Thanks for following along with us as we covered Election Day in the United States.

But with polls beginning to close in some states, we will be moving our coverage to a new page – you can find us here.

Please keep following for more updates as more polls close and the first results come in.

Americans finally headed to the polls today to pick their next president. As polls begin to close and the first exit polls arrive, here’s a recap of how the day has gone so far.

• Polls continued to show Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in a deadlocked race this morning.
• Voting went smoothly in most places, but there were long lines in several states, some software glitches in Pennsylvania, and bomb threats in Georgia, which the FBI deemed not credible and the work of Russian election interference, that delayed the vote in some counties.
• Arab, Muslim, and progressive Americans were divided on how to vote, as they faced a difficult choice between two candidates seen as unfriendly to Palestine.
• The world, from Gaza to Iran, watched the US election closely, with trepidation, hope, and scepticism

The first batch of Edison Research exit polls show a general decline in support for both parties’ candidates in swing states. These early polls are subject to change, like other polls, as more voters are surveyed, and could run counter to the official results.

But here’s what they show:

• North Carolina: Trump favourability at 43 percent, compared with 47 percent in 2020. Harris at 48 percent, compared with Biden’s 50 percent in 2020.
• Georgia: Trump favourability at 46 percent, equal to 2020. Harris favourability at 49 percent, down from Biden’s 50 percent in 2020.
• Pennsylvania: Trump favourability at 47 percent, equal with 2020. Harris favourability at 46 percent, compared with Biden’s 50 percent in 2020.
• Michigan: Trump favourability at 45 percent, equal to 2020. Harris favourability at 48 percent, down from Biden’s 51 percent.
• Wisconsin: Trump favourability at 44 percent, up from 43 percent in 2020. Harris favourability at 47 percent, compared with Biden’s 50 percent in 2020.
• Arizona: Trump favourability at 46 percent, down from 48 percent in 2020. Harris favourability at 46 percent, compared with Biden’s 49 percent in 2020.
• Nevada: Trump favourability at 47 percent, compared with 48 percent in 2020. Harris favourability at 44 percent, compared with Biden’s 52 percent in 2020.

And the results – if you look at our live results page – is a 50/50 split between Harris and Trump.

But how can Dixville Notch have already counted its votes when none of the states has closed their polling centres yet?

The tiny New Hampshire community has voted at midnight on election day since 1960 and immediately counts its ballots.

But the votes won’t have a major effect on the election – there were only six votes cast in Dixville Notch.

After an unsuccessful legal challenge, the billionaire’s pro-Trump political action committee, America PAC, has announced the final recipient of its final $1m-a-day election sweepstake.

In all, the organisation paid $18m to 18 individuals who signed a petition pledging to support the US Constitution, with the last payout going to a resident of Reading, Michigan.

The scheme had faced a legal challenge from Philadelphia’s district attorney, who said it violated a state gaming law. It was later allowed to proceed. The Department of Justice had also warned the sweepstakes could violate so-called “vote buying” laws.

A lawyer representing the PAC had revealed that while the recipients were called “winners”, the individuals were actually not chosen by chance, but were selected to be paid spokespeople. Musk had earlier said the money would be awarded “randomly”.

Tyler VanAkin of Reading, MI is our final recipient of $1M for signing our petition to support the Constitution.

Tyler was traveling but we were able to meet up with him before he boarded his flight.

Thank you all who signed in Support of the Rights to Free Speech and Bear Arms pic.twitter.com/lx1UT2DyZ4

— America (@america) November 5, 2024

Patrick Soon-Shiong, the newspaper’s billionaire owner, suggested in an internal email that both presidential candidates’ support for Israel’s war on Gaza was among the reasons he decided the newspaper would not make an endorsement.

Soon-Shiong outlined the reasons behind the choice in an email sent on November 3 and obtained by the outlet Drop Site News.

“Has there ever been a time in our history, when our nation is knowingly providing arms to another nation using those weapons to kill children, women, innocent people and target the press, doctors and medical workers?” he wrote. “And policies enabling this are supported, it seems, by both candidates?

“I feel strongly about us leading the press and media in trying to be an objective voice of balance and truly speak truth to power without our conformational bias”, he added.

Soon-Shiong’s daughter, Nika Soon-Shiong, had previously indicated that her father’s decision was motivated by the war in Gaza and his personal experience living in South Africa during apartheid, though Soon-Shiong had denied the claim as “her opinion”.

Soon-Shiong faced much criticism for his refusal to endorse a candidate, which led to the resignation of three editorial board members.

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of The Washington Post, also decided the newspaper would not make an endorsement for different reasons, leading to some 250,000 readers cancelling their subscriptions.

