Harris and Trump wrap up campaigns as votes are counted

GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "News Hour."

After a long and contentious election season, today is the last chance for voters to weigh in on races across the country.

AMNA NAWAZ: That's right.

As the polls close tonight, the counting begins and the results will roll in.

Lisa Desjardins has this report.

LISA DESJARDINS: For a third time, former President Trump selected his name on a presidential ballot.

He told reporters in Florida today he felt good.

DONALD TRUMP, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: I ran a great campaign.

I think it was maybe the best of the three.

We did great in the first one.

We did much better in the second one, but something happened.

And this was the best.

I would say this was the best campaign.

LISA DESJARDINS: He was asked if he would accept the results and had a caveat.

DONALD TRUMP: If I lose an election, if it's a fair election, I'd be the first one to acknowledge it.

And I think it's -- well, so far, I think it's been fair.

I think there's been a lot of court cases.

Both sides are lawyered up.

LISA DESJARDINS: Trump's running mate, Senator J.D.

Vance, stressed unity today after casting his ballot in Ohio.

SEN. J.D.

VANCE (R-OH), Vice Presidential Candidate: Fundamentally, what we're trying to do, President Trump and I, is just build the kind of country where our fellow Americans can achieve their dreams.

But that's all of our fellow Americans, regardless of who they vote for.

LISA DESJARDINS: Vice President Kamala Harris is doing radio interviews today before heading to her alma mater, Howard University in Washington, D.C., to watch the results trickle in.

KAMALA HARRIS, Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate: The first office I ever ran for was freshman class representative at Howard University.

And to go back tonight to Howard University, my beloved alma mater, and be able to hopefully recognize this day for what it is really -- it's full circle for me.

LISA DESJARDINS: And her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, brought his family to speak with voters in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at a diner.

GOV.

TIM WALZ (D-MN), Vice Presidential Candidate: We want to say thank you to Pennsylvania, but thank you to folks across this country who wrapped their arms around our family and I hope saw yourselves in us, middle-class folks who are just trying to do the right thing by their community.

LISA DESJARDINS: Walz encouraged voters to be patient.

GOV.

TIM WALZ: Keep in mind, we have the fairest, the freest, the safest elections.

WOMAN: Yes, we do.

Yes.

GOV.

TIM WALZ: And we have a free press that monitors the election and makes sure things are done right.

So, just stay calm, stay with it, wait until to end.

LISA DESJARDINS: More than 80 million Americans made their choice through early or absentee voting, but tens of millions more will head to the polls today.

Outside of Pittsburgh, one family brought along a first-time voter.

MAKAYLA MEHLER, First-Time Voter: When Trump was in office, I was a teenager, and I still paid attention because I remember the election back in 2016.

He did everything right for our country as far as I saw.

LISA DESJARDINS: Allegheny County is a key Democratic county.

Biden won it by 20 points.

Many voters there today said they were staying on board with Harris.

DONNA STUBENRAUGH, Voter: For my granddaughter's rights, for freedom of everybody, love.

LISA DESJARDINS: Voters lined up to cast their ballots in Arizona's Maricopa County, a very narrow win for Biden in the last election.

TASHINA BROWN, Voter: Kamala Harris, yes.

I strongly believe that she has everybody in mind when it comes to her choices.

LISA DESJARDINS: But Trump carried Arizona in 2016 and Maricopa has historically been a Republican stronghold.

TERRY WOODS, Voter: Trump was a good president.

He will be a good president again.

LISA DESJARDINS: Tensions are high on this Election Day, with officials warning about known efforts from foreign actors trying to cause harm.

The FBI confirmed multiple bomb threats to polling stations that seemed to come from Russian e-mail domains, but said they were not credible threats.

Georgia's secretary of state pointed to threats at five precincts in the state.

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER (R), Georgia Secretary of State: They're up to mischief, it seems, and they don't want us to have a smooth, fair, and accurate election.

And they think they can get us to fight amongst ourselves.

They can count that as a victory.

So that tells you a little bit about the Russians.

They're not our friends.

LISA DESJARDINS: The nation's capital is on high alert with new security around the White House and downtown businesses boarding up their windows in preparedness for any reaction to results.

Last night, Trump delivered the closing message of his campaign at a late-night rally in Michigan.

