needlessly cost too many lives. But Mr Trump has downplayed the impact of Covid-19, saying the country is “rounding the corner”.

Mr Trump’s term has also been marked by contentious immigration policies.

Earlier on Tuesday, Mr Trump, sounding a little hoarse, spoke to Fox News by phone, saying he felt good about his chances of victory and predicting he would win “big” in key states such as Florida and Arizona.

“I think we have a really solid chance of winning,” he said. Asked when he would declare victory, he added: “When there’s victory. If there’s victory… there’s no reason to play games.”

Mr Biden also visited his childhood home in Scranton in Pennsylvania – a key swing state – and addressed a crowd in the town, saying: “We’ve got to restore the backbone to this country. The middle class built this country – Wall Street didn’t.”

Source: BBC News

US President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden have spent the final hours of the White House race delivering their closing pitch to voters in critical states.

Mr Biden campaigned in Pennsylvania and Ohio, as Mr Trump toured the voting battlegrounds of Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

National polls suggest a firm lead for Mr Biden in Tuesday’s election.

But his lead is narrower in the handful of states that could decide the result.

More than 98 million people have already cast their ballots in early voting, putting the country on course for its highest turnout in a century.

In the US election, voters decide state-level contests rather than an overall single national one.

To be elected president, a candidate must win at least 270 votes in what is called the electoral college. Each US state gets a certain number of votes partly based on its population and there are a total of 538 up for grabs.

This system explains why it is possible for a candidate to win the most votes nationally – like Hillary Clinton did in 2016 – but still lose the election.

Tuesday’s vote comes amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The US has recorded more cases and more deaths than any other country worldwide, reporting more than 81,000 new infections on Sunday alone.

As the nation counts down the hours to the vote, there are fears that pockets of post-election violence could break out. Businesses in the nation’s capital, Washington DC, and in New York City have been seen boarding up their premises due to concerns about unrest.

After a punishing schedule of rallies in six states on Sunday, President Trump sprinted through four more battleground states on Monday.

In North Carolina, he told supporters that “next year will be the greatest economic year in the history of our country”. The rally was postponed from Thursday due to Hurricane Zeta.

He touted numbers that he says “nobody even thought possible”.

The US economy saw record-breaking 33% growth in the third financial quarter of this year, following a record 31% contraction in the second. Economists warn the damage inflicted by the pandemic – the biggest decline in the US economy in more than 80 years – could still take years to overcome.

After North Carolina, Mr Trump headed to Scranton, Pennsylvania, the city where his opponent lived until he was 10. At a rally there he reminded his supporters that he won the state in 2016 despite polls suggesting he would lose.

Mr Biden also went to Pennsylvania where he was joined by singer Lady Gaga at a rally in Pittsburgh. Musician John Legend addressed voters with vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

At a last-minute campaign stop in Ohio, Mr Biden repeated the core message of his campaign, telling voters that the race was about the soul of America. He said it was time for Mr Trump to “pack his bags”, saying “we’re done with the tweets, the anger, the hate, the failure, the irresponsibility”.

The race in Ohio is extremely tight. In 2016, Mr Trump won by more than eight points – currently, he has a 0.2% lead over Mr Biden, according to an aggregate of polls by RealClearPolitics.

On Monday, Mr Trump also held rallies in Traverse City, Michigan, and Kenosha, Wisconsin. Kenosha was rocked by violent protests in August after the police shooting of a black man.

In Traverse City he asked for the votes of black Americans.

His last rally of the campaign is due to be held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, before midnight.

On Sunday the candidates attacked each other on two of this campaign’s key themes – Covid-19 and racial tension.

The president and his campaign have meanwhile indicated they will sue to block the potentially pivotal state of Pennsylvania from counting postal ballots received three days after the election.

The US Supreme Court allowed a lower court ruling granting the extended deadline to stand, but several conservative justices signalled they might be open to revisiting the issue after the vote.

Mr Trump tweeted on Monday that the high court decision allowing ballots to be accepted three days after election day was “a very dangerous one”.

“It will allow rampant and unchecked cheating and will undermine our entire systems of laws. It will also induce violence in the streets. Something must be done!” Twitter added a warning label that the tweet might contain “misleading” information.

Legal fights over ballots have also been unfolding in Minnesota, North Carolina and Texas.

Mr Biden has already vowed to stop Mr Trump “stealing” the election.

The president is to host an election night party inside the White House with about 400 guests invited.

Up to 10,000 protesters are expected to gather on election night at Black Lives Matter Plaza and a park not far from the White House, according to CBS News.

Mr Biden and Ms Harris will watch the election night returns in the former vice-president’s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.

Source: BBC

US special operations forces on Saturday rescued an American citizen taken hostage by armed men earlier this week in Niger and held in northern Nigeria, the Pentagon said.

“U.S. forces conducted a hostage rescue operation during the early hours of 31 October in Northern Nigeria to recover an American citizen held hostage by a group of armed men. This American citizen is safe and is now in the care of the U.S. Department of State. No U.S military personnel were injured during the operation,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement.

“We appreciate the support of our international partners in conducting this operation. The United States will continue to protect our people and our interests anywhere in the world.”

The mission, which was several hours long, was conducted by the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 6 who were flown to the region by Air Force special operations, a US official with knowledge of the operation told CNN.

The US forces who conducted the mission killed six of the seven captors, the official said. The US believes the captors have no known affiliation with any terror groups operating in the region, and were more likely bandits seeking money.

The State Department confirmed earlier this week that a US citizen had been abducted in Niger.

Local media outlets reported that the US citizen was a male missionary. CNN has not been able to confirm the citizen’s identity.

The governor of the local region where the abduction took place was quoted in various local media and by French media reporting from Niger as saying that six men on motorbikes armed with AK-47s came to the man’s property in the village of Massalata, close to the border with Nigeria.

The governor, Abdourahamane Moussa, told these media outlets that after demanding money, the men took the American citizen with them in the direction of the Nigerian border.

The State Department spokesman said that “when a U.S. citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts, and we share information with families however we can.”

On Saturday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US citizen would be reunited with his family.

“Thanks to the extraordinary courage and capabilities of our military, the support of our intelligence professionals, and our diplomatic efforts, the hostage will be reunited with his family,” Pompeo said in a statement. “We will never abandon any American taken hostage.”

President Donald Trump on Saturday thanked the special operations forces for rescuing the American citizen and said more details about the mission would be shared in “a very short period of time.”

“I want to thank the Special Forces. We had a tremendous event happen and really these are incredible people that do this,” Trump told reporters as he departed for a day of campaign travel.

Source: CNN