Early takeaways from the US presidential election

The fight between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump is expected to stay tight as results roll in Tuesday night, with a victor in the US presidential election perhaps not emerging until Wednesday or even later in the week.

Here are some takeaways as polls close across the country and votes are tabulated:

Voters of colour

The Trump campaign put a great deal of effort into persuading Black and Latino voters to defect from the Democratic Party – and there were some early indications those efforts were paying off.

That was most notable in the battleground state of North Carolina, where exit polls showed Trump boosting his share of the Black vote to 12 per cent from 5 per cent in 2020. He garnered the support of 20 per cent of Black male voters, the poll said.

But a potential problem for Trump in the state was that his support among white voters was five percentage points less than in exit polls four years ago.

In Pennsylvania, perhaps the most coveted state by both sides, Trump's support among white voters dropped three percentage points compared to four years ago, Edison said – and he was down four among white male voters.

According to the Edison national poll, Trump's support among Latino voters jumped 13 points from four years ago, a notable figure in an election where many of the other voting cohorts appear so far to be relatively static from 2020.

Even so, white voters were on pace to comprise a larger share of the electorate than four years ago.

According to preliminary results from the national exit poll conducted by Edison, 71 per cent of voters nationwide were white, compared with 67 per cent in Edison's 2020 exit poll.

Gender gap

Harris’ campaign was looking to exploit a large gender gap in the electorate, with the hope that legions of women voters would flock to the vice president because of issues such as abortion rights.

But so far, Trump seemed to be holding onto the support of at least white women voters, according to exit polls. Black women overwhelmingly supported Harris.

In Pennsylvania, Trump was maintaining close to the same level of support among white women voters that he enjoyed in 2020. That was also true in Georgia.

North Carolina, on the other hand, showed some real potential erosion for Trump. He dropped eight points among white women compared with four years ago, Edison said.

Trump's campaign, conversely, paid significant attention to pulling in male voters, particularly young men, through social media, sports, podcasts and online gaming.

Early national exits (with many polling places across the country still open) showed Harris picking up less support among women – 54 per cent – than Biden did in 2020 when he gained 57 per cent.

That poll showed Trump slightly edging Harris among men between the ages of 18 and 44 and beating her solidly with men 45 and up.