DONALD TRUMP: With your vote tomorrow, we can fix every single problem our country faces and lead America, indeed, the world, to new heights of glory.

(CHEERING) LISA DESJARDINS: Just a few hours earlier, he was in Pennsylvania, joined by former critic podcast host Megyn Kelly, who says she's forgiven Trump for his past sexism toward her.

MEGYN KELLY, SiriusXM: He got mocked by the left for saying he would be a protector of women.

He will be a protector of women, and it's why I'm voting for him.

LISA DESJARDINS: Yesterday, in Atlanta, Vance had a more pointed attack message than his call for unity this morning.

SEN. J.D.

VANCE: We are going to take out the trash in Washington, D.C., and the trash's name is Kamala Harris.

(CHEERING) LISA DESJARDINS: Harris responded to the insult in one of her radio appearances today.

KAMALA HARRIS: I'm not going to get distracted by that noise.

And it is.

It's really demeaning for them, as much as anything.

Like, you let that come out of your mouth?

LISA DESJARDINS: In Philadelphia last night, Harris closed her campaign with a promise to be president for all.

KAMALA HARRIS: I don't believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy.

I will give them a seat at the table.

That's what real leaders do.

That's what strong leaders do.

(CHEERING) KAMALA HARRIS: And I pledge to always put country above party and self and to be a president for all Americans.

(CHEERING) LISA DESJARDINS: As campaigning ends, the waiting for results begins.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Lisa Desjardins.

AMNA NAWAZ: And joining us now is our team of correspondents covering the election from across the country.

We're going to be checking in with them throughout the night.

GEOFF BENNETT: And let's start with our Laura Barron-Lopez, who's been covering the Harris campaign and is across the river in Washington, D.C., at Howard University, which is hosting the Harris campaign's election watch party.

Laura, I know you have been talking with campaign sources all day.

How are they feeling about Vice President Kamala Harris' chances this evening?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Geoff, they're feeling really good this evening.

The vice president spent her final day talking to radio stations in swing states across the country, making her final appeal to voters to turn out for her.

She also stopped by the Democratic National Committee headquarters in D.C. to thank volunteers who were continuing to phone-bank in this final day to get people out and vote.

Just to give you a sense of their confidence in their ground game, Geoff, the campaign said that, as of 11:00 a.m. this morning, that their Pennsylvania team had knocked on some 100,000 doors in Pennsylvania just today.

That's in addition to the 800,000 that they had knocked on over the weekend.

GEOFF BENNETT: Laura Barron-Lopez.

Laura, thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Meanwhile, our William Brangham is covering the Trump campaign tonight.

He joins us from West Palm Beach, Florida, at the former president's election watch party.

So, William, you're there in West Palm Beach.

That's where former President Trump cast his ballot earlier today.

Just give us a sense of the mood.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Hi, Amna.

It is a -- as you might expect, there's some anxiousness, there's some nervousness, but there's a lot of joyous Trump supporters here, volunteers, supporters, longtime fans of the former president, who are here to hopefully see him come to victory today.

We understand that the former president is at Mar-a-Lago, which is just a few miles away.

He will be watching the election results from there.

And then at some point, he will decide whether to come and speak to this crowd here tonight.

Everyone we have spoken to very much hopes and looks forward to seeing him later tonight.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, William, is there any concern from anyone you have talked to that, when we see Trump tonight, he may come out early, as he did in 2020, and declare victory, even when the election hasn't been called?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Yes, that is absolutely a concern, I mean, not amongst Trump supporters.

But I talked to a lot of voters today, Democratic voters, who were very concerned that we would see a repeat of 2020, where he, as you said, declared victory prematurely and then, as we all know, spent the next four years saying that that election had been stolen from him.

And he has continued that in his rallies in the last few days leading up to this.

I mean, as we heard in Lisa's report, when the former president cast a ballot today, he was asked this question, and he said, well, if it's a free and fair election, I will acknowledge if I lose.

But just in the last few minutes, the former president has been on Twitter saying that there is widespread voting fraud and criminality happening in Philadelphia, of which there is no evidence.

So, which former president shows up tonight is still to be determined -- Amna.

AMNA NAWAZ: All right, that's our William Brangham in West Palm Beach, Florida, tonight.

Thanks, William.

GEOFF BENNETT: And let's turn to "PBS News Weekend" anchor and national correspondent John Yang, who is in what might be the key battleground state, Pennsylvania.

