All eyes on bellwether Florida
Lauren Fedor
Florida has 29 electoral college votes, making it the largest battleground state in terms of population — unless you count Texas, which has 38 electoral votes.
The “Sunshine State” could provide an early signal of where things are headed tonight. Florida has a long-standing reputation for being a bellwether: the victor there has gone on to win the White House in 13 of the last 14 elections.
But Florida is also seen as one of the most politically divided states. Most statewide elections there — including the 2018 gubernatorial contest — are decided by less than a percentage point.
Donald Trump won Florida by a 1.2-point margin over Hillary Clinton. He changed his official residence to the state last year, making Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Palm Beach, his official home.
First US polls close with Trump taking Kentucky and Biden taking Vermont
Demetri Sevastopulo
Donald Trump has won Kentucky, a solidly conservative state that was expected to vote for the president, marking the first results of the 2020 election.
Mr Trump won Kentucky, a very Republican state that has remained out of Democratic reach since Bill Clinton won the Appalachian state during his first presidential race and his re-election campaign in 1996.
Mr Trump won the state by a huge margin of 29.8 points four years ago, in what was one of his strongest performances on the historic night.
Kentucky awards eight of the 270 electoral college votes needed to win.
Meanwhile, former vice president Joe Biden has won Vermont, which carries three electoral votes.
Results from swing state North Carolina to be delayed
The North Carolina State Board of Elections voted on Tuesday to extend voting at four polling places after the sites opened late. That is expected to delay results for the swing state.
The shortest extension was 17 minutes in Cabarrus County and the longest was 45 minutes at the Plainview Fire Station precinct in Dunn, NC.
There are 2,660 polling sites in the Tar Heel state and polls at other parts of the state are scheduled to close at 7:30 pm. Polls suggest a tight race in North Carolina, which carries 15 electoral votes.
Black voters in south Philadelphia show resolve to cast their ballots
Joshua Chaffin
It took Karri Ray a cane, a bottle of water and three rest breaks on a folding metal chair, toted by her daughter, to cover the 100 metres or so from the street to the polling station in her south Philadelphia neighbourhood. Also propelling the asthmatic and infirm Ms Ray was her hatred of President Donald Trump.
“Anything to get his ass out,” her daughter, Toni, explained during one of several pit stops while Karri wheezed.
Across Philadelphia, the biggest city in the swing state of Pennsylvania, Black voters like the Rays were showing unusual determination on Tuesday to cast their ballots and oust Mr Trump.
Several people likened this election's importance to that of 2008, which made Barack Obama America's first black president. Poll workers also said they saw evidence that young black men such as Jamar Samuel, 27, were voting in greater numbers than four years ago.
“I regret it, but I didn’t vote last time,” Mr Samuel said after casting his ballot at a community centre in north Philadelphia. What brought him out this time? “Trump. We gotta get him out of office.”
For all the enthusiasm, there was no line to the polling place — perhaps because so many ballots were cast early.
In the 48th ward, where Ms Ray voted, there may have been more volunteers and activists on hand than actual voters in the late afternoon. Charities, some staffed by volunteers from Brooklyn, competed to hand out pizza, falafel and other snacks to voters. A DJ played and there was not a rightwing militia member in sight — just funk.
Trump campaign upbeat about chances in Florida and Pennsylvania
Courtney Weaver
The Trump campaign projected a final note of optimism on the president’s chances in Pennsylvania and Florida on Tuesday evening, arguing that Joe Biden cannot win the White House if he loses both states.
In a call with reporters shortly before the first polls closed, Donald Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien and senior campaign adviser Jason Miller projected optimism about Mr Trump’s path to victory, claiming that election day voting was overwhelmingly favouring Mr Trump and that Democrats had “cannibalised” their typical share of the same-day vote in their push to promote early voting.
“They believe that the make-up of voters who are voting today on election day will resemble those who voted on election day 2016,” Mr Stepien said. In reality, “they simply moved those who traditionally vote on election day to vote early”.
In Pennsylvania, Mr Stepien said, the Trump campaign had recorded Republican precincts matching and exceeding their 2016 turnout so far, while Democratic precincts were “lagging behind”.
Mr Miller said the president’s campaign was also confident about its chances in Florida, where he said the Biden campaign had little traditional ground game.
“There is no pathway, there is no ballot dynamic that would allow the Democratic presidential candidate to win the presidential election if they lose Pennsylvania and Florida,” Mr Miller said, contradicting an assessment made by Mr Biden’s campaign manager earlier in the day who said Mr Biden could still win the electoral college even if he wins those two states.
“If you’re losing in Pennsylvania and Florida,” Mr Miller added, “you’re going to be losing other places as well.”
Millions of spam calls target voters in swing states
Kiran Stacey in Washington and Hannah Murphy in San Francisco
An estimated 3.7m suspicious robocalls have been received in the US on election day warning recipients to “stay safe and stay home”.
The calls have been focused in several swing states, including Florida and Texas, though California and New York have also been heavily targeted, according to data from RoboKiller, a company that helps users block spam calls and texts.
The FBI and telecoms executives are trying to work out the source of the calls and whether they are deliberately trying to dissuade voters from turning out. Giulia Porter, vice president at RoboKiller, said similar calls had first been reported in December 2019, but had peaked in the last few days, with a sharp spike on election day.
A spokesman for the USTelecom industry group said: “The calls seem to be possibly coming from Europe even after going through providers based elsewhere in the world (for example, a provider based in Asia).”
