The most divisive and unpredictable presidential race in modern memory reached its end Tuesday with long lines at polling sites from the East Coast to the Rust Belt, suggesting voters could push turnout to new levels in some places even as many decried the campaign's harsh and bitter tones.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton delivered starkly different messages as they made their last public appeals.
In Michigan[1], the GOP nominee blasted his opponent as embodying Washington's corrupt culture. In North Carolina[2], Clinton said the election would be "where we prove conclusively that, yes: love trumps hate."
By early Tuesday, residents in New Hampshire[3], Virginia and elsewhere were casting votes. At Stonewall Middle School in Manassas, Va., nearly 170 people were lined up when voting began at 6 a.m.
"I'm a determined voter," said 37 year-old Michael Barnes, an account executive for Freddie Mac who showed up at 5 a.m. and backed a straight Democratic ticket . "I'm feeling relieved that I've at least done my part."
[Live updates on the countdown for the presidential race and other contests[4]]
For Laurie Jarman, an office manager in Fairfax County, it was antipathy for Clinton that drove her vote.
"I don't know that I trust him either, but I feel that Hillary will be worse," said Jarman, 46, who arrived at Stonewall Middle School about half-an-hour after Barnes.
Even an early arrival at the polls in Virginia� �s capital, Richmond, did not guarantee Clinton's running mate, Sen, Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the first vote[5]. He, his wife Anne Holton and his parents arrived at roughly 5:50 a.m. at The Hermitage, but the resident association's 89-year old president, Minerva Turpin, beat them to it.
The Kaines, accompanied by the senator's father Al and mother Kathy, showed their photo IDs to poll workers and received fill-in-the bubble ballots. They fed them into the voting machine and walked outside, where some of the men and women waiting in a long line outside broke into appla use.
Afterward, Kaine said that if he and Clinton were "fortunate enough to win this evening," they would work to heal the deep rifts in the country that this year's race had exposed.
"In the tone of the things that we say, in the team that we put together, and the policies that we promote, we have to show that we want to govern for all, not just those who voted for us," he said.
Meanwhile Trump's son, Don Jr., predicted that his father's election would validate those who have been "disaffected from the political system" in America.
"People who have been let down by the system, I want them to turn out," he said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "I want them to vote. I want them to bring their friends."
Trump, who called into Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends" Tuesday morning, said h is supporters' intensity would usher him into the Oval Office. He mocked Clinton for having to rely on celebrities, including Jay-Z and Beyoncé, to generate large crowds at the close of the campaign.
[For an iconic suffragist's tombstone, a new coat of 'I voted' stickers][6]
"I could do that, too, you know, but I'm filling up rooms just on the basis of what I'm saying," the New York businessman said. "I don't need anybody to fill up the room."
Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, cast their ballots [7]at Douglas G. Grafflin Elementary in Chappaqua, N.Y., at 8 a.m. Just four hours earlier, they had arrived from an early-morning rally in North Carolina.
Clinton, who plans to spend much of the rest of the day at home before heading to a Manhattan hotel to await returns, was greeted by chants of "Madam President!" as she walked outside.
"It is the most humbling feeling because I know how much responsibility goes with this and so many people are counting on the outcome of this ele ction, what it means for our country," she told reporters, when asked what it felt like to cast her ballot. "And I'll do the best I can if we're fortunate enough to be elected."
Asked by a reporter if she thought about her mother, Dorothy Rodham, who was born in the year before women gained the right to vote and who died in 2011, Clinton responded with a smile: "Oh, I did."
The historic and unusual nature of the race continued to reverberate across the country. At the Rochester, N.Y. gravesite of suffragist Susan B. Anthony, who died in 1906 without getting the right to cast a vote, Mount Hope Cemetery officials extended its hours until 9 p.m. as people pasted "I Voted" stickers on her headstone.
Meanwhile, former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling — a Trump supporter who has vowed to challenge Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in 2018 — deleted a tweet in which he praised a T-shirt that advocates lynching reporters.
Posting a phot o of the shirt — which reads: "Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some assembly required" — Schilling wrote, "Ok, so much awesome here." Later he described it as "a joke" and "100% sarcasm."
In Manassas, where there is both a sizeable immigrant population and support for Trump, James Bowers, 72, said working-class Americans like himself have seen their personal liberties erode with a Democrat in the White House.