He's inside a vote-counting center in Allegheny County.

That's home of Pittsburgh and a county where both presidential candidates held rallies yesterday.

So, John, we know it's going to take a bit longer to count the ballots in Pennsylvania.

Help us understand why and walk us through the ballot-counting process where you are.

JOHN YANG: Well, Geoff, an election official is telling me it is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process to count mail-in ballots.

You have got to open the envelopes, check first for signatures, scan them against the voter rolls, check -- open the outer envelope, extract the inner envelope, open that, extract the ballot, flatten it, and then feed it into the machines to be counted.

They would love to be able to do that before 7:00 a.m. on Election Day, but, in Pennsylvania, that's the law.

They can't touch the ballots until 7:00 a.m. on Election Day.

So, for instance, here in Allegheny County, they have about 215,000 mail-in ballots.

It took them until 3:00 this afternoon, starting at 7:00 a.m., until 3:00 this afternoon to get all the ballots out of the two envelopes and smooth them and prepare them to be put into the counting machine.

Now, the -- in 2020, it was the first time they had handled a lot of mail-in ballots.

So they say that was the reason for all the delays.

They say they have got some more elections under their belt.

They have got some new equipment, that it's faster.

And one former election official here in Pennsylvania who now works for a good government organization told me that he thought there was a chance that all mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania could be counted by midnight tonight.

GEOFF BENNETT: OK, John Yang, thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: All right, let's head now to Georgia, which is one of the states where polls will close at 7:00 p.m.

But, of course, we might not know which candidate wins that state for a while.

Miles O'Brien is at a vote-counting center in Gwinnett County.

That's a key Atlanta suburb.

He's been covering the election security efforts in that state for us as well.

So, Miles, unlike Pennsylvania, in Georgia, we could see results relatively quickly or earlier in the night.

Just tell us about that.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes, Amna, Georgia could be the first of the seven swing states to give a solid indication of which way this night might be headed.

The laws were changed after four years ago when in the midst of the COVID pandemic and all the disinformation, there was a long delay in Fulton County in particular.

And when votes were finally counted, it swung in the other direction and the seeds were planted for a lot of disinformation and conspiracy theories.

So the key here in Georgia now is that the early voting and the absentee ballots which had been submitted prior to today need to be reported out of the counties within one hour of the closing of the polls.

Behind me, they kind of look like trash cans.

They're by no means trash.

That's about 300,000 early voting ballots here in Gwinnett County.

Those have been tabulated or will be tabulated shortly.

Those results will be released very soon.

Same goes for the mail-in ballots.

So the only thing that might delay things is those bomb threats that we talked about at the top of the broadcast.

Those polls will stay open a little bit later because of the fact that they were closed down during the day for the bomb threats.

So -- but right around 8:00, we will start to get seeing basically what 55 percent of the electorate here in Georgia thinks about this election.

So that will be an interesting thing to see.

AMNA NAWAZ: All right, we will be checking back in with you in a few, Miles O'Brien in Georgia for us.

Thanks, Miles.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, lastly, in the battleground state of Arizona, "News Hour West" anchor and correspondent Stephanie Sy is at the Maricopa County Election Center in Phoenix.

So, Stephanie, as you well know, Maricopa County was really ground zero for election misinformation in this 2024 cycle.

How has the voting been going so far there?

STEPHANIE SY: Well, that's certainly top of mind for election officials here.

I will say there are no widespread problems reported in Maricopa County.

And, in fact, the wait times have been relatively short four minutes.

I was myself at a very busy polling station in Scottsdale, where the wait time was about 45 minutes.

And there was an interesting detail there.

The group Turning Point USA, which is a far right nonprofit organization, had hired one of those Scottsdale party buses and they were transporting voters there to polling places with shorter lines.

I also want to mention some breaking news out of Apache County.

That is on Navajo Nation.

"News Hour" has confirmed with the secretary of state's office that there were technical problems at voting locations there this morning.

We are told that most of the sites are now operational, but local news is reporting that there were several hours' wait times and that some of the folks actually left the polls.

And I'm pointing that out because Apache County is a Democratic stronghold with about 30,000 votes that went for President Biden in 2020.

That's a story we're going to continue to watch tonight.

GEOFF BENNETT: Absolutely.

Stephanie Sy.