Letitia James, the New York attorney-general, said the state was also launching an investigation, saying the calls appeared to be “spreading disinformation encouraging people to stay at home on election day”.
Trump campaign seeks to halt tally of some mail ballots in Nevada
Kadhim Shubber
The Trump campaign has sought to halt the processing of certain mail ballots in Clark County, Nevada, in an emergency appeal to the state’s supreme court.
Nevada is generally forecast to back Joe Biden in the election. Clark County includes Las Vegas.
The move came a day after a lower court Nevada judge on Monday rejected the campaign’s challenge of how the county verifies signatures on mail ballots, as well as the “duplication” process it uses to ensure ballots can be fed into counting machines.
Clark County uses machines to verify signatures, and when ballots have issues that make it difficult to feed into automated counting machines, election officials create a duplicate.
The Trump campaign claimed these processes mean they are unable to properly monitor the count, and that the machine signature verification is unlawful under Nevada state law.
Nevada’s Democratic attorney-general, Aaron Ford, on Monday criticised what he called Donald Trump’s “deliberate attempts to undermine Nevada’s elections”.
First polls to close in less than an hour
Mamta Badkar
The first polls will close at 6pm eastern time in the conservative states of Kentucky and Indiana.
Donald Trump is expected to win Kentucky, which carries eight electoral votes, and Indiana, which carries 11 electoral votes.
The first signs from the key swing states will start to emerge when polls close in Georgia (16) at 7pm.
Record early voting, with more than 100m Americans having cast their ballots before election day, has complicated the tallying votes. And if this proves to be a close race, a victor is unlikely to be announced on election night given that the crucial states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are not expected to complete their ballot counts for several days.
The civil war that wasn’t?
Our New York-based columnist Rana Foroohar offers her views on election day so far
For days, American shopkeepers have been boarding up stores, and police have been planning for riots. Today, many US schools, including some in NYC where I live, were closed in anticipation of election violence. And yet, from the early looks of it, November 3 may be much calmer than most pundits would have predicted.
Part of that may be down to the fact that so many people have voted early. More than 100m people, nearly a third of the country, cast their ballots before Tuesday’s voting had started. In that sense, Covid-19 has been a blessing for participatory democracy — early voting is in large part about the efforts that states have gone to in order to make the election safer.
It may also be about the strength of conviction that people on both sides of the aisle in the US feel about their political choices these days. We’ll probably see as many as 20m-30m more votes this time around than 2016.
But even if things go the way I predict they will, and Joe Biden wins, I doubt we are going to see major social unrest. We’ve braced ourselves for the fact that the final tally in some key states may take several days. For weeks, we’ve heard the president say he’ll question the outcome no matter what. But there have been only isolated cases of disruption around the country in the middle of the most politically divided moment in decades.
Three things we have seen — first, the blocking of a bridge in New York City and the surrounding of a Biden bus in Texas by Trump supporters, which looked like futile gestures of rage, rather than some well organised and worrisome insurrection effort. They just didn’t make any sense.
Second, in Detroit, on Monday a couple of people showed up at voting sites to cause trouble. They were clearly paying attention to what Trump was saying about poll watchers and acted on it — but they weren’t an army or a concerted effort. They were mentally fragile people who took Mr Trump seriously. Again, this isn’t serious social unrest; it’s isolated fringe behaviour.
Third, there have been multiple instances of voter suppression in the south, of course, some purportedly by the Klan. But again, they were not well organised or new evidence of something broader and more systemic than what we’ve seen in the past (though that’s not a reason to not be totally crushed that we still have 19th century behavior in 21st century America. This is stuff being done by hateful people that were always there. But in a big country like the US, local pathologies here and there don’t make a new civil war.
Trump senior adviser Jason Miller equating the counting of votes with the stealing of an election was worrisome, for sure. But of course he has no legal leg to stand on, and the Trump campaign itself seems not to have pushed that point any further.
We’ll see what happens should any contested results need to go to the Supreme Court, which is now starkly divided after the appointment of three new justices by President Trump. But I suspect that the real rebellion will come not in the streets, or in the courts, but within the Republican Party itself. I’ll blog on that later today.
US cyclical industrial and financial shares gain on Biden win hopes
Richard Henderson
The broad rally in US stocks extended into the afternoon, led by industrial and financial companies — cyclical sectors of the market that are primed to benefit from a big fiscal stimulus package.
The S&P 500 index of blue chips rose 2.4 per cent before lunchtime in New York before easing its gains to 1.7 per cent by mid-afternoon, with 90 minutes left in the trading session.
Industrial stocks gained 2.8 per cent in a rally that lifted all but two of the sector's 73 companies in the S&P 500.
Financial stocks climbed 2.6 per cent. The leadership for the two sectors, which do well in an expanding economy, was interpreted by analysts and investors that the market was pricing in a victory for Joe Biden in Tuesday's US elections, given he is expected to unveil a bigger fiscal package than President Donald Trump
Industrial groups General Electric advanced 2.6 per cent while Boeing gained 3.7 per cent. The two companies are typically seen as bellwether stocks for the global economy.
Other bellwether stocks to advance on the day included Caterpillar, which gained 2.3 per cent to trade just shy of its record high reached two years ago, and FedEx, which was up 3 per cent.
Citigroup and Goldman Sachs advanced more than 4 per cent and JPMorgan Bank, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley up more than 3 per cent.
Wisconsin sees few lines as many vote absentee
Claire Bushey
Voters in Wisconsin have escaped the long lines that plagued the state's primary in April, partly because so many residents voted early or absentee.