"These eight years are the worst eight years I've seen in my life," Bowers said. "It's become a dictatorship and if Hillary wins, she'll continue that dictatorship."
But 43 year-old Yesenia Luna, the daughter of an immigrant from El Salvador, said she voted for Clinton because "we have to be the difference for all the other Latinos in this country."
In a sign of how close the race remains, Clinton closed her campaign Tuesday with an energetic rally in Raleigh, accompanied by her husband and their daughter Chelsea . Singer Lady Gaga performed for an audience that nearly to a person raised hands when asked how many had voted early.
[Clinton holds edge in swing state Virginia[8]]
Meanwhile, Trump took the stage at his final pre-election rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., at 12:30 a.m. Tuesday morning — capping a five-state final push that started in Florida on Monday morning and weaved though North Carolina, Pennsylvania [9]and New Hampshire.
"Today is our independence day. Today the American working class is going to strike back," he told the late-night audience that gathered at a convention center to heat him speak.
Well before Trump was done speaking, a substantial portion of Trump's crowd started making its way toward the exits.
In his remarks, the Republican nominee said it was "almost hard to believe" that Election Day had arrived, as he reflected back to the beginning of the Republican primary and the many candidates he faced and eventually defeated.
On Wall Street, markets appeared to take a breather after Monday's surge — the biggest single-day rise since March — amid polls su ggesting Clinton's nationwide lead was holding. The Dow and other exchanges were down slightly in early trading.
[The evolving election map[10]]
Late Monday evening, Trump took the stage to a flashy laser light show in a crowded arena in Manchester, N.H., that seats roughly 11,000. "Tomorrow, the American working class will strike back!" he declared.
"Do you want America to be ruled by the corrupt political class, or do you want America to be ruled again by the people?� �� asked the GOP nominee to loud cheers, adding: "Hillary Clinton's only allegiance is to herself, her donors and her special interests."
"Lock her up!" the crowd began chanting moments later.
Earlier Monday, a rowdy crowd in Scranton, Pa., shouted, "She's a witch!" and "She's a demon!"as Trump berated Clinton. When he began to lambaste the news media as dishonest, the audience erupted into a thunderous chant of "CNN sucks!"
The Republican nominee said that the fact that the FBI had already completed its examination of newly discovered emails connected to Clinton proved that the judicial system was "rigged." He urged voters to "deliver justice at the ballot box."
FBI Director James B. Comey said Sunday that the FBI had found nothing [11]to alter its months-old decision not to seek charges against the former secretary of state for her use of a private email server.
As Election Day drew near, Clinton appeared narrowly ahead in most polls, and her campaign officials pointed to heavy turnout among Hispanics and Asians in crucial swing states, such as Florida and North Carolina, as evidence that the race was moving in their direction.
And the two men who have dominated Democratic politics for the last two decades — Barack Obama and Bill Clinton — were relegated to supportive roles.
Obama, who traveled to three states Monday to stump on Hillary Clinton's behalf, journeyed to Fort Lesley J. McNair Tuesday morning to play basketball w ith friends — an Election Day ritual he observed in both 2008 and 2012.
Meanwhile, in White Plains, Bill Clinton told reporters he's quite comfortable playing the role of political spouse.
"It's felt that way for several years now," he explained. "I'm good! I've had 15 years of practice."
Gearan reported from White Plains, N.Y.; Sullivan from New York, and Eilperin from Washington. Laura Vozzella in Richmond, Va., Antonio Olivo in Manassas, Va., and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.
References
- ^ www.washingtonpost.com (www.washingtonpost.com)
- ^ www.washingtonpost.com (www.washingtonpost.com)
- ^ www.washingtonpost.com (www.washingtonpost.com)
- ^ Live upd ates on the countdown for the presidential race and other contests (www.washingtonpost.com)
- ^ www.washingtonpost.com (www.washingtonpost.com)
- ^ For an iconic suffragist's tombstone, a new coat of 'I voted' stickers] (www.washingtonpost.c om)
- ^ www.washingtonpost.com (www.washingtonpost.com)
- ^ Clinton holds edge in swing state Virginia (www.washingtonpost.com)
- ^ www.washingtonpost.com (www.washingtonpost.com)
- ^ The evolving election map (www.washingtonpost.com)
- ^ www.washingtonpost.com (www.washingtonpost.com)
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