The US faces a close presidential election as Harris and Trump wrap up their campaigns

Thai baby hippo Moo Deng “predicts” Trump’s US election victory

Thailand's superstar baby hippo Moo Deng, a staple of social media memes, has predicted a Republican comeback victory over Harris.

The four-month-old pygmy hippo was offered two bowls of carved fruit, each emblazoned with a candidate's name, and chose Trump in a video posted online by the zoo.

Moo Deng proved a particular hit in the United States, where comedian Bowen Yang portrayed her in a “Saturday Night Live” comedy sketch.

She also beat Trump and Harris in an unofficial “Tonight Show” presidential poll, receiving 93 percent of the vote.

Tens of millions of ballots have already been cast

While the vast majority of polls in the U.S. are not yet open, tens of millions of Americans have already cast their votes, including record numbers in Georgia, North Carolina and other battleground states that could decide the winner.

Early voter turnout in Georgia, which has swung between Republican and Democratic candidates in the last two presidential elections, was so high, with over 4 million voters, that a senior official in the secretary of state's office said the big day could look like a “ghost town” at the polls Choose.

On Monday, the Associated Press showed that about 82 million ballots had already been cast in the nationwide early voting – a little more than half the total number of votes in the presidential election four years earlier.

That's due in part to Republican voters who cast early ballots at higher rates than in recent elections, following a campaign by former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee to offset Democrats' long-standing advantage in early voting.

The New Hampshire hamlet scored a tie in the first votes on US Election Day

Voters in the US town of Dixville Notch opened Election Day with a tie in the first minutes of Tuesday, reflecting incredibly close national polls.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump each received three ballots in the tiny community in the northeastern state of New Hampshire, where for decades Election Day has begun promptly at midnight on Monday – hours before the rest of the country's polls open.

In front of a gathered crowd of journalists, voting opened with an accordion performance of the US national anthem.

Dixville Notch residents voted unanimously in 2020 for then-candidate Joe Biden, reportedly only the second president to win all the votes since the midnight voting tradition began in 1960.

Trump and Harris on key issues at home and abroad

Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris offer US voters a very different future over the next four years.

While one seeks isolationism and would willingly abandon the U.S. role in international leadership in favor of a unilateral “America First” approach, the other sees stability in a global order based, as always, on partnerships and diplomacy with America the top.

Domestically, Trump is expected to focus on tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation for corporations, including environmental deregulation, as well as taking a hard line on immigration.

A Harris presidency would likely seek to help the middle class, ensure access to health care, take action on the environment and promote social justice as part of its “opportunity economy” plans.

Harris and Trump set their sights on Pennsylvania in the last election campaign

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump ended the presidential race on Monday with a bitter battle over Pennsylvania, marking their final appearance before voters in a state that could prove pivotal in the race for the White House.

Harris ended her evening in Philadelphia on the steps of the art museum made famous by the movie “Rocky,” where she said, “The momentum is on our side.”

She also teamed up with supporters in Allentown, Scranton and Pittsburgh, and made a detour through Reading to visit a Puerto Rican restaurant and do a little self-promotion by knocking on doors alongside campaign volunteers.

Trump began the day in North Carolina and ended it in Michigan, but in between he spoke in Reading and Pittsburgh – at each stop mixing false claims of voter fraud with warnings about criminal migrants and promises to revitalize the United States.

“With your vote tomorrow, we can solve every single problem facing our country and take America, and indeed the world, to new heights of glory,” he said.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of US Election Day

In a few hours the final votes for the 2024 presidential election will be cast.

In a deeply divided country, the contest between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump is considered one of the toughest in decades, with just seven battleground states set to decide the outcome – barring a major surprise.

Big questions remain about the timing of the results, the influx of misinformation and even the possibility of political violence, with both sides bracing for a lengthy legal battle that could further complicate matters.