Here's what to watch on Election Day in the US

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's Election Day. Polls opened Tuesday across the nation and Americans cast ballots in the 2024 presidential election. In a deeply divided nation, the election is a true toss-up between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.

We know there are seven battleground states that will decide the outcome, barring a major surprise. But major questions persist about the timing of the results, the makeup of the electorate, the influx of misinformation — even the possibility of political violence. At the same time, both sides are prepared for a protracted legal battle that could complicate things further.

Here's what to watch on Election Day 2024:

Given all the twists and turns in recent months, it's easy to overlook the historical significance of this election.

Harris would become the first female president in the United States' 248-year history. If elected, she would also be the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to hold the office. Harris and her campaign have largely played down gender and race, fearing that they might alienate some supporters. But the significance of a Harris win would not be lost on historians.

A Trump victory would represent a different kind of historical accomplishment. He would become the first person convicted of a felony elected to the U.S. presidency, having been convicted of 34 felony counts in a New York hush-money case little more than five months ago.

Trump, who is still facing felony charges in at least two separate criminal cases, argued that he is the victim of a politicized justice system. And tens of millions of voters apparently believe him — or they're willing to overlook his extraordinary legal baggage.

Election Day in the United States is now often considered election week as each state follows its own rules and practices for counting ballots — not to mention the legal challenges — that can delay the results. But the truth is, nobody knows how long it will take for the winner to be announced this time.

In 2020, The Associated Press declared President Joe Biden the winner on Saturday afternoon — four days after polls closed. But even then, The AP called North Carolina for Trump 10 days after Election Day and Georgia for Biden 16 days later after hand recounts.

Four years earlier, the 2016 election was decided just hours after most polls closed. The AP declared Trump the winner on election night at 2:29 a.m. (it was technically Wednesday morning on the East Coast).

This time, both campaigns believe the race is extremely close across the seven swing states that are expected to decide the election, barring a major surprise: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The size of the map and the tightness of the race make it hard to predict when a winner could be declared.

Look to two East Coast battleground states, North Carolina and Georgia, where the results could come in relatively quickly. That doesn't mean we'll get the final results in those states quickly if the returns are close, but they are the first swing states that might offer a sense of what kind of night we're in for.

To go deeper, look to urban and suburban areas in the industrial North and Southeast, where Democrats have made gains since 2020.

In North Carolina, Harris’ margins in Wake and Mecklenburg counties, home to the state capital of Raleigh and the state’s largest city, Charlotte, respectively, will reveal how much Trump will need to squeeze out of the less-populated rural areas he has dominated.

In Pennsylvania, Harris needs heavy turnout in deep blue Philadelphia, but she's also looking to boost the Democrats’ advantage in the arc of suburban counties to the north and west of the city. She has campaigned aggressively in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties, where Biden improved on Clinton’s 2016 winning margins. The Philadelphia metro area, including the four collar counties, accounts for 43% of Pennsylvania’s vote.

Elsewhere in the Blue Wall, Trump needs to blunt Democratic growth in Michigan's key suburban counties outside of Detroit, especially Oakland County. He faces the same challenge in Wisconsin's Waukesha County outside of Milwaukee.

Trump spent the very early hours of Election Day in Michigan, where he wrapped up a late-night rally in Grand Rapids. The Republican candidate plans to spend the day in Florida, where he is expected to vote in person -- despite previously saying he would vote early. He's scheduled to hold a campaign watch party in Palm Beach Tuesday night.

Harris plans to attend an Election Night party at Howard University in Washington, a historically Black university where she graduated with a degree in economics and political science in 1986 and was an active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Aside from Howard, she has no public schedule announced for Election Day.

Harris said Sunday that she had “just filled out” her mail-in ballot and it was “on its way to California.”

It's unclear which voters will show up to cast ballots on Tuesday.

More than 82 million people voted early — either in person or through the mail. So many people already cast ballots that some officials say the polls in states like Georgia might be a “ghost town” on Election Day.

One major reason for the surge is that that Trump has generally encouraged his supporters to vote early this time, a reversal from 2020 when he called on Republicans to vote only in-person on Election Day. The early vote numbers confirm that millions of Republicans have heeded Trump's call in recent weeks.

The key question, however, is whether the surge of Republicans who voted early this time will ultimately cannibalize the number of Republicans who show up on Tuesday.

There are also shifts on the Democratic side. Four years ago, as the pandemic lingered, Democrats overwhelmingly cast their ballots early. But this time around, without the public health risk, it's likely that more Democrats will show up in person on Election Day.

That balance on both sides is critical as we try to understand the early returns. And it's on the campaigns to know which voters they still need to turn out on Tuesday. On that front, Democrats may have an advantage.

Trump's campaign and the Republican National Committee have outsourced much of their get-out-the-vote operation operation to outside groups, including one funded largely by billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk that’s facing new questions about its practices. Harris’ campaign, by contrast, is running a more traditional operation that features more than 2,500 paid staffers and 357 offices in battleground states alone.

Trump has been aggressively promoting baseless claims in recent days questioning the integrity of the election. He falsely insists that he can lose only if Democrats cheat, even as polls show that show the race is a true toss-up.

Trump could again claim victory on election night regardless of the results, just as he did in 2020.

Such rhetoric can have serious consequences as the nation saw when Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in one of the darkest days in modern American history. And unfortunately, there is still a potential of further violence this election season.

The Republican National Committee will have thousands of “election integrity” poll monitors in place on Tuesday searching for any signs of fraud, which critics fear could lead to harassment of voters or election workers. In some key voting places, officials have requested the presence of sheriff deputies in addition to bulletproof glass and panic buttons that connect poll managers to a local 911 dispatcher.

