DONALD TRUMP VS JOE BIDEN: USA DECIDES

Presented by Joseph Kizza

Hello everyone, Americans are electing their 46th President. It is a tight race between the sitting president, Republican Donald Trump, and Democrat Joe Biden, who served as the vice-president under Barack Obama. Who will take the day? We are presenting to you updates on what is happening in the US. Don’t forget to refresh this page for updates.

(Source: AFP)

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7:59 am  |  Trump takes Ohio

President Donald Trump has won in hotly contested Ohio, US media networks report.

It is a big win for the incumbent because this state has 18 electoral votes.

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7:44 am  |  Nerves set in for Biden supporters gathered at White House

Several hundred Joe Biden supporters rallied near the White House Tuesday, but by nightfall a festive atmosphere was giving way to nervous tension as people fixed their attention on giant screens showing disappointing early results.

As the battleground state of Florida looked increasingly certain to go to President Donald Trump, Democratic party voters in the overwhelmingly blue capital Washington put on brave faces and said they were preparing to dig in for a long haul.

“We wanted to come out to support Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, hoping for a celebration,” said Tammi Girgenti, a 51-year-old retired government official, adding: “I’m a little disappointed with Florida, that’s my home state.”

“I’m feeling okay, a little bit nervous and a little apprehensive, but I think Biden can squeeze it out by the end of the night or tomorrow or the next day,” she laughed.

Trump was also leading in several other key battleground states including Pennsylvania.

Jake, a 22-year-old undergraduate student who came with a group of friends, summed up their mood: “We’re not feeling too good, but I know that the mail-in the early voting was always going to be kind of later, and so I went in tonight bracing for an early Trump lead, but I think that Biden can still pull it off.”

Starting from the afternoon, crowds had converged on two streets recently named Black Lives Matter (BLM) Plaza by the mayor of Washington, which was the focal point of opposition to Trump during racial justice protests over summer.

Others filled a nearby park, McPherson Square, after the traditional area for such gatherings, Lafayette Square, was shut off by a perimeter fence that went up some weeks ago.

A new, unscalable barricade has also gone up inside the perimeter, and dozens of police watched on.

There were no signs of tension between the police and the crowd, who were almost all anti-Trump. Supporters of the president were a rare sight, but when one appeared and expressed their views, they were quickly swarmed by Biden followers who wanted to debate them.

A brief scuffle broke out at one point, though it was unclear who it was between. The fight broke up when a smoke bomb was thrown — apparently not by police, who had already left the area.

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7:31 am  |✍️🏽  ANALYSIS: Trump holds off Biden blue wave in nail-biting election

The most polarized US election in decades was on a knife-edge Tuesday as President Donald Trump appeared to have held off predictions of a sweeping Democratic wave but Joe Biden also scored key wins.

Against a backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic that has claimed more than 230,000 lives in the United States, a quick Biden triumph — dreamed of by some Democrats — looked unlikely with key states too close to call.

Trump enjoyed a slim but vital lead in Florida, widely considered a must win to retain the presidency, despite opinion polls that had shown Biden edging even or ahead.

“It’s happening,” Trump senior advisor Jason Miller wrote on Twitter of the election, although only Fox News had so far called Florida for the president.

Exit polls showed Trump capturing swaths of the Latino vote, making strong gains among Cuban-Americans after the Republican tycoon’s relentless attacks against leftist leaders in Latin America and rhetorical attempts to link them to Biden.

Biden’s team has long insisted that it doesn’t need to win Florida and analysts pointed to gains for the Democrat in some Trump areas of the state that might bode well in other big states.

Biden for his part enjoyed early strength in Arizona, which Trump carried four years earlier, and he was neck-and-neck in Ohio and Texas — two states where the Democrat a few weeks ago saw little chance.

And Biden — as expected — collected the biggest prize of the night with a win in solidly Democratic California.

But attention quickly turned to results emerging from Georgia and North Carolina, two more states Biden hopes to wrest away, and the Midwestern trio of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — in which Trump squeaked out surprise 2016 wins over Hillary Clinton that handed him the White House.

With a record more than 100 million Americans having voted ahead of Election Day due to the Covid-19 pandemic, definitive final results could easily take hours or even days to be tabulated.

