The United States is holding its breath as the count progresses in its closest presidential election in decades and with Donald Trump leading in all swing states, by increasingly wide margins. The future of the world power depends on the preferences of voters in a handful of counties, notably in Pennsylvania, still affected by the divisive transfer of power in 2020, a campaign marked by high levels of violence, including an assassination attempt and high inflation. this caused enormous discontent.
With North Carolina and Georgia virtually locked in with Trump, Kamala Harris’ only path to victory would be to win Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. It depends on this last state whether Trump’s victory is confirmed, increasingly plausible for the Republican, or whether hope is preserved for the Democrat. Concretely, the votes he collects in Philadelphia and its suburbs are decisive.
Arizona, where they are tied at 49%, can also be decided by a handful of votes, but without enough weight to change the distribution of the electoral college, since Trump is already very close to the 270 delegates that grant victory.
Among the trends that marked this day, the support of Latinos for Trump stands out, who won by wide margins in Florida, more than 13%, and in Texas. Republicans are also poised to take control of Congress.
During the day, election day took place normally, but moments of tension were not avoided, demonstrating the extent to which American society is polarized. In Georgia, a false bomb threat forced some voting centers to extend hours; In Arizona’s most populous county, Maricopa, polling places and counting centers opened amid security measures after the 2020 riots and in Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, businesses and the office buildings surrounding Congress and the White House woke up armored.
Furthermore, as the recount approached, former president and Republican candidate Donald Trump began to raise the specter of electoral fraud without evidence, as he did in 2020 before refusing to accept his defeat.
“There is a lot of talk about massive fraud in Philadelphia. The police are arriving,” he said on his social networks without giving more information, then insisted: “Philadelphia and Detroit. The police deployment is coming. Both cities are Democratic strongholds in swing states where the support Kamala Harris gets there can decide the final outcome.
Harris, for her part, requested to vote until a few minutes before the polls closed:
“If you are in line when the polls close, stay in line, because you have the right to make your voice heard,” he said on his social networks.
On voting day, the focus was on two demographic groups: women and Hispanics. Never before has the decision of two groups of voters received so much attention from the media, analysts and campaign teams.
The women’s decision
According to polls, women of all ages prefer Harris with support percentages of 50-70% (NBC News), while men feel more comfortable supporting Trump at the same percentages. It is for this reason that the mobilization of both sexes was closely analyzed throughout the day and the preceding days of early voting.
The progressive polling institute Catalist indicated before Tuesday, November 5, that women had already received 55% of the vote so far, while men’s participation was 45%. The conservative channel Fox News also warned in an editorial at the start of the day that “if men don’t vote, Harris wins” and pointed out that in decisive states like Georgia, women had mobilized 27% of more than men.
A walk through voting centers in Queens, one of New York’s most diverse neighborhoods, showed the gender gap between the two candidates for the Oval Office.
“I’m going to vote for her, I don’t want a thief like all of you,” a Dominican voter shouted in Spanish as she passed a group of men wearing the red caps that usually identify Trump supporters.
At the door of the voting center, another group of women asked to support a proposal that was also being voted on today in a referendum and sought to protect access to abortion in the state constitution of New York, after the Supreme Court struck down legislative framework two a few years ago, which protected termination of pregnancy. According to the Washington Post 1 in 7 voters declared at the exit of the polls that the issue of abortion had been decisive in deciding their vote, especially them.
In a Queens cafeteria, another group of women celebrated voting for Kamala Harris, while in a voting center in Harlem, the epicenter of African-American culture, two women sighed with relief after voting: “Now let’s stay at home. television for hours.”, anticipated one of them.
African Americans with Kamala
In Harlem, a neighborhood where 40% of the population is African American, it was easy to identify signs and other signs.support aceI have to Harris -woman of Jamaican and Indian origin- near the voting centers. In 2008, after the victory of Barack Obama, the party burst into the streets.
At the door of a polling station, Edward D.íaz, retired veteran, He declared himself a Democrat and a regular voter: “I want to live in a safe, violence-free country where people can vote freely. “Everyone should have a voice, including Republicans, but there is a lot of corruption and people with bad intentions,” he said with his daughter Alice.
The Latino division
For their part, the other group with the most weight in the American demographic, Latinos, have arrived today more divided than ever. Far from viewing the Hispanic public as a monolith, this campaign showed that Hispanic Americans have very different perspectives on politics. Support for Harris stood at 54%, according to the latest polls, while Trump has gained support as high as 40% in some polls.
“I became a citizen thanks to Trump, because I had never seen so much crime in New York. I hope he can clean the city of criminals,” said Brenda Cuasquer, originally from Colombia but a resident of New York to learn more.s from 30 toños, in the Corona area, where more than 30 percent of residents identify as Hispanic.
Asked about the Republican candidate’s controversies and his anti-immigration speech, she acknowledged that “he is a big mouth”, while minimizing the issue and insisting on her confidence in him to control insecurity.
Another Dominican-born poll worker, who asked to remain anonymous, admitted to voting for Trump for the first time, after supporting “even Obama” more than 20 years ago. “For me, Harris is a continuation of the old man (Joe Biden) and Barack Obama, and business was better for me with Trump,” he said.
At the same time, he explained his vote in regional terms: “The Democrats have abandoned us, the Dominicans, and they want to send us all the Haitians,” he declared. The Trump campaign has repeatedly blamed Haitian migrants for crimes and altercations, even accusing them of eating cats and dogs in the state of Ohio during the election debate, a hoax rejected by the state authorities who set the political agenda for several days. .
How Latinos vote in states like Arizona and Nevada, the last swing states to close voting centers, will shape the future of a recount that will have Americans holding their breath for the future of their country and, therefore, the rest of the world.
