Americans vote in knife-edge election

Election Day voting was underway on Tuesday after an extraordinary - and for many unnerving - US presidential race that will either make Kamala Harris the first woman president in the country's history or hand Donald Trump a comeback that sends shock waves around the world.

As polling stations opened, Democratic vice president Harris, 60, and Republican former president Trump, 78, were dead-even in the tightest and most volatile White House contest of modern times.

The bitter rivals had spent their final day of the campaign frenetically working to get their supporters out to the polls and courting any last undecided voters in the swing states expected to decide the outcome.

But despite head-spinning twists in the campaign -- from Harris's dramatic entrance when President Joe Biden dropped out in July, to Trump riding out two assassination attempts and a criminal conviction -- nothing has broken the opinion poll deadlock.

Tens of millions of voters are expected to cast their ballots, on top of the 83 million who have already voted early.

Long lines

Americans lined up before dawn including in Black Mountain, North Carolina, where the voting station was a makeshift tent erected after severe flooding.

Long queues also formed in Erie, a critical city in battleground Pennsylvania.

"It's way, way, way more people here than the last" election, Marchelle Beason, 46, told AFP after casting her ballot for Harris at an elementary school and putting on an "I voted" sticker.

"We're so divided right now, and she's about peace. And everything that her opponent has to say is really negative," she added.

At the same school, 56-year-old Darlene Taylor, who said she lives on disability benefits, noted her main issue is to "close the border."

"We don't need another four more years of high inflation, gas prices (and) lying," said Taylor, who wore a homemade Trump shirt.

Control of Congress is also at stake. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs, as are 34 of the Senate's 100 seats.

A final presidential outcome may not be known for several days if the results are as close as polls suggest, adding to tensions in a deeply divided nation.

And there are fears of turmoil and even violence if Trump loses, and then contests the result as he did in 2020. Barriers have been erected around the White House.

The world is anxiously watching, as the result will have major implications for conflicts in the Middle East, Russia's war in Ukraine, and tackling climate change, which Trump calls a hoax.

Harris and Trump are effectively tied in the seven main swing states.

On Monday, Harris went all-in on must-win Pennsylvania, rallying on the Philadelphia steps made famous in the "Rocky" movie and declaring: "Momentum is on our side."

However "this could be one of the closest races in history -- every single vote matters," cautioned Harris.

History to be made

Trump -- who would become the first convicted felon and oldest person to win the presidency -- cast himself as the only solution to an apocalyptic vision of the country in terminal decline and overrun by "savage" migrants.

"With your vote tomorrow, we can fix every single problem our country faces and lead America -- indeed, the world -- to new heights of glory," Trump told his closing rally in Grand Rapids in swing state Michigan.

Harris has hammered home her opposition to Trump-backed abortion bans in multiple states -- a key vote-winning position with crucial women voters.

But she also struck an upbeat note -- and notably avoided mentioning Trump, after weeks of targeting him directly as a threat to democracy for his dark rhetoric and repeated threats to exact retribution on his political opponents.

A Trump comeback would be historic -- just the second ever non-consecutive second term for a US president, since Grover Cleveland in 1893.

Trump's return would also instantly fuel international instability, with US allies in Europe and NATO alarmed by his isolationist "America First" policies.

Trading partners are nervously watching his vow to impose sweeping import tariffs.

A Harris victory would give America its first Black woman and South Asian president -- and end the Trump era which has dominated US politics for nearly a decade.

Trump has said he would not seek election again in 2028.

But he also hinted he would refuse to accept another loss, and recently has brought up baseless claims of election fraud while saying he should "never have left" the White House.

Agence France-Presse