Meagan Wolfe, administrator for the Wisconsin Elections Commission, told journalists at a midday briefing that no polling places were reporting unusually long lines. The state received 2.1m requests for absentee ballots for the election, and by this morning 1.9m had been returned.
"It seems like there are fewer (lines) than in previous elections," she said. "There are fewer left to participate because so many voted absentee."
The state has also been aided by a surge in volunteers working the polls this election. Alec Wendland, 22, a student at Carroll University, volunteered after seeing the four-hour queues in April in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and said that experience "made me want to do what I can" to avoid a similar outcome today.
"I'm hopeful we're going to have a free and fair election, and it's going to be a smooth process," he said.
Queues appeared in a few places, particularly as poll workers enforced social distancing. Jeff and Heather Talbert voted in Bristol, Wisconsin, located in the rural area of hotly contested Kenosha County, where signs for Trump outnumber those for Biden. They had to wait in a short line, whereas "we normally walk right in, especially at 10 am... we're spoilt," Mr Talbert joked.
Yard sign seen in Bristol, Kenosha County, Wisconsin
Videos: How Biden and Trump compare on Covid crisis and other issues
The Financial Times focused in a series on key swing states and issues in the 2020 presidential race that pits Democrat Joe Biden against Republican Donald Trump.
US managing editor Peter Spiegel and global business columnist Rana Foroohar explore in these videos how Mr Trump and Mr Biden compare on a number of issues including the coronavirus pandemic, working-class white voters and the African-American vote.
Working-class white voters in the Midwest swing states
Coronavirus in the key swing states of Arizona, Texas and Florida
The African-American vote in Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina and Georgia
US officials warn of robocalls designed to mislead voters
Hannah Murphy in San Francisco
Robocallers are spreading misinformation designed to suppress voter turnout in some US states, according to local officials and reports, although cyber officials said the matter was "under control".
Michigan's Attorney General Dana Nessel on Tuesday said on Twitter that she was receiving "reports of multiple robocalls going to Flint residents that, due to long lines, they should vote tomorrow".
She added: "Obviously this is FALSE and an effort to suppress the vote. No long lines and today is the last day to vote. Don't believe the lies!"
Earlier on Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that voters had received an estimated 10m automated spam calls in recent days telling them to "stay safe and stay home", according to telecoms experts.
Local authorities in Florida and Nebraska have warned of similar robocalls in recent days, according to media reports.
A senior official at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a US government organisation that monitors for election interference and hacking, said that they were aware of the reports. But the official added that robocalls spreading misinformation "happens every year", and that the matter was "under control at a state level" and "law enforcement is on top of it".
The FBI is now investigating the matter, according to several media outlets citing US cyber officials.
The FBI said: "We are aware of reports of robocalls and have no further comment. As a reminder, the FBI encourages the American public to verify any election and voting information they may receive through their local election officials."
While social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have laid out plans to tackle the proliferation of online misinformation on their platforms, bad actors have increasingly moved towards wielding text messages and calls in order to evade detection.
Additional reporting by Kadhim Shubber
Trump says 'losing is never easy' at visit to campaign HQ
Courtney Weaver
President Donald Trump on Tuesday paid a visit to his campaign headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, where he reiterated his demand of an election result on Tuesday night, but left open the possibility that it might not be the result he wanted.
"We should be entitled to know who won on November 3," Mr Trump, speaking in front of his applauding campaign staff, some of whom wore masks, some of whom did not, as well reporters. Earlier, Mr Trump held a private, off-camera meeting with campaign staff.
Mr Trump said he was planning to address the American people later in the night, but said he had not finalised his remarks, even suggesting he was bracing himself for the possibility of a potential loss to Joe Biden.
"I'm not thinking about concession speech or acceptance speech yet," Mr Trump said. "Winning is easy, losing is never easy. Not for me it's not."
Still, he projected confidence that his campaign would do well. "I think we're going to have a great night." He also claimed his campaign had seen large crowds of Trump supporters voting, and was anticipating doing better-than-expected among African-Americans and Hispanics.
Asked by a reporter if he had ended up contributing money to his own campaign, Mr Trump replied: "You'll see that in the filings."
He added: "But we had plenty of money."
Speaker Pelosi confident of Biden win as she urges 'patience'
Lauren Fedor
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House, on Tuesday said she was confident that Joe Biden would be inaugurated president on January 20.
But she urged supporters to wait for every vote to be counted, saying on a press call: "Be confident, be calm, be patient, because we are prepared. But do not be celebrating until everyone across the country has a chance to vote. We don't want to deter any voting because people think the election is over."
Mrs Pelosi told NPR late on Monday that the 435-member House was "ready" and "prepared" for the possibility that the chamber might need to intervene to determine the outcome of the election.
Under the US constitution, if there is no clear winner via the electoral college, the House would be tasked with electing the president, and each state delegation would be given one vote, with 26 votes required to win.
All House seats are up for grabs on Tuesday but Democrats are widely expected to maintain control of the lower chamber of Congress.
However, control of the Senate, which is held by the Republicans, is seen as a toss-up, with several Republican incumbents facing strong challenges from Democrats.
US postal service ordered to ensure ballots delivered on time
Kadhim Shubber
A federal judge has ordered the US Postal Service to sweep facilities in several key battleground states to ensure that any remaining mailed ballots are delivered on time.
Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered Postal Service inspectors into facilities in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas, Florida, Georgia and Arizona among other locations and he gave the postal service until 3pm EST to ensure that "no ballots have been held up and that any identified ballots are immediately sent out for delivery".
The order shortly after midday came as data filed in court showed that nationally about one in 10 pieces of first-class post, which includes ballots, was not on time as of Monday.
In some areas, the rate was worse, with as much as a third of first-class mail in the Philadelphia metropolitan area not on time on the eve of the election.
The data and order came in a lawsuit brought by civil rights groups.
Legal wrangling is going on in states such as Pennsylvania about whether ballots that arrive after polling day can be counted.
State election officials in the days leading up to Tuesday have urged voters to cast their ballots in person or via dropboxes to avoid having their vote left off the count.
Biden campaign bullish following surge in early voting
Lauren Fedor
The Biden campaign struck a bullish tone on Tuesday morning, telling reporters that the former vice-president is in pole position based on the more than 100m votes cast early, either in person or by mail.
Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, Biden's campaign manager, said: "We feel like it is clear that we are winning. All of the data that we are looking at really underscores how many pathways we believe we have to victory and how few Trump has."
Ms O'Malley Dillon, who worked on both of Barack Obama's presidential campaigns, added that, while many states would not complete their official counts tonight, Mr Biden expected to "address the American people" after the polls closed.
Some states, such as Florida, have begun counting early ballots, making it more likely that they finish their counts this evening. But Ms O'Malley Dillon cautioned that Mr Biden had multiple pathways to securing the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the White House, arguing that the former vice-president could lose key battlegrounds such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas and still emerge the victor.
Record turnout possible after 100m Americans vote early
Demetri Sevastopulo
More than 100m Americans voted before election day, underscoring how 2020 could set a record for voter turnout. The US Elections Project, which tracks voting, said the total number of early votes cast in person or via absentee ballot reached 72.8 per cent of the total vote count in the 2016 election.
According to data from states that have voter registration information, 45 per cent of early voters were registered Democrats – although that does not stop them from voting for Donald Trump – while 30.5 per cent were registered Republicans.
More than 11.6m early voters, or 23.8 per cent, were not affiliated with either party. Ahead of the election, Republicans had told pollsters that they were much more likely to vote on election day.
The apparent edge for the Democrats in early voting boosted pressure on Mr Trump to get out his base, explaining why the president held many large rallies in the closing weeks of the presidential race.
Some states, including Texas and Montana, recorded more early votes than their total turnout in 2016. Democrats are hoping that the record turnout in Texas, which has become a battleground for the first time in decades, will help Joe Biden become the first Democrat to win Texas since Jimmy Carter in 1976.
Top US general asserts military’s non-partisan role in election outcome
Katrina Manson
America’s top uniformed official General Mark Milley has reiterated to television anchors the military's non-partisan role in the US election outcome.
Gen Milley briefed broadcasters, including CNN, Fox and ABC, in the days before polls opened on Tuesday against a backdrop of summer protests, according to a person familiar with the briefing. Military forces were sent onto the streets in some places after some demonstrations, triggered by the May killing of George Floyd, turned violent, raising fears for the potential for electoral clashes.
On Tuesday American news website Axios first revealed the details of Gen Milley’s discussion with the networks at the weekend.
The US military’s top leadership has been at pains to confirm its apolitical stance with assertions that it would have no role in any potential transfer of power since Gen Milley apologised in June for accompanying Donald Trump while wearing camouflage. The president emerged from the White House flanked by his top officials after police cleared protesters with tear gas.
“Minute-to-minute reporting across the nation is going to take place on TV,” said a person familiar with the weekend’s discussion. That person added US military officials were keen that any possible isolated incidents of violence were seen in context rather than potentially indicating the country was “on fire”.
Some states have called on National Guard personnel to help open or run polling centres, such as in Tennessee and Wisconsin, but they were authorised only to wear civilian clothes and answer to state authorities.
In the case of widespread protests, however, the National Guard could potentially be called on to help with law enforcement at the state level, or even on behalf of the country if Mr Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act.
How markets will react in potential ‘blue wave’ election outcome
Michael Mackenzie
An election day rally on Wall Street is being led by financials and industrials while energy holds the wooden spoon among the main S&P 500 sectors. Transports and smaller stocks are also rallying ahead of the S&P 500. This suggests investor sentiment is leaning towards a “blue wave” outcome, with the prospect of significant fiscal spending from a Democratic-dominated Washington in 2021.
This chimes with prediction markets assigning odds of 58 per cent for a blue wave scenario while UBS says its “US Office of Public Policy assigns a 55% probability to a Blue Wave”.
Industrial metals and emerging market currencies are also in demand, underlining hopes of a global reflation trade gaining momentum from a blue wave result along with less policy angst between Beijing and Washington under a Biden administration.
Peter Garnry, head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank, reckons the key markets during the counting of votes include the Nasdaq 100, EM equities, Chinese technology stocks and the CBOE’s Vix.
Given the large retail presence in trading tech shares, a Democratic blue wave stands to hit tech shares, reckons Mr Garnry, who adds: “A Biden victory will increase uncertainty over regulation and taxes on technology companies which will get priced in and with retail investors aggressively long this part of the equity party we could see some sort of liquidity event on the downside if the right mix of catalysts are triggered.”
The consequences of greater US fiscal spending entail a weaker dollar and rising long-dated Treasury yields. Not only is the dollar fading against major rivals today, the 10-year Treasury yield has pushed to its steepest point versus a two-year note since May 2017. The two-year note is anchored by the Federal Reserve near zero, leaving the 10- and 30-year yields with more freedom to push higher and reflect expectations of heftier government spending and Treasury debt sales in 2021.
