The 2024 U.S. presidential election, which will significantly impact the U.S. and world politics, will begin on Tuesday.
If Democratic presidential candidate and vice president Kamala Harris wins, she will set milestones as the first female president and Asian/African American president in U.S. history. On the other hand, a victory for Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump would lead to the resurgence of “America First.”
As of Sunday, nearly 78 million people had voted in early voting, and a total of 160 million people are expected to cast ballots in person on Election Day. This means the highest voter turnout since 2020 is likely.
In-person voting will begin in the mountainous New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch, which has a population of 13, at 00:00 a.m. on Tuesday ET (2:00 p.m. Tuesday Korea time). It will run until the ballot boxes close at 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday in Alaska. Vote counting will begin in Indiana and Kentucky at 6 p.m. on Tuesday when polls close.
The U.S. presidential election is won by the winner of each state’s electoral votes, not the total number of votes cast. With 93 electoral votes up for grabs in the seven swing states (Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada), a winner could be decided as early as the early morning hours of Wednesday (Wednesday afternoon in South Korea) if there is a large gap in the popular vote in these states.
However, it could take several days for the race to become clear, with many close results in all swing states. The 2020 election took four days for major U.S. media outlets to declare a winner. There are also concerns that the results will be disputed or that supporters of each party will clash.
On Sunday, Trump traveled to three swing states – Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia – emphasizing that he would “fix a corrupt U.S.” Harris was confident of victory at a Michigan rally the same day, saying, “The momentum is with us.”
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