Race for Congress

Networks projected the Democrats to have maintained control of the House of Representatives, as widely expected, but it remains to be seen if they can win back the Senate.

The Democrats flipped one Senate seat from the Republicans in Colorado, with former governor John Hickenlooper projected to triumph, but were also expected to lose an especially vulnerable senator in Alabama.

Trump, 74, expressed confidence as the evening approached, tweeting in all his characteristic all-caps: “WE ARE LOOKING REALLY GOOD ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. THANK YOU!”

It was not clear whether Trump — who was holding a watch party at the White House — would speak to the public at some point but he said earlier Tuesday that he wasn’t yet “thinking about a concession speech or acceptance speech.”

“Winning is easy,” he said. “Losing is never easy — not for me.”

Biden, hunkered down with family at home in Delaware, likewise said voter patterns during the day seemed to favor his side.

“What I’m hearing is that there’s overwhelming turnout. And overwhelming turnout particularly of young people, of women, and an overwhelming turnout of African American voters, particularly in Georgia and Florida, over the age of 65,” he told reporters.

“The things that are happening bode well for the base that has been supporting me.”

Accepting the results?

Trump has repeatedly refused to confirm he will accept the results of the election — a first for a US president. He argues, without offering proof, that the vast number of mail-in ballots could be used to rig the polls against him.

In the final run-up to Election Day, Trump focused especially on Pennsylvania, which allows ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted, even if they arrive afterward.

Trump somewhat dampened fears that he will try to declare victory prematurely, telling Fox News that he will only declare “when there is victory.”

“There is no reason to play games,” he said.

‘Scary’

Americans could not be more divided over Trump.

For some he represents a breath of fresh air who brought his business instincts to shake up the Washington establishment. For the other half of the country, he is a corrupt leader who wrecked the US reputation abroad and stoked dangerous racist and nationalist sentiments at home.

In Miami, Juan Carlos Bertran, a 60-year-old Cuban-American mechanic, said Trump “seems better to me for the country’s economy.”

“Now I have two jobs,” he said. “Before I only had one.”

But voting in New York, Megan Byrnes-Borderan, 35, said Trump’s threats to challenge the election results in the courts were “scary.”

“I believe that Trump will go through all odds to try to win the election,” she said.

Outside the White House, a boisterous, peaceful protest in a plaza renamed for the Black Lives Matter movement turned heated as the night wore on, with scuffling after a person appeared to throw a gas cannister.

In Portland, the center of confrontations this summer between leftist protesters and police, some 400 people marched toward the downtown under a watchful eye of state police.

Question of COVID

Biden has tapped into widespread public disapproval for Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more people in the United States than any country.

Trump — who recovered quickly from his own bout with the virus in October — is gambling that Americans want to put the crisis behind them and reopen the economy fully. Biden, in contrast, is preaching caution and accuses the president of having abandoned his basic responsibilities.

“We’re done with the chaos! We’re done with the tweets, the anger, the hate, the failure, the irresponsibility,” Biden said at an election eve rally in Cleveland, Ohio.

Fears of COVID-19 drove the huge flow of early voters, encouraged by Biden. Trump has countered by holding dozens of mass election rallies with no social distancing, underlining his message that it’s time to move on.

One notable win in the Senate was for the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, who easily fended off a challenge in Kentucky.

And in Georgia, Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene — a political newcomer who has promoted the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory — won a seat in the US House of Representatives, giving the widely debunked movement a voice in Congress.

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7:22 am  | Biden at 209 electoral votes, Trump at 116

Joe Biden has captured 16 states, including his home state Delaware and big prizes California and New York, as well as the US capital. As with his rival Donald Trump, so far, all states claimed by Biden were won by Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.

So far, that gives Joe Biden 209 electoral votes and Trump a maximum of 116, because Nebraska splits its electoral votes based on congressional district (see note below).

The magic number is 270. Observers expect the hotly contested race for the White House to come down to a handful of key battleground states that have yet to be called.

The following is a list of the states won by each candidate and the corresponding number of electoral votes, based on the projections of US media including CNN, Fox News, MSNBC/NBC News, ABC, CBS and The New York Times.

