Early indicators point to bumper turnout across US swing states

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Initial signs from polling stations across the US’s critical swing states pointed to a bumper voter turnout as the White House race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump came down to the wire on Tuesday.

Surrogates for candidates doubled down on a frantic, last-gasp push to corral supporters — and crucial independents — in the final hours of voting in the seven swing states that will decide the election.

Democratic campaign operatives claimed voter turnout in states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia, especially from women, was powering Harris ahead.

“Voter turnout is extremely high,” said Philadelphia Democratic party chair Robert Brady, a former congressman. “It’s the highest we’ve ever seen for this point.”

But Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and one of Trump’s biggest financial backers, said that men — a demographic thought to favour the Republican candidate — were “voting in record numbers”, though he did not point to evidence.

“The cavalry has arrived,” Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns. “They now realise everything is at stake.”

Other Republicans expressed caution.

“Turnout is mixed and not where we want it to be,” Charlie Kirk, a Republican pundit, posted on X. “We need more people to vote. We can’t let turnout flatline. Text everyone you know. Make more noise. We need more.”

The debate over the numbers pointed to a wider gender division that has been a hallmark of the campaigns and which political analysts said could ultimately decide the outcome of the tightest race in decades.

The FT’s final poll tracker on Tuesday put Harris 1.5 percentage points ahead of Trump nationally but in a virtual tie in the seven crucial battleground states.

Pollsters said initial numbers on Tuesday indicated the turnout rate would push past 2016 numbers and approach 2020 levels, when numbers were the highest since 1900 as mail-in votes surged amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

“My impression at the moment is that we are definitely above the 2016 turnout rate,” said Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida specialising in elections, on X. “Uncertain if we’ll reach 2020s record turnout, but looks more like 2020 than 2016.”

McDonald forecast turnout would reach 64.7 per cent, down slightly from 66.4 per cent in 2020, but well above 60.1 per cent in 2016.

In Wisconsin, one Waukesha county polling station ran out of “I voted” stickers. Election workers also said they ran out of registration forms and had to photocopy more.

In Reno, Nevada, meanwhile, one voter who declined to give her name said she had queued up for more than two hours to cast her ballot on Tuesday.

Early voting in Nevada — the tightest swing state race according to the FT poll tracker — favoured Republicans. The state’s voting tally is among the most closely watched across the country.

That is a reversal from previous years where Nevada Democrats led in early voting on the back of large numbers of mail-in ballots.

But the share of independent voters is also far higher this in this election, according to the early data — meaning the result could depend on how these voters break.

If all registered Democrats and Republicans were to vote for their party’s candidate, Democrats would need to win roughly 57 per cent of independent voters to make up the gap, as of the most recent update.

Nevada Democrats are also banking on the legendary “Reid Machine” — named after the voting coalition build in the state by the late Senate majority leader Harry Reid — to get out the base.

Additional reporting by James Fontanella-Khan in New York