Reuters - Democrat
Hillary Clinton held a narrow lead in opinion polls over Republican Donald Trump
as millions of Americans turned out on Tuesday to vote for the next president
after one of the most negative campaigns in U.S. history.
In a battle
that focused on the character of the candidates, Clinton, 69, a former
secretary of state, senator and first lady, and Trump, 70, a New York
businessman and
former reality TV star, made their final, fervent appeals to
supporters late on Monday to turn out the vote.
Clinton led
Trump, by 44 percent to 39 percent, in the last Reuters/Ipsos national tracking
poll before Election Day.
A
Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation poll gave Clinton a 90 percent chance of
defeating Trump and said she was on track to win 303 electoral college votes
out of 270 needed.
World
financial markets were closely watching the outcome of election, with stocks up
slightly on cautious expectations of a Clinton win. The dollar and bond yields
slipped, while gold inched up. U.S. stocks had soared on Monday as investors
bet on Clinton, seen as the candidate more likely to maintain the status quo.
Polls begin to
close at 7 p.m. Eastern Time (0000 GMT on Wednesday), with the first meaningful
results due about an hour later. U.S. television networks called the winner of
the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections at 11 p.m. (0400 GMT) or shortly
after.
Clinton cast
her ballot at an elementary school near her home in Chappaqua, New York early
on Tuesday morning.
"It is
the most humbling feeling. I know how much responsibility goes with this. So
many people are counting on the outcome of this election, what it means for our
country. And I'll do the very best I can if I'm fortunate enough to win
today," Clinton said.
Trump, who
planned to vote later in Manhattan, began Election Day with a call to the
"Fox & Friends" morning news show.
"It's
been a beautiful process. The people of this country are incredible,"
Trump said of the election. However, he added, "If I don't win, I will
consider it a tremendous waste of time, energy and money."
More than 40
million voters cast ballots before Election Day in early voting around the
country.
FIRST WOMAN
PRESIDENT?
Trump and
Clinton were seeking to become the 45th president of the United States and the
successor to Democrat Barack Obama, who served two four-year terms in the White
House and is barred by the U.S. Constitution from seeking another term.
Clinton is
aiming to become the first U.S. woman president after spending eight years in
the White House as first lady from 1993 to 2001 before serving as a U.S.
senator from New York and as Obama's secretary of state.
Trump was
expected to draw support heavily from white voters without college degrees.
Clinton was likely to draw support from college-educated voters and Hispanic
and black voters.
Major
bookmakers and online exchanges were confident she would win. Online political
stock market PredictIt put her chances on Tuesday of capturing the White House
at 80 percent, down 2 percentage points from Monday.
Trump advisers
say the level of his support is not apparent in opinion polls and that they
believe the real estate developer is in position for an upset victory along the
lines of the "Brexit" vote in June to pull Britain from the European
Union.
"We have
seen enormous momentum," Trump deputy campaign manager Dave Bossie said.
Clinton has
vowed to largely continue the policies of Obama and to overcome income
inequality among Americans, with an unremitting divide between the rich and
poor.
Trump,
launching his first bid for elected office after decades as a public figure,
has positioned himself as an agent of change and has vowed to crack down on
illegal immigration and end trade deals he says are harming U.S. workers.
Majorities of
voters in opinion polls have viewed both candidates unfavorably.
Victory in
U.S. presidential elections is earned not by the popular vote, but by an
Electoral College system that awards the White House on the basis of
state-by-state wins, meaning a handful of states where the race is close assume
an outsized importance.
An early
indicator of who might prevail could come in North Carolina and Florida, two
must-win states for Trump that were the subject of frantic last-minute efforts
by both candidates.
Races in both
those states were shifting from favoring Clinton to being too close to call,
according to opinion polls.
Democrats also
are seeking to break the Republican lock on control of the U.S. Congress.
A strong
turnout of voters for Clinton could jeopardize Republican control of the
Senate, as voters choose 34 senators of the 100-member chamber on Tuesday.
Democrats needed a net gain of five seats to win control. All 435 seats in the
House of Representatives were being contested. The House was expected to remain
in Republican hands.
NEGATIVE
CAMPAIGN
The marathon
U.S. election campaign has been one of the most negative in American history,
with each candidate accusing the other of lacking the character and judgment to
be president.
Trump reveled
in the drama and seized the spotlight time and again with provocative comments
about Muslims and women, attacks against the Republican establishment and
bellicose appeals to build a wall along the U.S. southern border with Mexico to
stem illegal immigration.
He said if
elected he would seek to prosecute Clinton over her use of a private email
server as secretary of state, and led his supporters in chants of "lock
her up."
But the
spotlight was not always kind to Trump. The release in October of a 2005 video
in which he boasted about groping women damaged his campaign and left him on
the defensive for critical weeks.
Clinton, with
a long reputation for secrecy, sustained damaging blows from her handling of
classified information as the country's top diplomat.
FBI Director
James Comey shook up the race and slowed Clinton's momentum with an Oct. 28
announcement the agency was reviewing newly discovered emails perhaps related
to her email practices.
But on Sunday,
two days before the election, Comey told Congress investigators had found no
reason to change their July finding that there was no criminal wrongdoing in
Clinton's use of the server.
The final week
of campaigning was a grinding series of get-out-the-vote rallies across
battleground states where the election is likely to be decided.
"We
choose to believe in a hopeful, inclusive, big-hearted America," Clinton
said in Philadelphia before a crowd on Monday of 33,000, the largest of her
campaign.
She was joined
by Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, and Clinton's husband, former President
Bill Clinton, along with singers Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen.
She later made
another star-studded appeal in Raleigh, North Carolina, flanked again by Bon
Jovi and by singer Lady Gaga in a midnight rally.
At an evening
rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, Trump brought much of his family and
running mate Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana, on stage. The raucous event
in the state that gave Trump his first party primary victory featured a fog
machine and red-white-and-blue lasers.
Later, Trump
visited the traditionally Democratic state of Michigan, where he framed his
candidacy as a historic choice for blue-collar voters he hopes will send him to
the White House.
"Today is
our Independence Day," Trump said in Grand Rapids. "Today the
American working class is going to strike back, finally."
Reuters
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