America stands on a knife's edge as the presidential election campaign comes to a close

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A presidential election campaign like no other in history came to a terrible end yesterday as Donald Trump and Kamala Harris fought for an edge in a contest that both sides portrayed as an existential moment for America.

With voters split down the middle, a handful of voters in seven battleground states are expected to decide the outcome. The winner may not be known for days.

“It’s up to us to lose,” Trump told a crowd of supporters in Raleigh, North Carolina. “If we get everyone out and vote, they can’t do anything.”

Harris, meanwhile, was courting voters in Pennsylvania, the most important swing state.

More than 78 million voters have already cast their votes through early voting, and turnout is expected to reach a new record.

Polls show a neck-and-neck race between the candidates, despite an extraordinary campaign that saw the 78-year-old Trump survive two assassination attempts, weeks after a New York jury made him the first former president to be convicted of a crime . Vice President Harris, 60, was catapulted to the top of the Democratic ticket in July – giving her a chance to become the first woman to hold the post – after President Joe Biden, 81, resigned under pressure from his own party.

The latest average of national polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight shows Harris with a one-point lead over Trump, well within the margin of error.

“The issue is now upon us, folks,” Harris' running mate Tim Walz said at a rally in Wisconsin. “I know there is a lot of fear, but the decisions made in the next 24 to 36 hours after these polls close will shape not only the next four years, but generations to come.”

Only seven of the 50 states are competitive in this election, as the rest are clearly Democratic or Republican, according to opinion polls; These are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Pennsylvania is the biggest prize, offering 19 of the 270 Electoral College votes a candidate needs to win the presidency.

Nonpartisan analysts expect Harris to need to win about 45 electoral votes, in addition to the blue states where she is widely expected to win, while Trump would need about 51.

If Harris loses Pennsylvania, she would have to win either North Carolina or Georgia — states that have voted for Democrats only three times in the last four decades — to have a chance of winning.

However, if Trump loses Pennsylvania, he would have to win either Wisconsin or Michigan, which has voted for a Republican only once since the 1980s.

Forty-eight states award their electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis, but two states, Nebraska and Maine, award one electoral vote to the winner in each congressional district. In 2020, Biden won one of five votes in Nebraska, while Trump won one of four votes in Maine. The single-member election in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District, centered on Omaha, is seen as closely contested, although independent analysts expect Harris to win it. Both parties have spent millions of dollars on campaign advertising in Omaha.

This single vote could be crucial: If Harris wins Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin while Trump takes the other four battlegrounds, Nebraska's 2nd District would decide whether the election ends in a tie or whether Harris prevails.

Trump and his allies, who falsely claim his 2020 defeat was the result of fraud, have spent months laying the groundwork to challenge the result again if he loses. He has promised “retaliation” if elected, spoken of prosecuting his political rivals and described Democrats as the “enemy within.”

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report