Election day finally arrived in United Stateswith tens of millions of Americans heading to the polls in what could be the most important vote in recent history.

More than 70 million Americans have already cast their ballots in what is likely to be a two-horse race between the incumbent vice president Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump.

Both candidates appear to be locked in a head-to-head contest with no light between the pair, according to national opinion polls.

But the White House hopefuls’ policies couldn’t be more different, and for the first time in years, women’s reproductive health, specifically their right to abortion, is playing a crucial role.

For Trump, a convicted felon seeking a second term, the main issue of the campaign was migrants and the economy, along with a pledge to reject the so-called woke culture.

Both have engaged in a frantic zig-zag through swing states, with raucous rallies and even an appearance by Harris on “Saturday Night Live” in an attempt to court undecided voters.

The results of a large number of states are expected to be announced as soon as the polls close at around 19:00 local time. However, if the previous election is anything to go by, it could take several days for the overall result to be announced.

In 2020, it took four days for Pennsylvania to be called for Joe Biden after a knife-edge result that secured him the Oval Office.

Within the complex American political system, the overall outcome will not be decided by the national popular vote, but by the electoral college in which each state’s number of electors is roughly weighted by its population size.

Each candidate needs 270 Electoral College votes to win, and the battleground is made up of those states where polls show a state could go either way.

As a result, swing states like Michigan could prove crucial for both candidates.

Home to more than 200,000 Arab-American voters, Biden won the state by 154,000 votes in 2020. But Israel’s wars in the Middle East, in which the US has fully supported Israel, have haunted the Democratic campaign, even in blue states traditional safe. .

“It is impossible for us to support a genocide,” Isabella, a Palestinian Youth Movement activist, told Middle East Eye at a rally in New York over the weekend.

“Genocide should be a red line, not just for the people who are affected by it, but for anyone with a conscience”

– Maryam Alwan, young voter

“This is clearly a red line for most Americans, and while there may be other issues (that we agree with the Democratic Party), we cannot go every day to witness the horrors of Gaza knowing that this is what our government”.

Israel caused widespread death and destruction in Gaza after the October 7 attacks on southern Israel, which targeted civilian residences, schools, hospitals, mosques and UN shelters.

So far, the official death toll is over 43,000 Palestinians. However, given that Gaza’s health infrastructure has been left incapacitated by Israeli bombardment, the number of Palestinians killed by Israel is likely to be much higher.

US support for Israel’s wars could also change voting patterns among young, anti-war and minority voters who are increasingly angry and disillusioned with the Democratic Party.

Columbia University student Maryam Alwan, a first-generation Palestinian American who used to “fully identify as a Democrat” when she was 18 and voted for Biden in 2020, said she is among many young voters who don’t they will vote blue on November 5. .

Instead, Alwan said he will send his ballot to his home state of Virginia to cast his vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

“It’s not a ‘lesser of two evils’ situation,” Alwan told MEE.

“Genocide should be a red line, not just for the people who are affected by it, but for anyone with a conscience.”

Alwan says if historic third-party voter turnout costs Democrats the election, the party would be forced to change its behavior.

Stein has gained popularity in Arab and Muslim communities amid Israel’s brutal war against Gaza and Lebanon, opinion polls show.

While the Green Party candidate is highly unlikely to win the presidency, her supporters see her as a principled choice that can lay the groundwork for greater viability for future third-party candidates.

Critical situation

The US election comes as the world finds itself at one of the most critical moments in the post-Cold War era, with major differences between how the two candidates will conduct their foreign policy.

Harris has faced criticism over his foreign policy background, and a draft of the Democratic Party’s 2024 platform seen by MEE did not provide answers on how it would address a number of issues.

For many analysts, the 14 million people living in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories will likely be the most affected by the incoming administration’s Middle East policy.

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A September opinion poll by Mitvim, the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policy, showed strong support for Trump among both right-wing and centrist Israelis, with about 68 percent of Israelis viewing Trump as the candidate who “will best serve Israel’s interests”. “while only 14% support Harris.

In 2020, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Trump as “the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House”, due to the then-president’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and his decision to recognize Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights.

And in the final months of his presidency, Trump also helped broker the Abraham Accords, normalization agreements between Israel and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan.

Few expect the Harris administration to distance itself from Israel, but many said she has often presented herself as a more compassionate voice in the Biden administration when it comes to the Palestinians.

US-Iran relations are another key foreign policy issue the incoming president will have to address, and both Harris and Trump have expressed harsh views on the Islamic Republic, with Harris calling it “the biggest adversary of the US “.

Iran’s leadership has not made clear which candidate it prefers, but reports have suggested it has delayed a potential strike against Israel until after the election and before the inauguration in January.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior military officials have continued their threats against Israel in recent days, and on Sunday President Masoud Pezeshkian said Israel’s recent strikes could not go unanswered, but added that ” the type and intensity” of the attacks depended on whether a ceasefire could be reached in Lebanon or Gaza.

Western officials said Tehran was still discussing options for the attack, including the possibility of using its proxies to attack Israel to have a measure of denial and possibly prevent further strikes on Iranian soil.

Saudi Arabia and its neighboring power, the United Arab Emirates, are likely to gain economically and militarily from Trump’s victory, having previously enjoyed an unprecedented level of US support, including Washington’s tough stance against Iran .

A senior Arab official told MEE that the Gulf states were intensely focused “on how the next administration will deal with the Houthis”.

The Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, are a member of the so-called “axis of resistance” that Iran has cultivated to challenge Israeli and American adventurism in the Middle East.

Tehran has varying degrees of influence over this network, with the Houthis launching several drone strikes against Israel since the Gaza war broke out, along with TARGETING international maritime vessels in the Red Sea region.

Gerald Feierstein, a former US ambassador to Yemen under the Obama administration, told MEE that the most direct way for the US to stop Houthi attacks was to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.

“If that war ends, the casus belli disappears. It will be harder for the Houthis to justify their attacks,” Feierstein told MEE.

It is unclear which candidate Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan prefers, but sources close to him have told MEE they believe a Trump presidency could work well because of their shared history.

But in Europe, the prospect of a second Trump term has proven deeply unsettling for some, with the Republican repeatedly threatening to withdraw from NATO, a transatlantic security alliance that many nations rely heavily on for their safety. .

“What will happen if a president (Trump) is elected for the second time in America, who declares NATO obsolete and is no longer willing to keep his security promises?” Friedrich Merz, party leader of Germany’s conservative Christian Democrats, told supporters last week.

“Then we will be on our own. And by that, I don’t mean only us Germans, but us Europeans.”