DONALD TRUMP (116)*

Alabama (9)
Arkansas (6)
Indiana (11)
Kansas (6)
Kentucky (8)
Louisiana (8)
Mississippi (6)
Missouri (10)
Nebraska (5) *
North Dakota (3)
Oklahoma (7)
South Carolina (9)
South Dakota (3)
Tennessee (11)
Utah (6)
West Virginia (5)
Wyoming (3)

JOE BIDEN (209)

California (55)
Colorado (9)
Connecticut (7)
Delaware (3)
District of Columbia (3)
Illinois (20)
Maryland (10)
Massachusetts (11)
New Hampshire (4)
New Jersey (14)
New Mexico (5)
New York (29)
Oregon (7)
Rhode Island (4)
Vermont (3)
Virginia (13)
Washington (12)

* Nebraska splits its five electoral votes — two electors are assigned based on the plurality of votes in the state, and the other three are awarded based on congressional district. Biden could eventually peel at least one of these votes away.

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7:06 am  | Awaiting the BIG news

As election results continue to trickle in from across the US, these journalists below have gathered to report outside the White House West Wing while waiting for election news in Washington, DC.

You may want to know that about 250 guests were invited to join President Donald Trump at the White House to mark the conclusion of his re-election campaign.

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6:53 am  | Democrats retain control of House of Representatives

Meanwhile, the Democrats have retained their control of the House of Representatives as expected, US networks reported, slightly expanding their majority in the 435-seat chamber.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was expected to increase her party’s majority by at least four or five seats in the election, Fox News and NBC News reported.

Such a result would be a boost to Pelosi who has made clear she will seek to roll back several of President Donald Trump’s first-term orders or actions if he loses reelection.

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6:51 am

Donald Trump is projected to win in Utah, Nebraska and Missouri while his challenger Joe Biden is projected to win New Hampshire.

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6:40 am  | Following keenly

Here, supporters of President Donald Trump cheer for him outside of the Versailles restaurant as they await results of the presidential election in Miami, Florida.

And in California, these people watch the election results at The Abbey Food & Bar in West Hollywood.

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6:15 am  | Asian markets swing as US election closer than expected

Meanwhile, Asian markets were mixed Wednesday as traders tracked results of the US presidential election, with an early rally pared by worries that the outcome might not be as clear-cut as hoped.

Shares have rallied this week as traders piled bets on Joe Biden winning the White House, with opinion polls showing him with a big national lead though with slim advantages in battleground states.

While the former vice president was still favourite, trading floors grew nervous after it appeared Donald Trump was on course to win Florida, which would be crucial to his success.

A better-than-forecast performance by the president could mean the final outcome might not be known until later this week, while it also throws up the chances of a challenge to the result, which could spell fresh market turmoil and legal chaos.

Investors had been increasingly betting on a Democratic sweep of Congress and the White House, which would pave the way for a massive stimulus package for the stuttering economy but early figures suggest that might not happen.

While Tuesday is formally Election Day, in reality, Americans have been voting for weeks. The Covid-19 pandemic caused a huge expansion in mail-in and early voting, and nearly 100 million people had already cast their ballots, though many of those will not be counted until polls close.

“Markets have taken a step back from the Democratic sweep scenario — though are not yet giving up on it,” said Axi strategist Stephen Innes.

“Biden is still favoured to win the presidency, but we now could be heading towards a delayed confirmation of the winner of the election, which is probably the worst-case scenario for risk.”

Tokyo rose 1.4 percent by the break, while Seoul, Wellington, Taipei and Jakarta were all up around 0.2 percent up. Manila jumped more than one percent.

However, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney were all in the red.

“The extent that investors were hoping either for quick clarity or massive fiscal stimulus, those hopes are being pared back,” said Max Gokhman, Pacific Life Fund Advisors.

And Erika Karp, founder and CEO of Cornerstone Capital Group, warned that “the closer the race is, the bigger the risk is”. She added: “A close outcome is a risk to the market. The longer it drags out, the bigger the risks.”

Still, while a failure for Biden and the Democrats would jolt markets, the general consensus is that whoever wins will still push through a major stimulus package for the struggling US economy as it battles the virus.

In Hong Kong, tech titan Alibaba sank more than seven percent after China’s shock, last-minute decision to suspend the world-record $34 billion IPO of its fintech arm Ant Group less than 48 hours before it was due to debut.