At 0.88 per cent, the 10-year note yield is expected to test the 0.95 per cent peak seen in June but the benchmark remains well below its pre-pandemic area of 1.60 per cent.
Ian Lyngen at BMO Capital Markets writes: “The magnitude of Biden’s lead over Trump has led to the perception that the odds of a decisive outcome are building – thereby offsetting a degree of the underlying uncertainty. Second, the consensus outcome (Biden wins, House stays Blue, and a reasonable chance the Senate flips) is a risk-on impulse that will drive both stocks and yields higher in the wake of the finalisation of the election outcome.”
US investors plump for Biden victory shares, such as Monster Beverage
Naomi Rovnick
US investors are placing strong bets on stocks that could benefit from a Joe Biden victory, despite a presidential election result that is far from certain and the risk that Donald Trump contest it should he lose.
Shares in stockbroker Charles Schwab rose about 5 per cent to their highest since June, as investors wager on a Democrat win and fiscal stimulus that could embolden wealthy Americans to top up their trading accounts.
Belief a Biden victory could spark a rebound for the pandemic-stricken US economy is also propelling bank shares higher. JPMorgan, seen as a bellwether of the health of the US financial system, rose 4 per cent, with rivals Morgan Stanley and Citigroup posting similar gains.
Another potential beneficiary from a Democrat win, according to analysts at JPMorgan, is energy drink maker Monster Beverage, trading around 3 per cent higher this morning. The seller of extremely caffeinated drinks, according to JPMorgan, would be boosted by higher minimum wages.
The mood on stock markets was not altogether complacent about the month ahead, however.
The Vix, Wall Street’s so-called fear gauge that measures expected volatility on the S&P 500, remained elevated at a reading of 35, nearly double it’s long-run average. For retail investors, that could mean a scary ride ahead.
The “worst case scenario”, said Barclays co-head of global equities Paul Leech, “would be a contested outcome with some kind of legal challenge. Then not only do we see an end to this market rally, but volatility will increase”.
In other words, perhaps think twice before logging on at Charles Schwab.
Republican lawsuit alleges Pennsylvania county illegally pre-canvassed ballots
Kadhim Shubber
Republicans in Pennsylvania have filed a lawsuit in federal court asking for certain votes in Montgomery County to be thrown out.
The lawsuit claimed that Montgomery County, which is next to Philadelphia, illegally pre-canvassed ballots before November 3 and allowed some voters to fix issues with their ballots.
Pennsylvania state law prohibits processing ballots before 7am on election day, one of the reasons that it could be days or longer before it is clear who has won the battleground state.
The lawsuit was filed by Kathy Barnette, a Republican candidate for Pennsylvania’s 4th congressional district, and Clay Breece, a local Republican party official. It asked for any ballots that had been pre-canvassed and changed to be thrown out.
“We believe our process is sound and permissible under the Election Code. We understand that the Court may be scheduling a hearing on this matter for later this morning,” said a Montgomery County spokesperson.
US business lobby calls for economic aid after election
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson
Washington’s biggest business lobby has set out its post-election priorities, saying it will not wait for the inauguration of a new US president next January to press for more progress on a second stimulus bill.
If President Trump wins reelection, Republican and Democratic leaders “must immediately return to the negotiating table and work through their differences”, Suzanne Clark, president of the US Chamber of Commerce, wrote on Monday.
Similarly, if a “blue wave” gives Joe Biden the White House and Democrats a Senate majority, business will not be content to wait until next year to secure fresh support for business. “The Chamber will put maximum pressure on our leaders to pass an aid package as quickly as possible,” she warned.
US business has called for patience as all votes are counted, and voiced concern about possible unrest and market volatility should election results be contested.
But Ms Clark made clear that corporate America’s priorities would be similar whoever won: relief for companies hit by the pandemic would be “the first order of business” but the Chamber would then “double down” on its lobbying for infrastructure spending, a priority it believes has been held up by partisan gridlock.
Dollar weakens as investors wager on Biden victory
Naomi Rovnick
The dollar weakened substantially against trading partners’ currencies as investors wagered on a Joe Biden victory that would unleash a huge borrowing and spending package to revive the pandemic-stricken US economy.
The dollar index, which measures the performance of the US currency against six major global currencies, fell almost 0.7 per cent, its biggest drop in more than a month. Against the euro, it fell 0.6 per cent, to purchase 85.4 euro cents.
“The dollar, in the likely event of a Biden victory, will weaken,” said Tihana Ibrahimpasic, a multi-asset analyst at fund manager Janus Henderson.
This, she explained, was not only because more borrowing by a Biden administration would increase the US deficit. A fiscal stimulus that revived the world’s largest economy would also prompt investors to buy stocks and retreat from haven assets such as the reserve currency.
US stock markets opened higher on Tuesday, with the blue-chip S&P 500 gaining 1.6 per cent and the tech-focused Nasdaq adding 1.4 per cent, following on from a rally in European shares.
Financial and industrial stocks were the best performers on the S&P, as bets on an economic rebound under Mr Biden encouraged buying of value shares - those that trade below their fair value and tend to do well as recessions end.
Ms Ibrahampasic added, however, that an unexpected or contested result could swiftly end the stock market rally and reverse the dollar’s fall.
