5 years ago Polls to close in Florida, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania at 8 pm By Jenny Marder Polls close across the East Coast at 8 p.m. ET. Stakes are high in Florida, a state that is always close in presidential elections and has sided with the winner in nearly every presidential race for decades. The outcome in Pennsylvania, a state that Trump narrowly won in 2016, is also highly anticipated, but as one of four states that does not begin counting ballots until Election Day, final results are not expected tonight. Polls also close at 8 pm in Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Tennessee and Washington, D.C.
5 years ago Biden wins Virginia By Jenny Marder The Associated Press has called Virginia for Joe Biden. Hillary Clinton won the state by more than 4 points in 2016, and Biden was expected to win. Virginia is worth 13 electoral votes.
5 years ago Trump wins West Virginia By Jenny Marder The Associated Press called West Virginia for President Donald Trump as polls closed at 7:30 p.m. EST. Trump won the state by over 40 points in 2016, and was expected to win easily in the deep red state again this year. West Virginia is worth 5 electoral votes.
5 years ago Will North Carolina flip to blue? By Jenny Marder North Carolina has voted Republican for every presidential race except two between 1972 and 2016. Trump won the state by 3.8 percentage points in 2016. This year, however, Democrats are hoping that changing demographics play a role in flipping the state blue in favor of Former Vice President Joe Biden. Between 2000 and 2018, the share of North Carolina’s white voters has declined by 6 percentage points, according to Pew Research Center.
5 years ago Polls close at 7:30 p.m. in North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia By Jenny Marder North Carolina and Ohio are both presidential battlegrounds that President Donald Trump won in 2016. If Joe Biden wins either state, worth 15 and 18 electoral votes, respectively, it would significantly narrow the president’s path to reelection. North Carolina is also critical to the battle for control of the Senate, as incumbent Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is in a tight race with Democratic candidate Cal Cunningham.
5 years ago Georgia has not supported a Democrat in a presidential election since 1992 President Trump won Georgia by more than 5 percentage points in 2016, but that was a smaller share of the vote than that of any Republican in the past 20 years. Mitt Romney won the state in 2012 by 7.8 percentage points.
5 years ago Trump wins Kentucky. Biden wins Vermont The Associated Press called the first two states of the night, with President Donald Trump winning Kentucky again, as he did four years ago, and Joe Biden winning Vermont, which went for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
5 years ago A record 7.6 million people are eligible to vote in Georgia By Jenny Marder With 1 million new voters registered, Georgia is expected to see record turnout in this election. Nearly 4 million early votes were cast in Georgia—that’s more than 90% of the state’s 2016 turnout.
5 years ago What we’ll be watching as the polls close at 7 p.m. By Jenny Marder At 7 p.m. ET, polls will close in Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia. Georgia’s results are the most anticipated, after problems with mail-in voting led to a tumultuous primary in the state. With 1 million new voters registered since the 2016 election, Democrats are hoping to flip the state for the first time since 1992.
5 years ago Majority of Americans still disapprove of Trump’s pandemic response. By Jenny Marder A majority of Americans — 53 percent — say the COVID-19 pandemic is not at all under control, according preliminary results from the Associated Press’ VoteCast survey. Only 4 percent of Americans said the pandemic is completely under control. According to the survey, half of Americans said they had missed out on a wedding or funeral because of the virus, and 38 percent said at least one person in their household lost a job or income due to COVID-19. Roughly one out of five Americans said a close friend or family member has died from the virus. And a majority of Americans — 58 percent — said they disapprove of the way President Donald Trump has handled the pandemic so far. Trump has maintained that the U.S. is “rounding the corner” on the virus, despite the fact that the nation leads in the world in both deaths and confirmed cases. Forty-two percent of voters also said the coronavirus pandemic was their top issue. The economy and jobs came in second at 27 percent.