Evening Briefing: American voters have their say

November 3, 2020

Your Tuesday Evening Briefing

By Remy Tumin and Jeremiah M. Bogert, Jr.

Good evening on a historic night. Here’s the latest.

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

1. Donald Trump or Joe Biden?

The most polarized election in generations is coming to a close as a jittery yet determined electorate decides the future vision of America. With more than 101 million early votes cast in person and by mail before the polls even opened today, the 2020 presidential election was on pace to draw the highest turnout in more than a century. Above, voting in New York City.

The huge turnout appeared to be spurred by the issues that have upended the lives of nearly every American: the surging coronavirus outbreak that has claimed more than 230,000 lives in the U.S., the struggling economy, the political passions of the Trump era.

Despite fears about the potential for violence at the polls, relatively few incidents of disruption were reported. Lines at many polls were long in battleground states but moved quickly. A judge ordered an immediate sweep of 12 postal districts after the Postal Service said 300,000 ballots it had received had not been scanned for delivery.

We have more than 30 reporters and 50 photographers on the ground capturing the final day of voting across America. Here’s what it looks like.

Continue reading the main story

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

2. The winner could be determined tonight. Or it could take days. Or weeks.

The first test will come at 7 p.m. Eastern, when polls begin closing in Georgia, Florida and North Carolina. If Joe Biden wins at least one of them, President Trump has a slimmer path to victory. Remember the needle? It’s back — sort of. This year, we’ll be using it for live estimates of just these three states.

Continue reading the main story

If Mr. Biden does not win any of those three states (or Texas, where most of the polls close at 8 p.m.), that will ratchet up the importance of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which Mr. Trump flipped from Democrats in 2016 and where polls show Mr. Biden ahead. Above, voting in Milwaukee.

Our hour-by-hour guide allows you to interpret election results like an expert. Here’s what we know about how long vote counting will take in all 50 states. The key to tonight is patience.

A lengthy canvass, recounts and legal challenges all could delay results of the presidential election, leading to further disputes in the Electoral College. Here’s what happens if the election results are contested.

News organizations will still be able to declare or project winners based on partial results in most states. Networks have said they plan to do so more cautiously than in past elections. We’ll be tracking the race calls across the news outlets here.

Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

3. The president said he would declare victory “when there is victory, if there is victory.”

Mr. Trump made the remarks on “Fox & Friends” when he was asked when he planned to declare victory — and whether he intended to declare it if early returns showed him leading, as some reports had suggested he might.

In the event that he loses, Mr. Trump, who stopped at his campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va., today, has no plans to deliver any sort of concession speech tonight. The Trump campaign set up two “war rooms” in the White House complex for election night, once again blurring the lines between partisan politics and government.

In one last push to win Pennsylvania, where early voting has lagged, Mr. Biden told supporters in Scranton, below: “You got to run through the tape, man. You got to go all the way through the tape.” Mr. Biden intends to speak at some point tonight.

We looked back on the tough year Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden had.

Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Jonathan Drake/Reuters

4. Control of the Senate is among the biggest issues being decided Tuesday.

Democrats are seeking to pick up enough seats to take control of the Senate for the first time since 2015. There are 12 competitive Republican-held seats; two Senate Democrats have competitive races; 35 of 100 Senate seats have races this year.

Here are the races to watch for including Maine, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, where Cal Cunningham, above, is the Democratic challenger.

Control of state legislatures is also in play. More than 5,000 legislative races farther down the ballot could have a major effect on Americans’ lives. About 80 percent of the nation’s 7,383 state legislative seats are up for grabs this year, with elections in 44 states.

Bing Guan/Reuters

5. Regardless of whether the president wins re-election, he will be the one steering the country through what is likely to be the darkest and potentially deadliest period of the coronavirus pandemic.

As the virus surges, Mr. Trump is at war with the experts who could help to contain it. Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus coordinator, told officials in a private memo that the pandemic was entering a new and “deadly phase,” and suggested the Trump administration was spending too much time focusing on preventing lockdowns and not enough time on controlling the virus.

The warning came as the nation’s daily coronavirus caseload approached 100,000 and was headed to a record high.

Carlos Barria/Reuters

6. The initial public offering of Ant Group, set to be the largest share sale in history, was suspended in Shanghai after company executives met with Chinese regulators.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange informed the company that the I.P.O., which was expected to raise $37 billion, might no longer meet the requirements for listing. On Monday, Chinese regulators had summoned company executives, including Jack Ma, above, the co-founder of Alibaba and Ant’s controlling shareholder, for a meeting.

Neither the regulators nor Ant have said in detail what was discussed at the meeting. Shortly after the Shanghai exchange’s announcement late Tuesday, Ant said it was suspending the Hong Kong listing as well. The company apologized to investors “for any inconvenience.”

Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times

7. The Austrian government announced a three-day period of official mourning after a man opened fire in central Vienna on Monday night, killing four people and wounding 22 others.

The gunman, a 20-year-old Austrian citizen, was armed with an automatic rifle, a pistol and a machete, and wore a fake explosive device. He was killed by the police nine minutes after the assault began. Austria’s interior minister said the man had wanted to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, calling the shooter a “soldier of the caliphate.”

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said in an address to the nation that the shooting was “definitely an Islamist terrorist attack.” The violence comes after two recent terrorist attacks in France that have been linked to Islamist extremists.

Mónica R. Goya

8. A touch of wanderlust.

In this week’s installment of The World Through a Lens, in which photojournalists transport us virtually to some of our planet’s most intriguing places, photographer Mónica R. Goya travels to her homeland of Asturias, a region in northwest Spain that’s rich in natural beauty and pre-Romanesque architecture.

Asturias boasts a range of biosphere reserves and forests — oak, beech, chestnut, birch — and a mostly unspoiled coastline, with turquoise blue waters surrounded by imposing cliffs and green pastures. Once an industrial and mining powerhouse, a third of the area is now environmentally protected.

To travel, or not to travel? That is the holiday question. Here’s what you need to know.

HBO

9. The best half-hour of comedy this year is about scaffolding, our critic says.

The episode of “How To With John Wilson” on HBO managed to make a mundane subject poignant, hilarious and topical. The series joins a growing genre of documentary comedy that uses tools of journalism (like interviews with real people) for comic ends. The result: “The most fascinating comedy I have seen in years,” Jason Zinoman writes.

They say laughter is the best medicine, but if you need more pointers to help tame your anxiety, we talked to experts about 10 big and small things you can do to calm down.

10. And finally, one big cathartic cry.

Cemeteries were closed on the Day of the Dead, depriving Mexicans of mourning rituals. But one town went ahead with its annual weeping competition, giving everyone a chance to share in a good soul-cleansing cry.

Normally, contestants in San Juan del Río, in central Mexico, would take turns crying in front of a live audience. But because of the coronavirus, the tourism bureau instead invited participants to submit videos of themselves sobbing for up to two minutes, to be evaluated by a panel of judges. This year provided much material to cry — and laugh — about.

As one contestant put it: “If you’re not crying about 2020, you’re not crying about anything.”

Whatever happens tonight, it’s OK to cry.

Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.

Want to catch up on past briefings? You can browse them here.

What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes.com.

Continue reading the main story