Shanghai’s stock exchange announced the suspension late Tuesday, a day after founder Jack Ma was summoned by regulators amid growing official pushback against the company.

The Shanghai exchange cited “major issues such as changes in the fintech supervisory environment” that it said raised concerns over whether Ant Group could now meet listing requirements.

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6:08 am

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has taken Kansas, US media reports.

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5:58 am  | Biden at 126 electoral votes, Trump at 89

Joe Biden has captured 11 states including his home state Delaware and big prize New York, plus the US capital Washington. As with Donald Trump, so far, all states claimed by Biden were won by Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.

So far, that gives Biden 126 electoral votes and Trump 89. The magic number is 270. Observers expect the hotly contested race for the White House to come down to a handful of key battleground states.

The following is a list of the states won by each candidate and the corresponding number of electoral votes, based on the projections of US media including CNN, Fox News, MSNBC/NBC News, ABC, CBS and The New York Times.

DONALD TRUMP (89)

Alabama (9)
Arkansas (6)
Indiana (11)
Kentucky (8)
Louisiana (8)
Mississippi (6)
North Dakota (3)
Oklahoma (7)
South Carolina (9)
South Dakota (3)
Tennessee (11)
West Virginia (5)
Wyoming (3)

JOE BIDEN (126)

Colorado (9)
Connecticut (7)
Delaware (3)
District of Columbia (3)
Illinois (20)
Maryland (10)
Massachusetts (11)
New Jersey (14)
New York (29)
Rhode Island (4)
Vermont (3)
Virginia (13)

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5:44 am  | Trump eyes Florida win

President Donald Trump appeared on track Tuesday to win the big prize of Florida in early results from his battle against Democrat Joe Biden for the White House after gigantic voter turnout in the most polarized US election for decades.

Florida is widely considered a must win for Trump to retain the presidency, but opinion polls had shown Biden edging even or ahead, offering the Democrat the tantalizing prospect of knocking his opponent out at the start of counting.

The Trump campaign claimed victory there after US media reports showed him capturing swaths of the Latino vote that had previously been loyal to Democrats — although the state had yet to called for either candidate.

“President Trump wins Florida,” the campaign tweeted over a picture of Trump giving the thumb’s up.

Biden’s team has long insisted that it doesn’t need to win Florida and analysts pointed to gains for the Democrat in some Trump areas of the state that might bode well in other big states.

Attention quickly turned to results starting to emerge from Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas — a traditional Republican stronghold where Biden is hoping to pull off a stunning upset.

Another of the chief battlegrounds, Pennsylvania, was expected to be some way behind in posting significant vote counts.

With a record more than 100 million Americans having voted ahead of Election Day due to the Covid-19 pandemic, definitive final results could easily take hours or even days to be tabulated.

Confidence on both sides

Trump, 74, expressed confidence as the evening approached, tweeting in all his characteristic all-caps: “WE ARE LOOKING REALLY GOOD ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. THANK YOU!”

It was not clear whether Trump — who was holding a watch party at the White House — would speak to the public at some point but he said earlier Tuesday that he wasn’t yet “thinking about a concession speech or acceptance speech.”

“Winning is easy,” he said. “Losing is never easy — not for me.”

Biden, hunkered down with family at home in Delaware, likewise said voter patterns during the day seemed to favor his side.

“What I’m hearing is that there’s overwhelming turnout. And overwhelming turnout particularly of young people, of women, and an overwhelming turnout of African American voters, particularly in Georgia and Florida, over the age of 65,” he told reporters.

“The things that are happening bode well for the base that has been supporting me.”

Accepting the results?

Trump has repeatedly refused to confirm he will accept the results of the election — a first for a US president. He argues, without offering proof, that the vast number of mail-in ballots could be used to rig the polls against him.

In the final run-up to Election Day, Trump focused especially on Pennsylvania, which allows ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted, even if they arrive afterward.

“The whole world is waiting,” Trump said early Tuesday.

“You can’t have these things delayed for many days,” he went on, adding ominously that “a lot of bad things” can happen.

“We should be entitled to know who won on November 3,” he said.

However, he somewhat dampened fears that he will try to declare victory prematurely, telling Fox News that he will only declare “when there is victory.”

