Barack Obama has left his fate in the American people’s hands, but Mitt Romney has announced election day offensives in Ohio and Pennsylvania, as the US gets set to go to the polls in one of the closest races in history.
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08.32 (03.32) Our live US election graphic shows the state of the race. Watch this space for updates!
08.16 (03.16) Most nationwide polls had the candidates pretty much neck-and-neck as of yesterday. This morning, however, Nate Silver‘s influential Five Thirty Eight blog on the New York Times has some startlingly good news for Mr Obama:
08.12 (03.12) If you fancy getting in to the swing of things, you can have your say on our election poll here:
07.55 (02.55) And we may not know what is going to happen for some time. In our newspaper edition today, the US team reports that legal challenges are already breaking out in Ohio and Florida. The vote is set to be acrimonious – and when it’s this close, neither side is going to back down easily.
Also in the paper, diplomatic correspondent Alex Spillius explains how Mr Obama could lose the election, yet still win the White House, thanks to America’s “quirky and controversial” electoral college system.
Mr Romney is doing everything he can to head that off. Jon Swainereports on the Republican candidate’s Monday night plea to voters – as his allies begin blaming Superstorm Sandy for stopping him from overtaking Mr Obama in final opinion polls.
We also have a preview of the problems facing whoever wins the vote, with the G20 warning that the new president must act decisively to avert a “fiscal cliff”. If they don’t, even those of us outside the US could be affected.
Unfortunately, according to our columnist Tim Stanley, regardless of who wins, neither man should expect to get too much done in Congress: “America’s broken and hostile political system will seriously impede the actions of whoever is elected president”.
07.50 BST (02.50 EST) Good morning and welcome to our US election day live coverage. Yes, it’s finally here and soon this will all be over… for a little while, at least. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have done all that they can do, and now it’s up to America to decide who will become the most powerful man in the world. With the race going right down to the wire, stand by for an election upset – because the truth is, no matter how many polls are produced, no one really knows what is going to happen!
US election: Obama stages final rally in Iowa: November 5 as it happened
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