WASHINGTON | Tens of millions of Americans go to the polls on Tuesday to choose between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in a historic presidential election in an America that is severely divided.
• Read also – Ready for a long evening
• Read also – Joe Biden tops Hollywood
• Read also – A clear choice: the American ideal or Trump
At 6 a.m. New York time, polling stations opened in New York and some in four other states, New Jersey, Connecticut, Virginia and Maine.
A favorite in the polls for months, Joe Biden, 77, former vice-president of Barack Obama, hopes to finally win the keys to the White House on his third attempt.
Armed with his undeniable energy on the stands, the outgoing Republican President, 74, who led a campaign of incredible aggressiveness, promises for his part to create a surprise again, as in 2016.
“Tomorrow, we will once again write a page of history,” he said at his final meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan, referring to a “magnificent victory” to come.
“I have the feeling that we are heading towards a big victory”, had launched, a few hours earlier, Joe Biden from Pittsburgh, the city where he had started his campaign 18 months ago.
The campaign has been dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has claimed more than 230,000 lives in the United States and has worsened further in recent days.
“Not four more years! “
“I can’t stand four more years with Trump,” one of Joe Biden’s supporters, Jane Perry, 65, met in Pittsburgh, where the former vice-president attended a meeting on Monday evening in presence of Lady Gaga.
–
–
Conversely, Lara Schmidt, 42, hopes for a “tidal wave” in favor of the president, whom she listened to fervently in Scranton. “But if the postal votes are illegal, I will kneel down to pray,” she said worriedly.
As some cities prepare for possible violent outbursts, America is giving the world the image of a country split into two blocks that no longer speak to each other.
For months, Donald Trump has agitated, apocalyptic scenarios in support, the specter of a “radical left” ready to transform the world’s leading power into a “large-scale Venezuela”.
–
–
Democrats, Joe Biden and Barack Obama in the lead, are multiplying the warnings against the potentially devastating consequences on democratic institutions of a second Trump term.
Nearly 100 million Americans have already voted in advance, in person or by mail, to avoid crowded polling stations amid the pandemic. For weeks, Donald Trump has been critical of this option, accusing it without proof of promoting electoral fraud.
“America first”
The five voters of Dixville Notch, a hamlet of twelve in the northeastern United States, symbolically launched the presidential election at midnight Tuesday, voting unanimously for Democrat Joe Biden.
This village lost in the forests of New Hampshire, near the Canadian border, has carried on a tradition established since 1960, which has earned it the title of “First in the Nation”.
–
–
The ballot opposes two radically different men.
On the one hand, a New York heir, a real estate tycoon who went through reality TV before bursting into politics with a populist message, “America first”, and who continues to present himself as an “outsider” despite his four years in the White House.
On the other, an old politician from the middle classes (on the clock, 36 years as a senator then eight more as vice-president) who promises to heal the wounds of a bruised country by winning “the battle for ‘soul of the nation’.
After two failures in 1988 and 2008, Joe Biden, a pure product of the moderate wing of the Democratic Party, won the primaries of his camp with a simple message: beat Donald Trump, crushed as “the worst president” of the recent history of the United States.
–
–
Little by little, he also made the election a referendum on the Republican management of the pandemic.
The latter has not ceased to be caught up with this health crisis that he has always tried to minimize.
Until he himself was infected and hospitalized at the beginning of October. “I am cured” and “immune”, he insists since, set out again in campaign with an undeniable energy by calling on the Americans not to let COVID-19 “dominate” their lives.
Very high participation
Turnout is set to be historically high, with more than 97 million voters who have already voted early before Tuesday (by mail or in person), more than 70% of the total number of voters in 2016.
–
–
The Democrats had called to vote upstream because of the virus, and it will be necessary to see if the Republicans, more inclined to go to the polls on the same day, will be there.
The record accumulation of votes by mail, which in some states may flow up to several days after Tuesday, may also complicate the count, or even delay the announcement of a winner if the result is tight.
“As soon as the election is over, our lawyers will be ready,” warned Donald Trump, who, unprecedented for an outgoing president, stubbornly refused to commit to accepting the outcome of the vote.
–
–
To win, a candidate does not need to have a majority vote at the national level: he must win the majority of at least 270 of the 538 elected voters at the state level.
Tuesday evening, initially, all eyes will be on Florida, one of the most famous pivotal states, and which has promised to show the color from election night. Without this state that he won in 2016, it is an almost impossible mission for Donald Trump.
On the other hand, if he does manage to keep Florida, where he is neck-and-neck with Joe Biden in the polls, attention will shift to Pennsylvania, the Democrat’s home state. There, the voting intentions are a little more favorable to the former vice-president, but with a gap close to the margin of error.
–