“There is no reason to play games,” he said.

‘Scary’

Americans could not be more divided over Trump.

For some he represents a breath of fresh air who brought his business instincts to shake up the Washington establishment. For the other half of the country, he is a corrupt leader who wrecked the US reputation abroad and stoked dangerous racist and nationalist sentiments at home.

In Miami, Juan Carlos Bertran, a 60-year-old Cuban-American mechanic, said Trump “seems better to me for the country’s economy.”

“Now I have two jobs,” he said. “Before I only had one.”

But voting in New York, Megan Byrnes-Borderan, 35, said Trump’s threats to challenge the election results in the courts were “scary.”

“I believe that Trump will go through all odds to try to win the election,” she said.

Fearing unrest, store owners boarded up windows in Washington and other major cities.

Question of COVID

Biden has tapped into widespread public disapproval for Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 230,000 Americans.

Trump — who recovered quickly from his own bout with the virus in October — is gambling that Americans want to put the crisis behind them and reopen the economy fully. Biden, in contrast, is preaching caution and accuses the president of having abandoned his basic responsibilities.

“We’re done with the chaos! We’re done with the tweets, the anger, the hate, the failure, the irresponsibility,” Biden said at an election eve rally in Cleveland, Ohio.

Fears of Covid-19 drove the huge flow of early voters, encouraged by Biden. Trump has countered by holding dozens of mass election rallies with no social distancing, underlining his message that it’s time to move on.

Roughly one-third of the Senate is up for grabs and Republicans risk losing their 53-47 majority.

A notable early win was for the senior Republican senator, Mitch McConnell, who easily brushed off a challenge from former fighter pilot Amy McGrath, in Kentucky. However, if Democrats capture the majority, he will lose his powerful position of Senate leader.

And Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene — a political newcomer who has promoted the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory — won a seat in the US House of Representatives, giving the widely debunked movement a voice in Congress.

All 435 House seats are at stake, but Democrats are confident of expanding their majority in the chamber.

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5:25 am  | Biden at 117 electoral votes, Trump at 80

Democrat Joe Biden has captured 10 states, including his home state Delaware and big prize New York, plus the US capital Washington Connecticut. As with incumbent Donald Trump, so far, all states claimed by Biden were won by Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.

So far, that gives Biden 117 electoral votes and Trump 80. The magic number is 270. Observers expect the hotly contested race for the White House to come down to a handful of key battleground states.

The following is a list of the states won by each candidate and the corresponding number of electoral votes, based on the projections of US media including CNN, Fox News, MSNBC/NBC News, ABC, CBS and The New York Times.

TRUMP (80)

Alabama (9)
Arkansas (6)
Indiana (11)
Kentucky (8)
Louisiana (8)
Mississippi (6)
North Dakota (3)
Oklahoma (7)
South Dakota (3)
Tennessee (11)
West Virginia (5)
Wyoming (3)

JOE BIDEN (117)

Connecticut (7)
Delaware (3)
District of Columbia (3)
Illinois (20)
Maryland (10)
Massachusetts (11)
New Jersey (14)
New York (29)
Rhode Island (4)
Vermont (3)
Virginia (13)

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5:10 am  | More wins for Trump

Time to look away Joe Biden supporters.

Donald Trump has claimed victory in Louisiana, North and South Dakota and Wyoming, according to US media.

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4:57 am  | Biden at 88 electoral votes, Trump at 63

President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden are battling it out for the White House, with polls gradually closing across the United States Tuesday and a long night of waiting for results ahead.

The first results are trickling in, with US media projecting wins for the Republican incumbent so far in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia — all states he won in 2016.

Biden has captured Connecticut, his home state of Delaware, Maryland, Illinois, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the three electoral votes given to the US capital Washington (District of Columbia). All were won by Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.

So far, that gives Biden 88 electoral votes and Trump 63. The magic number is 270. Observers expect the hotly contested race for the White House to come down to a handful of key battleground states.

The following is a list of the states won by each candidate and the corresponding number of electoral votes, based on the projections of US media including CNN, Fox News, MSNBC/NBC News, ABC, CBS and The New York Times.

