US election: First polls open after Trump and Harris deliver final pitches — as it happened
ABCWe're only hours into voting, but let's look forward for a minute to when counting begins. In the 2020 election, some states showed a "red mirage," in which Trump was leading on election night, before a "blue shift" saw Democrat Joe Biden overtake him as mail-in ballots favored by more Democratic voters were counted. Experts had accurately predicted it would happen but Trump still used the shift to amplify his false claims that the election was stolen. The opposite – a "blue mirage" apparently showing a strong result for Harris only for a "red shift" to reverse the trend — could also happen this week, especially in North Carolina and Georgia. Trump's campaign team has said he plans to declare victory when his team believes he has crossed the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the election.