US cybersecurity official says election ‘secure’
Hannah Murphy in San Francisco
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director Christopher Krebs told reporters on Tuesday morning that the agency, which monitors for election interference and hacks, was “confident the vote is secure”.
But he added: “We are not out of the woods yet...Today in some sense is half time.”
Federal authorities have seen attempts in recent weeks by foreign actors such as Iran and Russia to interfere with the vote, but those threats were dealt with “quickly” and “comprehensively”, he said. Two weeks ago, US intelligence authorities revealed that both countries had obtained voter registration information and that Iran had sent emails posing as a far-right group designed to sow chaos and intimidate voters.
Mr Krebs also noted some “early indications of system disruption” on Tuesday due to technical issues at polling stations, rather than hacking by outside actors. Mr Krebs added that there are “paper back-ups” for systems in the case of issues. Voting systems in Spalding County, Georgia, are currently experiencing a countywide glitch, according to local media reports.
California to vote on gig economy employment rules
Dave Lee in San Francisco
Californians will not only cast their ballot for president on Tuesday but will also be asked to make a choice pivotal to the future of the so-called gig economy.
Proposition 22 seeks to exempt these app-based groups from California employment law, and is backed by more than $200m from a coaltion of Uber, Lyft, Doordash and others, making it by far the most expensive ballot measure race in the state's history.
Passing the Prop 22 vote will mean the companies will be allowed to continue classifying their drivers as independent contractors rather than employees, avoiding benefits such as minimum wage, sick pay and healthcare.
Prop 22 would instead put in place a limited number of benefits based on how many hours have been worked: a driver putting in more than 15 hours a week driving for Uber would start to build up a stipend that could be used to pay for healthcare coverage.
They would receive an "earnings guarantee" of 120 per cent the local minimum hourly wage, though how that is calculated is one of the many bones of contention in this debate.
Uber doesn't count the time during which a driver is waiting to be matched with a rider, which can amount to around 33 per cent every hour, according to one Uber-disputed study.
Opponents of Prop 22 say gig economy companies have been abusing their drivers for the past decade, building multibillion-dollar companies on the back of low income workers subsidising costs. If Prop 22 fails to pass, a recent court ruling would most likely mean Uber and Lyft are forced to make drivers employees by in about the new year. The companies say it would be impossible without reducing the number of drivers greatly, and significantly raising prices, particularly in rural areas.
Either way, California, the state in which the gig economy was invented, will determine the controversial sector's future.
A win for "yes" will see Uber's stock price soar -- with the expectation that the company will go state-to-state, and possibly country-to-country, to set up similar agreements on its terms.
A "no" would give energy to the outspent labour movement to build its fight for employment classification nationwide, adding complication and expense to the gig business.
Polls suggest a tight race. The most recent, which polled about 5,000 Californians in October, suggested 46 per cent supported the measure. That's short of the 50 per cent needed for it to pass. It was however a seven-point increase on the same poll a month earlier.
Trump confident of his chances of election victory
Matthew Rocco
Donald Trump expressed confidence in his chances of winning another four years in the White House, saying on the morning of election day that his campaign “took off” following the last presidential debate.
The president dismissed claims from critics that he might declare victory before the race can be called. An announcement would be made “only when there’s victory”, he said in an interview on the Fox News show Fox & Friends. He added: “There’s no reason to play games.”
Mr Trump spent the final days of the campaign barnstorming in battleground states, as polls showed a tight race in states that could decide the outcome of the election.
Rallies in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida and other states drew thousands of onlookers. On Monday, his campaign stops included Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Scranton, Pennsylvania, the blue-collar town where Democratic candidate Joe Biden was born.
“It’s been a great three weeks,” Mr Trump said. “The second debate in particular I think was something that worked out very well.”
Mr Trump believes that returning to the campaign trail with his trademark rallies also helped build momentum. “You add it all together and I think we really took off,” he said, adding that holding those rallies “translates into a lot of votes”.
“I think we have a very solid chance of winning. I think a lot of that has to do with the tremendous crowd sizes,” Mr Trump said. “There was no small event, every place, no matter where we went.”
Biden returns to Pennsylvania
Demetri Sevastopulo
After attending mass in Wilmington, Delaware, his home for decades, Joe Biden flew to Scranton, the industrial city in Pennsylvania where he was born. After landing in Scranton with two of his grandchildren, he said the pair were the only two who had not been there. “We’re going home,” Mr Biden told his travelling press pool.
In the final weeks of the race, Mr Biden and Mr Trump both campaigned more in Pennsylvania than in any other swing state. With 20 of the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the White House, the rust-belt state is one of the most critical battlegrounds. Mr Trump became the first Republican to win the state since 1988 when he beat Hillary Clinton there by drawing a big share of white, working class Pennsylvanians four years ago.
Polls in Pennsylvania close at 8pm eastern time. But the state has decided to allow absentee ballots that arrive by post within three days of the election – a measure that has drawn the ire of Mr Trump. Republicans have already lost one battle in the Supreme Court to block the extension, and are threatening further legal action.
Legal battle over ‘drive-through’ voting hits election in Texas
The legal battle over “drive-through” voting in the Houston area last night led to a change to election day in Texas.
Although a federal appeals court rejected a Republican challenge to the legality of the drive-through venues late on Monday night, Harris County election officials decided to shut most of them down out of an abundance of caution.
Nearly 130,000 ballots cast in the Democratic-leaning county remain at risk.
Read Kadhim Shubber’s account of the legal challenges that are still open on election day here.