More than 5 million Puerto Ricans living on the US mainland can cast their vote for Harris or Trump – many of them fired up by a racist joke about their island by a speaker at a Trump rally last week.

Puerto Ricans on the island, however, cannot vote in the US presidential election. Still, a huge number of them headed to the polls, under torrential rain, to cast a vote in a gubernatorial election that will be historic regardless of which of the top two candidates wins.

If Resident Commissioner Jenniffer Gonzalez of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party wins, it will mark the first time in the island’s history that the party secures three consecutive terms. If Juan Dalmau, who is running for Puerto Rico’s Independence Party and Citizen Victory Movement, wins, it will be the first win for a candidate outside of the two main parties that have dominated the island’s politics for decades.

Puerto Ricans on the island are also voting – for a seventh time – in a non-binding referendum asking them to choose between statehood, independence and independence with free association, under which issues like foreign affairs, US citizenship and use of the US dollar would be negotiated.

It’s a symbolic vote: regardless of the referendum’s outcome, a change in status requires approval from the US Congress.

And Puerto Ricans on the island have an opportunity to cast symbolic votes for Trump or Harris. But because that vote doesn’t count, some have turned their ballots into protests, calling for freedom for Palestine and Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico is holding a “mock US Presidential vote” in the colony’s local general elections. But in typical rebellious PRican fashion, protest ballots are being cast instead, here are some examples.
THREAD: pic.twitter.com/WihV4iZyP9

— devilette (@deviIette) November 5, 2024

Edison Research has released the first preliminary exit polls of Election Day. Exit polls, like other polls, do not offer the final results of the election. While they can offer a view into voter sentiment, they are also subject to change as more voters are surveyed.

Here’s what the first batch of exit polls show nationally:

• Favourability dips for both candidates compared with the parties’ contenders in 2020: 44 percent of voters said they viewed Trump favourably, down from 46 percent in 2020, while 48 percent of voters viewed Harris favourably, down from 52 percent who viewed Biden favourably in 2020.
• A slight increase in women voters: 53 percent in 2024 compared with 52 percent in 2020.
• An emphasis on economy and democracy: 35 percent of voters said democracy mattered most; 31 percent of voters said economy mattered most; another 14 percent said abortion, 11 percent said immigration; and 4 percent said foreign policy.
• A split on support for US-Israel policy: 32 percent said US support for Israel is too strong; 31 percent said it is not strong enough; 31 percent said it’s about right.
• An increase in white voters and a decline in Black and Hispanic: 71 percent of voters are white, compared with 67 percent in 2020; 11 percent are Black compared with 13 percent in 2020; 12 percent are Hispanic vs 13 percent in 2020.
• Support for giving undocumented migrants a chance for citizenship: 57 percent said undocumented migrants in the US should be given a chance for legal status; 39 percent said they should be deported.

We’re in the Gwinnett County election headquarters. The early votes have been scanned into scanners, the memory cards have been taken out and they’ve been moved to be counted.

Now, poll workers are working on today’s ballots – those that have just come in.

All of Georgia’s early and mail-in ballots will be tallied by the end of the voting today at 7pm (00:00 GMT). An hour later, Georgia has to report all of its results, except for the votes that came in today.

Across all of Georgia, that’s about 5 million votes total – which would set a new record. And that’s what we expect to happen, according to the secretary of state.

There were some irregularities in the state in 2020, with some poll workers being intimidated.

Today, there’s been a number of threats at polling stations – in Fulton County and a few other spots. Police say those were taken care of and cleared. Georgia’s Secretary of State’s Office says the culprit in this case was Russian interference.

Dan Perry, a former regional editor at The Associated Press, says Trump’s aversion to “messy things” will cause him to push Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza.

Watch below to hear more of his thoughts:

The former president has refused to say how he voted on Florida’s abortion measure.

The first time he was asked, Trump avoided answering. Instead, he said he had done “a great job bringing it back to the states”.

That was a reference to the former president having appointed three conservative justices to the US Supreme Court who helped in 2022 to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade decision – which had permitted abortion on the federal level.

Pressed a second time, Trump snapped at a reporter, saying they “should just stop talking about that”.

Restricting abortion has long been a cornerstone of the Republican Party, but two revelations at the start of October signalled just how far the party’s stance has shifted under Trump.

On October 1, the former president pledged for the first time to veto a federal abortion ban if re-elected. Then, two days later, his wife, Melania Trump, declared her support for abortion rights.

It was a stunning about-face for Trump who, just one year earlier, told supporters he was “proud to be the most pro-life president in American history”.

