November 3, 2020

Joe Biden banked his lead in the early vote. The question now is whether Donald Trump did enough on Election Day to catch him.

As polls close on the East Coast, the first glimpse of an answer may come relatively early in Florida and North Carolina, two states Trump needs to hold — but where Biden is polling ahead by about 2 percentage points.

Elections officials expect to count most ballots in those states quickly, and a Biden victory in either would short-circuit Trump’s already-narrow path to a second term. If Trump carries both Florida and North Carolina, as he did in 2016, the nation will settle in for a long night — and possibly days — with protracted vote counts expected in other swing states.

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