Bond investors fear market turbulence
Colby Smith in New York
Expected volatility in US government bonds has ticked higher as Americans head to the polls to cast their ballot for the next president, reflecting jitters that the outcome could usher in a period of market turbulence.
This week, the Bank of America MOVE index, which tracks expected volatility in the Treasury market implied by option pricing, climbed to its highest level since April - a period of huge stress for the world's largest bond market.
Cracks first emerged in March, prompting immediate action from the Federal Reserve. It cut interest rates to zero and pledged to buy an unlimited quantity of Treasuries, helping to soothe markets.
Investors fear that calm may be disrupted in the event of a messy election outcome. Market participants say a contested election could help to reverse a weeks-long sell-off in longer-dated Treasuries, which have sent yields to their highest levels since June.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year note now hovers at 0.88 per cent, having started October below 0.7 per cent.
Traders prepare for FX volatility
Harriet Clarfelt
Traders have been preparing themselves for big moves in China’s national currency in the aftermath of the US election, write Hudson Lockett and Eva Szalay.
One measure of hedging activity – implied overnight volatility for the renminbi offshore exchange rate against the dollar – hit a record on Tuesday.
Investors have sought to protect against, or bet on, the prospect that a victory by either candidate may drive major swings in the currency.
The renminbi has strengthened in recent weeks on expectations of a victory for Democrat Joe Biden – with some anticipating that this would help ease US-China trade tensions.
Expectations that the polls will spur greater volatility have escalated across other major currency pairs.
Overnight implied volatility, which tracks options trading, rose more than four times higher for the euro. It moved more for the Japanese yen, which some consider a haven currency.
Read the full story on traders’ preparations for FX volatility here
Trump’s path to victory runs through Pennsylvania
Harry Dempsey
Some pundits have quietly written off Donald Trump’s hopes of recapturing the White House after his Democratic rival Joe Biden opened a large lead in the opinion polls, writes Demetri Sevastopulo, the FT’s Washington bureau chief.
But Mr Trump still has a path to victory because Mr Biden’s polling leads are smaller in swing states such as Pennsylvania, where the Democrat is up by 1.2 per cent, narrowed down from a 5.7 per cent lead last week.
Voters wait in a socially distanced line to cast their vote in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Most but not all of the paths to another victory for Mr Trump run through Pennsylvania, a state where the incumbent president has campaigned heavily in recent months.
Mr Biden has made more visits to Pennsylvania than any other swing state, highlighting the importance of its 20 electoral college votes.
Read more on the vital swing state of Pennsylvania here
What to watch for tonight
Matthew Rocco
Americans are bracing themselves for what could be a long night – and possibly days or weeks – before learning who won the presidential election.
A surge in early and mail-in voting during the pandemic has added new complications to the vote-counting process, as many states are not accustomed to handling large numbers of postal votes. Some states got a head start in counting votes, but results in other states could be delayed.
Three important swing states, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, will begin counting early votes today, making it less likely that final results or projections will arrive by the end of the night. Florida, another battleground state, has already begun tallying ballots.
For more on what to expect tonight, read this story by the FT’s Lauren Fedor and Christine Zhang.
In-person voting begins at East Coast polling stations
Harry Dempsey
We’re off in the 2020 US election, as Americans have begun casting their votes at polling stations across East Coast states, such as New York and Maine, in one of the most critical days in the country's history.
Vermont was the first to open at 5am local time, with voters braving the dark and cold to queue to have their say on whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden should occupy the White House for the next four-year term.
States further west are beginning to open their doors to voters, with the world’s gaze fixed on the US election and in particular large battleground states that could swing the election, such as Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Voters queue at a polling station in Winchester, Virginia
Voters wait at the Waterville Junior High School polling station before doors open in Maine
And at the Kentucky Exposition Center
The FT’s view on the US election
Democrat candidate Joe Biden “owes much, if not all, of his poll lead to Donald Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic”, said the Financial Times’ editorial board in a leader column last week.
“It would be good to say that America had soured on Mr Trump after having weighed his overall record since 2017: the Ukraine pay-for-play schemes that resulted in his impeachment last year; the wrecking ball Mr Trump has taken to US alliances; his stoking of white nationalist militias; his withdrawal from the Paris accord on climate change; his corrupt misuse of the presidential pardon; and his self-harming trade war with China,” the FT View said, adding that most Americans still trust him more on the economy.
Mr Biden’s promise of managerial competence was “revolutionary”, it said, but that, if he wins, he should not forget the frustrations that gave Mr Trump the presidency in the first place.
Read the full column here
Pinellas County: Florida’s battleground that could decide the US election
Harry Dempsey
Pinellas County in Florida, along the Gulf Coast to the west of Tampa, is a particularly accurate political bellwether: it has picked the winner of each presidential election since 1980, with the exception of George W Bush in 2000, writes James Politi.
Four years ago, Donald Trump won it by little more than 1 percentage point. With Florida exceedingly close this year, Joe Biden will probably have to show solid gains in Pinellas, rather than narrowly flip it, to prevail in the rest of the state.
Florida remains very much up for grabs, with Mr Biden leading by just 0.9 percentage points, the latest Realclearpolitics.com polling average shows.
On the eve of the election, former president Barack Obama speaks at a rally, campaigning for Joe Biden in Miami, Florida
Signs suggest that voter dissatisfaction with the economy is combining with Mr Biden’s nationwide gains among seniors, women and the young to give the Democrat an edge in Pinellas.