DONALD TRUMP (63)

Alabama (9)
Arkansas (6)
Indiana (11)
Kentucky (8)
Mississippi (6)
Oklahoma (7)
Tennessee (11)
West Virginia (5)

JOE BIDEN (88)

Connecticut (7)
Delaware (3)
District of Columbia (3)
Illinois (20)
Maryland (10)
Massachusetts (11)
New Jersey (14)
Rhode Island (4)
Vermont (3)
Virginia (13)

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4:43 am  | Biden wins in Illinois & Rhode Island

Meanwhile, Democrat Joe Biden is tasting victory in Illinois and Rhode Island, according to US media.

Clearly, it is neck and neck.

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4:37 am  | Trump takes Alabama and Mississippi

Just in, US media is reporting that Republican Donald Trump has taken Alabama and Mississippi.

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4:27 am  | Trump takes five states, Biden six plus DC

President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden are battling it out for the White House, with polls gradually closing across the United States Tuesday and a long night of waiting for results ahead.

The first results are trickling in, with US media projecting wins for the Republican incumbent so far in Indiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia — all states he won in 2016.

Biden has captured his home state of Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the three electoral votes given to the US capital Washington (District of Columbia).

So far, that gives Biden 57 electoral votes and Trump 42. The magic number is 270. Observers expect the hotly contested race for the White House to come down to a handful of key battleground states.

The following is a list of the states won by each candidate and the corresponding number of electoral votes, based on the projections of US media including CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS and The New York Times.

TRUMP (42)

Indiana (11)

Kentucky (8)

Oklahoma (7)

Tennessee (11)

West Virginia (5)

BIDEN (57)

Delaware (3)

District of Columbia (3)

Maryland (10)

Massachusetts (11)

New Jersey (14)

Vermont (3)

Virginia (13)

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4:15 am  | Trump wins Indiana, Kentucky, Biden takes Vermont, Virginia

Global stock markets surged and the dollar weakened Tuesday as Americans cast their ballots in the US presidential election where Democratic challenger Joe Biden aims to unseat Republican President Donald Trump.

Voters weighed in on Trump’s four years in office, where the real estate mogul presided over an expanding economy with record low unemployment that ended suddenly with the world’s largest coronavirus outbreak beginning in March.

Traders looked at the contest largely through the prism of the election’s impact on the US response to the pandemic, particularly the possibility that a political rebalancing could get Congress and the White House to agree on a new economic stimulus package.

Asian, European and US equities rallied as traders put their bets on a Democratic sweep of both the presidency and the Republican-held Senate that likely would mean Congress would approve a new spending bill early next year, if not sooner.

“The main reason why a Biden win is so sought after from a market perspective, is that a ‘blue wave’ — i.e. the Democrats crucially taking the Senate — would see a stimulus plan far greater than anything Republicans would be willing to go for,” said Spreadex analyst Connor Campbell.

But even if the Democratic onslaught falters, “Whoever gets in (is)… probably going to have to spend some money, be that through a stimulus package or infrastructure” bill, JJ Kinahan of TD Ameritrade told AFP.

The dollar slid against other major currencies, reflecting traders’ expectations of more stimulus money that would weaken the value of the greenback.

Meanwhile, oil prices jumped higher, clawing back more of their recent losses.

Charging ahead

Investors also are betting the battle for the White House will be decided quickly.

After months of uncertainty, Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com said Monday’s rally is “predicated somewhat on the hope that we’re about to get closure on the election.”

In the previous presidential election in 2016, markets prematurely celebrated a victory by Democrat Hillary Clinton, only to be surprised when Trump triumphed in the vote — a dynamic Campbell said is happening again this year with polls putting Biden ahead.

“Choosing to ignore the slim — but not slim enough — likelihood of Trump winning a second term, the markets continued to aggressively rebound,” he said.

Traders nevertheless remain fearful that a contested result could spell fresh market turmoil, legal chaos and even violent unrest in a nation already bitterly divided.

“The risk is that investors are getting ahead of themselves, given the potential for a long, drawn-out battle over the result of the US election in coming weeks,” warned analyst Chris Beauchamp at trading firm IG.

While Tuesday is formally Election Day, in reality Americans have been voting for weeks. The Covid-19 pandemic caused a huge expansion in mail-in and early voting, and nearly 100 million people had already cast their ballots, though many of those ballots will not be counted until polls close.