However, experts say Trump’s mixed messages are part of a wider campaign strategy to appeal to both sides of the polarising issue, which appears to have been a vote-loser for the Republicans in the 2022 mid-term elections.

Read more about Trump’s “strategic ambiguity” on abortion in our long read, here.

Exit polls are election-day voter surveys that can give a sense of the direction the final tally is trending.

Like other polls, they offer a projection of the outcome based on a distinct methodology, but they are not official results and are subject to change throughout election day.

Also, like other polls in the past, exit polls have proven to be off the mark. That was particularly true in 2016 when they showed then-candidate Hillary Clinton as likely to win the overall race. She ended up losing to Trump.

In the US, the most prolific exit polling organisation is Edison Research, which works with a consortium of US media organisations known as the National Election Pool to provide poll results throughout election day.

As US voters head to the polls today, Palestinians in Gaza are reeling from yet another day of deadly Israeli bombardments backed and funded by the US government.

Israeli military attacks have killed at least 54 Palestinians in the enclave today, the latest casualties in a yearlong war that the next US president, Trump or Harris, will soon have to contend with.

Listen to testimonials from several Palestinians in Gaza below:

You can follow our live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza here. 

Gold prices have held broadly steady this morning as voters have gone to the polls.

Gold is usually considered a safe haven asset, and the highly uncertain outcome of the US elections would typically encourage investors to turn to gold to protect their investments, especially as the equity markets are expected to be volatile in the weeks ahead.

Treasury yields and inflation would be appreciably higher under a Trump presidency and that would weigh on gold prices, Bernard Yaros, lead US economist at Oxford Economics, told Al Jazeera.

“Given higher Fed rates and higher Treasury yields under a Trump administration to cope with the inflationary pressures of tariffs, we would anticipate a flatter price profile over the next several years,” Yaros said, referring to Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on imports across the board, which are expected to push up inflation.

However, higher geopolitical risk and likely higher central bank purchases would in part offset this channel, mitigating the election’s impact on gold prices, he added.

In Nevada, there are six electoral college votes up for grabs. That’s the least of any of the swing seven swing states, so Nevada will be crucial only if there’s no clear path to victory.

Wherever people are, whether in the rural parts of the state, which tend to vote more red Republican – or here in Las Vegas, which is more blue Democrat – everyone’s worried about the economy.

They’re worried about the cost of living, prices going up, and the shortage of affordable housing.

Many people, especially low-income residents, are on the danger line. They spend 30 percent of their income or more on rent, meaning they have no money for other things.

So these are really bread-and-butter issues for the people who live in Nevada; it might be home to Las Vegas, where tourism dollars come rolling in, but a lot of people are struggling.

Kamala Harris has failed to convince thousands of Americans appalled by Israel’s war in Gaza that she would do anything to bring an end to the suffering of Palestinians, says Palestinian American activist Linda Sarsour.

“Kamala Harris’s campaign has made a calculation that they do not need Palestinian American, Arab American and Muslim American voters to win,” Sarsour, a co-founder of the racial justice group Until Freedom, told Al Jazeera.

“There is a genocide that is happening. This is a current, ongoing, massive slaughter of Palestinians. This is not something we’re talking about in the past, this is not just a general conversation on foreign policy.”

Sarsour cited the exclusion of Palestinians from the Democratic National Convention and the removal of prominent Muslim community leader Ahmed Ghanim from a Harris campaign event as points of contention for voters, as well.

“All along in this campaign, Palestinian voices have been marginalised and ostracised,” Sarsour said. “That’s on Kamala Harris and her campaign. It’s their job to earn votes.”

Sarsour, who was a co-founder of the Women’s March movement following Trump’s 2016 election, said the former president “is not a better option for Arab Americans and Palestinian Americans”.

“I know this because I worked on the front lines against Donald Trump for four years,” she explained.

“Emotional people and people who are being reactionary right now are basically saying, ‘We have to punish the Democratic Party’,” she added, however, referring to members of her community who are turning to Trump.

“People will argue that there is nothing worse than genocide and I’ll also have to agree with that.

“We’re really between a rock and a hard place.”

In most US states, convicted felons have a tough road to casting their ballots in elections, if they can even vote at all.

Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in a New York hush-money trial in May and is currently out on bail awaiting sentencing. And yet, he cast his ballot in Florida today.

Why was that possible?

Trump is a resident of Florida, where people convicted of felonies have a difficult time regaining their voting rights. But Florida law states if a person is convicted in another state, the rules of that state apply to whether they can vote.

A New York state law passed in 2021 allows convicted felons to vote in elections as long as they are not currently serving a sentence at the time. Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on November 26.

So Trump was able to cast his ballot today in Palm Beach, Florida.