Polling begins in US with millions casting their ballots to elect next president

The first polls began to open at 5 a.m. Eastern Time (1000GMT) in some parts of Vermont, but the first major wave of openings happened at 6 a.m. Eastern (1100GMT) with stations opening their doors in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia, as well as parts of Kentucky and Maine.

Additional waves of openings will roll out across the US as the day goes on, with polls opening last in the state of Hawaii at noon Eastern Time (1700GMT). Closures will begin in some states at 7 p.m. Eastern (0000GMT Wednesday), with Alaska remaining open the longest, until 1 a.m. Eastern Time Wednesday (0600GMT).

Anyone who is in line at the time polls officially close will be allowed to cast their ballots, however, meaning stations are likely to remain open beyond their official closure time as long as voters remain in line.

Nearly 83 million people cast early ballots in this year's election cycle by mail or in-person voting, according to data from the University of Florida's Election Lab. That is far short of the over 101 million who did so in 2020, when the US was in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But rather than national support, the race is all but certain to come down to seven key battleground states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Wisconsin – where the nominees are facing similarly narrow contests with spreads well within the polls' margins of error.

Trump's lead is greatest in Arizona, where he is up by 2.8%, followed by Georgia (+1.3%), North Carolina (+1.2%), Nevada (+.06%), and Pennsylvania (+0.4%). Harris continues to lead in Michigan (+0.5%) and Wisconsin (+0.4%).

Both candidates spent the final week before the election campaigning hard in the states, with Harris visiting Pennsylvania for a series of rallies in multiple cities Monday and Trump spending the day there before a late-night rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

It is highly unlikely that major media organizations will declare a victor Tuesday night, as had been the norm up until 2020, due to the closeness of the races in the battleground states.