Mr Trump’s most valuable weapon on the road to clinching a second term — his economic stewardship — has been blunted by the downturn that gripped America this year, pushing the overall US jobless rate up to the highest level for any incumbent president seeking re-election since the second world war.
In Florida the political fight over the economy has been particularly raw because the state depends on services such as leisure, tourism and hospitality, which were hit by the early lockdowns and the second peak of infections in the summer.
Investors and traders settle in for a long few days
Adam Samson, Markets News Editor
If there is one thing investors appear to be sure of, it is that the next few hours and days are going to be a long slog.
The unprecedented surge of postal voting in the US has compounded the sense of uncertainty in the lead up to one of the most hotly contested elections in American history.
The Vix index, one of the most closely watched measures of expected equity market volatility, is trading at 37, around twice its long-term average. Currency traders have stepped up their hedging activity, especially relating to China's renminbi.
Still, markets are looking sanguine as polling centres begin opening on the US East Coast. Futures tracking the S&P 500 index are up 1.3 per cent, echoing broad gains in Europe and Asia. US government debt, particularly with maturities long into the future, is under pressure, signalling a sense of calm as election day kicks off.
Investors say markets have largely priced-in a victory by Democrat Joe Biden against the incumbent Donald Trump. The spectre of a blue wave, where Democrats also take control of Congress, has pushed-up the price of stocks that would benefit from Mr Biden's plans for a vast infrastructure spending programme. This has also pressured the price of US Treasuries as investors expect it would stoke stronger growth and inflation in the future and prompt a deluge of issuance of US government debt to fund the fiscal stimulus.
But investment strategists are quick to note that Mr Biden favours higher corporate taxes. Mr Trump’s tax cuts were one of his hallmark first-term achievements and were a significant boon to the earnings of US companies. In turn, public companies used some of their enlarged profits to buy back shares, which helped propel Wall Street stocks to record highs.
All of these competing dynamics mean it could get choppy. The FT’s markets team will be writing dispatches on this blog and on the homepage as assets react — so stay tuned.
FT-Peterson poll: how has Trump affected the US economy?
Americans – those who haven’t cast their ballots – are heading to the polls on Tuesday.
But how has their perception of the economy changed during the final stages of Donald Trump’s presidency? The FT-Peterson US Economic Monitor has traced voter sentiment in the lead-up to the election.
Better off? Just under a third of US voters feel that they are better off financially than they were in 2016, according to data gathered between October 8-11 and analysed by Christine Zhang and Lauren Fedor. That’s the lowest total since the poll started a year earlier.
Responses were split along party lines: more than half of Democrats said that they were worse off under President Trump, compared with just under a tenth of Republican voters.
Economy: helped or hindered? At the last count, 46 per cent of respondents said that Mr Trump’s policies have hurt the economy; 44 per cent said his policies had helped. This marked the first time that a greater percentage of people said Mr Trump had hurt rather than helped the economy.
Prioritising healthcare US voters’ main concern is a potential global slowdown. But rising healthcare costs are a close second. The latest data showed more than a quarter of respondents named this as their top concern — a significant step-up from the previous month.
Discover the FT-Peterson US Economic Monitor here
Surge in early voting puts the US on track for record turnout
Demetri Sevastopulo, Lauren Fedor, Kadhim Shubber and Courtney Weaver in Washington
Almost 99m Americans had cast ballots either in person or by post by Monday evening, equivalent to 72 per cent of the entire 2016 vote and putting the country on track for a record turnout.
The majority of early votes have been cast by Democrats, according to the US Elections Project, meaning Donald Trump must convince Republicans to turn out in big numbers on Tuesday if he is to overcome their advantage.
Fewer undecided voters will be up for grabs on election day this year, owing to the surge in early voting by Americans who did not want to risk contracting coronavirus at polling stations.
Mr Trump has threatened legal action to block the counting of ballots in critical battlegrounds if they arrive after election day. However, those efforts suffered a blow after judges in two battleground states rejected lawsuits intended to stop the counting of ballots.
The final result could be delayed by days if not weeks as Democrats fight expected legal efforts by Republicans to prevent some mail-in votes from being counted.
Discover essential reading on the US election here
Biden ahead in latest polls
Oliver Ralph
As election day dawns in the US, Joe Biden is ahead in the polls as he has been throughout the campaign.
FT analysis of the latest polls shows that Mr Biden has solid support in 18 states which would give him 203 electoral college votes. President Trump, by contrast, has solid support in 15 states which would give him 77 votes in the electoral college.
There’s a lot to play for in between that though, and to win either of the candidates needs 270 electoral college votes.
Big battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Florida and Texas will be particularly important. The race is also close in Iowa, North Carolina and Georgia with the candidates polling within two percentage points of each other.
Live coverage of the US election starts here
Oliver Ralph
Welcome to the Financial Times’ live coverage of the US election.
As the US votes for its next president, we’ll be keeping you up to date with all the latest developments, from voter turnout to comments from the candidates, before bringing you all the results as they come in.
We’ll also have reaction from around the world as the election progresses, and the latest news from the financial markets as investors and traders digest the speculation and the results.
For a round-up of the FT’s coverage of the election, including dispatches from battleground states, profiles of the main personalities, analysis of key voter groups and commentary from the likes of Ed Luce, Janan Ganesh and Simon Schama, visit the FT’s presidential election home page
And if you’re on Twitter, it’s also worth following the FT’s main news feed @FinancialTimes
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2020-11-03 22:31:01Z
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