At the same time, Trump allies note that he has faced two assassination attempts in recent months that raise the possibility of further threats against him. And police in Washington and other cities are preparing for the possibility of serious Election Day unrest.

As always, it's worth noting that a broad coalition of top government and industry officials, many of them Republicans, found that the 2020 election was the “most secure” in American history.”

A poll worker holds a roll of "I Voted" stickers at a polling place, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Dearborn, Mich. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

People mark their ballots at the polling place at Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library in Falls Church, Va., Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Voters stand in line while waiting for a polling place to open, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Springfield, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Voters cast their ballots at the Bronx County Supreme Court in New York on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Here's what to watch as Election Day approaches in the U.S.

This combination of file photos shows Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, left, speaking at a campaign rally in Charlotte, N.C., on Sept. 12, 2024, 2024, and Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaking a town hall campaign event in Warren, Mich., on Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo)

Here's what to watch as Election Day approaches in the U.S.

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire jury on Tuesday found a former leader at a youth detention center guilty of holding down a teen while he was raped in 1998.

Bradley Asbury, now 70, was found guilty on two counts of being an accomplice to aggravated sexual assault. He faces a maximum prison term of 20 years on each count. The jury deliberated over three days following a four-day trial.

Asbury served as a house leader at the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester. He was accused of restraining 14-year-old Michael Gilpatrick on a staircase with help from a colleague, while a third staffer raped the teen and a fourth forced him to perform a sex act.

It was the second criminal trial to stem from a broad 2019 investigation into longstanding abuse at the center. Asbury is among 11 men who worked there or at an associated facility in Concord who were arrested.

The case turned on the testimony of Gilpatrick, now 41. He said he’d struggled to cope with the attack for many years and that talking about it at the trial was part of a healing process.

He said he wanted to hold the perpetrators accountable and recalled having an out-of-body experience during the attack.

“I can see it happening, but I can’t do anything,” he testified. “I was just not there. But there.”

After the verdict was read Tuesday afternoon, Gilpatrick cried and hugged family members.

“God is good and the truth prevailed. And I was believed," he said as he left the courthouse.

Meanwhile, Asbury shook his head as he was handcuffed and thanked his family and supporters as he was led away.

Outside the courtroom, Gilpt“God is good and the truth prevailed. And I was believed.”

Last week, Gilpatrick got into several heated exchanges during cross-examination, and at one point called the defense lawyer a “sick man” as the attorney urged him to repeat his claim of rape over and over.

During closing arguments, the lawyer, David Rothstein, said “I want to apologize to anyone I may have upset during that exchange, or any other exchange.”

Rothstein said Gilpatrick lived in an imaginary world in which he’d created villains to explain things that had gone wrong in his life.

“Mike Gilpatrick falsely accused Brad Asbury of a crime that he not only didn’t commit, but which, in every shape and form, was virtually impossible to commit,” Rothstein said.

He said there were no eyewitnesses or corroborating pieces of evidence, and that Gilpatrick had changed crucial details over time to suit the narrative. He said such an attack on an open staircase in the middle of the facility would have been seen or heard by somebody else.

He said Gilpatrick was motivated by money, pointing out he’d already received more than $146,000 against an anticipated payout from a related civil case.

The prosecution said Gilpatrick didn’t have perfect recall of all the events surrounding the rape but had always been consistent in his recall of the key event. He couldn’t tell anybody at the time, the prosecution said, because Asbury was in charge.

“Instead of guiding Mike, counseling him, showing him a better way to go out and live his life, these four grown men, including the defendant, shattered the trust,” said state Assistant Attorney General Adam Woods.

An earlier case against Victor Malavet ended in a mistrial in September after jurors deadlocked on whether he raped a girl at the Concord facility. A new trial in that case has yet to be scheduled.

The investigation has also led to extensive civil litigation. More than 1,100 former residents have filed lawsuits alleging physical, sexual or emotional abuse spanning six decades. In the only civil case to go to trial so far, a jury awarded David Meehan $38 million in May for abuse he says he suffered in the 1990s, though that verdict remains in dispute as the state seeks to reduce it to $475,000.

The Associated Press generally does not identify those who say they were victims of sexual assault unless they have come forward publicly, as Meehan and Gilpatrick have done.

Defendant Bradley Asbury, left, accused of holding down a teenage boy so colleagues could rape him at a New Hampshire youth center in the 1990s, confers with his attorney David Rothstein during opening statements for his trial at Hillsborough County Superior Court in Manchester, N.H.,, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (David Lane/Union Leader via AP, Pool)

Defense attorney David Rothstein, representing defendant Bradley Asbury who is accused of holding down a teenage boy so colleagues could rape him at a New Hampshire youth center in the 1990s, makes his opening statement in Asbury's trial at Hillsborough County Superior Court in Manchester, N.H.,, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (David Lane/Union Leader via AP, Pool)

Assistant Attorney General Audriana Mekula holds a picture of alleged victim Michael Gilpatrick when he was 14 that she showed the jury during opening statements in the trial of Bradley Asbury at Hillsborough County Superior Court in Manchester, N.H.,, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (David Lane/Union Leader via AP, Pool)

FILE - Michael Gilpatrick, a former youth detention center resident, fights back tears as testifies during a civil trial seeking to hold the state accountable for alleged abuse at the Sununu Youth Services Center, formerly called the Youth Development Center, April 17, 2024, at Rockingham County Superior Court in Brentwood, N.H. (David Lane/Union Leader via AP, Pool, File)

Defendant Bradley Asbury, accused of holding down a teenage boy so colleagues could rape him at a New Hampshire youth center in the 1990s, looks behind him while seated at the defendant's table during opening statements for his trial at Hillsborough County Superior Court in Manchester, N.H.,, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (David Lane/Union Leader via AP, Pool)