Diptych of images created on November 4, 2024 shows, from left, Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris in Madison, Wisconsin, October 31, 2024; and former President of the United States and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, October 5, 2024 (AFP / Brendan SMIALOWSKI)
Tens of millions of Americans are voting on Tuesday to decide whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will enter the White House, an election under high tension and with major stakes for the United States and the rest of the world.
From New York to Los Angeles, from the plains of the Midwest to the coast of Florida, long lines of voters formed on the sidewalks on this historic day.
“I encourage everyone to get out and vote,” the 60-year-old Democrat, who could become the first woman to lead the world’s leading power, declared on a local radio station.
The Republican, author of a spectacular political comeback after being convicted in court, said he was “very confident” in his victory, just after voting in West Palm Beach, near his residence.
The 78-year-old former president pledged to recognize his possible defeat “if the election is fair.” “So far, I think it’s been fair,” he added.
– Flag in tatters –
He had earlier published a video opening with a tattered American flag, with images of migrants surging across the border or armed delinquents, in contrast with workers, miners, police officers or activists at his meetings.
Voters in New York on election day, November 5, 2024 (AFP / Leonardo Munoz)
More than 82 million Americans have already cast their votes in advance and it is impossible to know whether it will take hours or days of counting to decide between the vice-president and the former leader, whose personalities and visions couldn't be more different.
Darlene Taylor cast her ballot at an elementary school in Erie, Pennsylvania, a key state that alone could swing the outcome of this extremely close election.
The 56-year-old woman, who lives on social benefits, wears a t-shirt displaying “Trump-Vance”, the tandem she wants to see lead this federation of 50 states and 335 million inhabitants.
“We don’t want four more years of high inflation, this price of gasoline and lies,” she explains.
Wearing a baseball cap, Marchelle Beason, 46, voted for Kamala Harris.
“I think it will reconcile the whole population, the whole world, because we are so divided right now,” she said. “She acts for peace, while everything her opponent says is systematically negative.”
A line of voters waiting for their turn to vote in Washington, November 5, 2024 (AFP / Allison ROBBERT)
At the meetings of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, two apparently irreconcilable Americas have flocked in recent weeks, each camp convinced that the other will lead the country to disaster.
The former California senator and prosecutor called her rival a “fascist.” The ex-business tycoon told her that she was “dumb as hell” and that she was going to “destroy” the country.
– Neck to elbow –
The verdict at the polls will be historic in any case.
The latest polls give the two adversaries almost tied in the seven crucial states, those which, in this indirect vote, will give the Democrat or the Republican the sufficient number of electors to reach the threshold of 270 out of 538, synonymous with victory.
Residents of Dixville Notch filled out their ballots at midnight for the first votes of US election day, in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, United States, November 5, 2024 (AFP / Joseph Prezioso)
To try to convince in just three months of campaigning, Kamala Harris focused on a message of protection of democracy and the right to abortion, aimed at women and moderate Republicans.
The Democrat, born to a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, is organizing her election night at her former university, the historically black Howard institution, in Washington.
Donald Trump, who left the White House in 2021 in a chaotic context, having survived two impeachment procedures, replayed in this campaign the same score as in 2016 and 2020, presenting himself as an anti-system candidate close to the people, the only one capable of saving a country ravaged according to him by migrants and galloping inflation.
– Drones, snipers –
Tuesday concludes a stunning race, marked by the abrupt entry into the running of the vice-president in July, replacing aging President Joe Biden, and by two assassination attempts against the former Republican president, four times indicted criminally.
Trump supporters in Florida, November 5, 2024 (AFP / Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo)
What happens next remains a big unknown.
Both camps have already initiated dozens of legal actions, while two out of three Americans fear an eruption of violence after the election.
Some polling stations have turned into fortresses, monitored by drones and with snipers on the roofs.
Tuesday morning, the federal police, the FBI, warned of false videos circulating and calling into question the integrity of voting operations.
In the federal capital Washington, metal barriers surround the White House, the Capitol and other sensitive sites. Downtown businesses have covered their windows with wooden planks.
The images of January 6, 2021, when Trumpists attacked the seat of the American Congress, remain in everyone's minds.
Wooden planks cover the facade of a pharmacy, in Washington, November 4, 2024 (AFP / Brendan SMIALOWSKI)
Donald Trump has already laid the first stones of a new challenge, accusing the Democrats of “cheating like hell”.
And the Democratic camp says it “expects” the Republican to declare himself the winner prematurely, as he did in 2020.
