That means that the result is quite likely to come down to who prevails in the seven battleground states identified by both sides as being up for grabs: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives are on the ballot, as are 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate. There are also 13 state and territorial governorships to be decided.
The election will be covered by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky News and various others. The Guardian live blog will also be running, obviously.
Here is a guide to how the night will unfold. UK viewers should consider getting some sleep at 8pm or 9pm, and setting alarms for midnight or 1am, since not much will happen before that.
10pm
Exit polls give context
Polls are still open, but the first batch of exit polls are released.
Unlike in the UK, where exit polls are a pretty robust guide to the final outcome, the American version offers only a tantalising hint of what may be in store: rather than providing a projection of final results on the basis of asking people at polling stations how they voted, they give a view of what respondents said were the issues that mattered the most to them.
They're based on a bigger sample than typical polls - numbering in the tens of thousands - so they ought to give pretty robust findings. But knowing that voters were motivated by the economy or abortion, for example, will only be a clue to how the night might go, rather than a basis for projecting the result.
Midnight
Georgia and North Carolina
Polls close in six states over the next hour. Don't just follow the running count of electoral college votes to get a sense of how it's going, though: Trump is expected to have the biggest tally coming out of this first batch however well his night's going.
This story is from the November 05, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the November 05, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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