WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — Americans awaited the final results of one of the most intense and divisive presidential elections in modern history Tuesday as early exit polling showed worrying signs for Vice President Kamala Harris and positive news for former President Donald Trump.
The close of many Election Day polling places brought no immediate winner in the race to 270 Electoral College votes but provided a cascade of new voter data showing the economy and democracy were the most pressing concerns.
Mr. Trump notched early wins in West Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina and other barely contested conservative states. Ms. Harris did the same in such basically conceded liberal states as Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
In battleground states such as Georgia, the numbers looked good for Mr. Trump four years after losing to Joseph R. Biden.
Exit polling released by CNN showed independent voters in Georgia favored Mr. Trump by 11 percentage points, a big swing from 2020, when Mr. Biden won them by 9 points. Exit polls found Mr. Trump winning a staggering 25% of the vote among Black men in the state.
Vote counting, polling station glitches and even bomb threats threatened to delay final results.
SEE ALSO: Early exit polling shows worrying signs for Harris
Exit poll surveys, conducted by Edison Research on behalf of news outlets, gave a hint of what was on the minds of voters in the presidential election. Earlier polls showed a deadlock between Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris.
The survey found 7 in 10 voters are “dissatisfied or angry about the way things are going,” in particular with the economy. Mr. Trump outperforms Ms. Harris on the issue.
The survey found that only 7% of those surveyed were feeling “enthusiastic” about the way things are going in the country, mirroring months of polling that led Ms. Harris to distance herself from Mr. Biden. The president dropped out of the race in late July after a bad debate performance against Mr. Trump.
Of those surveyed, 43% said they were “dissatisfied” with the country’s direction and 29% said they were “angry.” That added up to a total of 72% of voters who were angry about the direction of the country.
The same survey showed that Mr. Biden’s approval rating was underwater at 41%.
The exit poll found the state of democracy and the economy were the top voter issues, but their importance was split by party.
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Democratic voters viewed “democracy” as the most important issue, followed by abortion, the economy, foreign policy and immigration. Republican voters rated the economy as the most important issue. Immigration placed second, democracy third, abortion fourth and foreign policy fifth among priorities.
The Harris campaign received positive voter turnout news that gave them hope in Pennsylvania, another of seven critical swing states that were likely to decide whether Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris won the White House.
Harris aides claimed turnout was high in Philadelphia among Puerto Rican voters, a historically reliable Democratic voting bloc. As of midday, Harris campaign aides said, the three wards with the highest concentrations of Puerto Rican voters in the city were at 79% of their 2020 turnout.
The Harris campaign hoped Puerto Rican voters would be motivated to turn out for the vice president after a comedian at Mr. Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last month referred to the U.S. territory as a “floating island of garbage.”
Harris campaign officials said they also observed high enthusiasm among college students, another group that has traditionally backed Democrats.
In Pennsylvania, the lines to vote at Lehigh University were seven hours long, Harris aides said.
In North Carolina, Republican turnout appeared to be below 2020 levels in the rural counties. Voters were flocking to the polls in the deep-blue city of Durham.
Pennsylvania and North Carolina and Georgia were three of the biggest prizes. Polling remained dead even in both states in the run-up to Election Day.
The other closely watched battleground states were Michigan, Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin.
Ms. Harris spent all of Monday campaigning in Pennsylvania. Mr. Trump held two rallies in the state and one each in North Carolina and Michigan.
Election Day equipment snafus plagued several counties in Pennsylvania, which analysts said could be the most critical of the seven battleground states.
Under court orders, the Pennsylvania Department of State extended polling hours in Luzerne County and Cambria County because of glitches with scanning machines and polls that opened late.
Election officials and top Democrats told voters it could take days to know the outcome. They noted that results in 2020 were not finalized on election night in many critical states.
“Let the process run its course. It takes time to count every ballot,” former President Barack Obama posted on X.
The 2020 election was not decided for Mr. Biden until the Saturday after Election Day. Mr. Trump’s 2016 victory was declared in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Democrats hoped for a huge turnout of women to help counter Mr. Trump’s advantage among male voters. Ms. Harris, polls showed, far exceeded Mr. Trump in support from female voters.
Early Election Day hiccups added fuel to an inferno of distrust about the results and the prospect of legal challenges.
Bomb threats cleared polling places in Democratic-friendly Fulton County, Georgia, for a brief period in the morning. Voting in Republican-leaning Cambria County, Pennsylvania, was disrupted by a software glitch that local officials said threatened to “disenfranchise a significant number of voters.”
Officials in Georgia and at the federal level fingered Russian actors as the culprits behind the bomb threats against polling places in Fulton County. Voting was extended at 12 polling places.
“None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far,” the FBI said.
In Milwaukee, officials ordered the recount of 31,000 absentee ballots after an equipment glitch was discovered. The recount will delay results in Milwaukee — and likely the entire battleground state — until late Wednesday morning, officials said.
Tuesday marked the conclusion of a bitter political battle between Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris that was marked by mudslinging and name-calling.
The divisive tone was met with an equally divided electorate.
The two candidates barnstormed battleground states in last-minute pitches to turn out voters and sway a tiny swath of those who were undecided.
\Mr. Trump told reporters after voting that this campaign was the best of his three runs for the White House.
“I ran a great campaign. I think it was maybe the best of the three,” Mr. Trump said after casting his vote alongside his wife, Melania, at a Palm Beach recreation center.
“We did great in the first one. We did much better in the second one, but something happened. I would say this is the best campaign we’ve run,” he said.
Mr. Trump was asked whether the campaign was his last, even if he lost.
“I would think so. I would think so,” Mr. Trump said, adding that the end of his political campaigning, which began nearly nine years ago, was sad to him.
“Sad and very fulfilled,” he said, predicting “a very big victory.”
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.