The United States is in dire need of a fresh rescue package as the disease flares up again, threatening a stuttering recovery in the world’s top economy made worse by lawmakers’ months of fruitless negotiations over more aid.

“Another potential uncertainty for markets would be the Republicans hanging on to the Senate in what would allow them to block some of the more contentious parts of the Democrat’s plans for the US economy,” CMC Markets UK analyst Michael Hewson said.

“The ideal scenario would be a clear-cut outcome.”

The rebound in oil prices was fueled by news that Russia is considering extending a production cut agreed with OPEC this year by another three months.

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4:05 am  | Trump wins Indiana, Kentucky, Biden takes Vermont, Virginia

President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden are battling it out for the White House, with polls gradually closing across the United States and a long night of waiting for results ahead.

The first results are trickling in, with US media projecting wins for the Republican incumbent so far in Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia — all states he won in 2016. Biden has captured Vermont and Virginia.

So far, that gives Trump 24 electoral votes to 16 for Biden. The magic number is 270. Observers expect the hotly contested race for the White House to come down to a handful of key battleground states.

The following is a list of the states won by each candidate and the corresponding number of electoral votes, based on the networks’ projections.

TRUMP (24)

Indiana (11)

Kentucky (8)

West Virginia (5)

BIDEN (16)

Vermont (3)

Virginia (13)

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3:57 am  | It is neck and neck in Florida

It is a tight race in Florida, where incumbent Donald Trump (49.6%) has a slight edge over Joe Biden (49.4%) in the early stages of the vote counting process.

According to a pre-election 2016 analysis, the 13 most competitive states were Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Arizona, Georgia, Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina, and Maine.

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3:45 am  | Biden supporters in cheerful mood outside White House

Meanwhile, earlier – on Tuesday evening – hundreds of Joe Biden supporters rallied at the White House, fueling a festive atmosphere with blasting music and dancing activists who voiced faith Democrats could win back the presidency.

The area, recently named Black Lives Matter (BLM) Plaza by the mayor of Washington, was the focal point of opposition to President Donald Trump during racial justice protests over summer.

Dozens of the city’s police watched the crowds, who were kept hundreds of yards (meters) away from the White House perimeter by a fence surrounding Lafayette Square. A new, unscalable barricade has also gone up inside the perimeter.

“I’m here to celebrate, hopefully, the president getting out of here, an early celebration,” Malik Williams, a 27-year-old school counselor from Maryland, told AFP.

Williams, who took part in the BLM protests, said he was buoyed by the polls and early voting records, adding: “I think everything will work itself out.”

“I’m not honestly not concerned at all, I think he’s gonna lose and I think it’ll be a historic loss,” he added.

Some had traveled from far and wide to be in the US capital on election day.

Ruby Estoy, 40, and her friend Concetta Leanza, 34, together with Leanza’s terrier Hercules came from Florida on Sunday.

“We came here just to feel the energy and to be here, and to really make sure that our voices get heard,” said Estoy.

The pair, who both work in the financial sector, said they voted early for Biden, but added they are “unsure” how their candidate would perform in their home state — a traditional battleground that is leaning toward Trump, according to polls.

“Vote him out!” added Estoy.

Another pair of friends, Traci from Pennsylvania and Lori Ricks from Maryland, also said they had come to soak up the atmosphere and root for a Trump loss.

The two women, in their mid-fifties, said they took the day off work to be there.

“I’m just sick of what’s happening to our country,” said Ricks, a public school teacher.

She gestured to the perimeter barrier designed to keep protesters at bay.

“This has never happened before in an election. They never had to fence up the White House, board up the windows for an election. I think it says so much,” she said.

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3:15 am  | Polls close in first six US states

Polls closed Tuesday in six US states in a bitterly contested election between incumbent President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden, including in the key East Coast battleground of Georgia.

Polling places also shut statewide in Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia in a landmark contest that saw tens of millions of American cast their ballots early amid the coronavirus pandemic.

CNN and NBC already projected a win for Trump in Indiana.

The United States was in for a long night of waiting for results, as some states say they could be counting ballots for several days. Polls were to close throughout the evening, untill the last votes are cast in Alaska.