al jazeera

   US election 2024 polls are open in more than 40 states, including the seven battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Millions of voters are registered to cast their ballots across the country.    Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump are going head-to-head in a race that remains too close to call.    Harris and Trump have made their final appeals to voters in key battleground states, stressing that the stakes of the November 5 vote could not be higher.    Recent polls show the candidates in a neck-and-neck battle nationally and in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Michigan.

   Russia-Ukraine war: Where does Harris stand?

    Harris has backed Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion, as well as the Biden administration’s push for allies in Europe and NATO to provide consistent military aid and funding to Kyiv.

    “Donald Trump, if he were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now,” Harris said during an interview with CBS programme 60 Minutes in early October.

    She also said she would not meet bilaterally with Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate a solution to the war. “Ukraine must have a say in the future of Ukraine.”

   Russia-Ukraine war: Where does Trump stand?

    Trump has said he would resolve the war between Ukraine and Russia within 24 hours of re-entering the Oval Office. “If I’m president, I will have that war settled in one day,” he said during a CNN town hall last year.

    Trump previously praised Vladimir Putin and boasted of his relationship with the Russian president.

    At the same time, he has criticised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s requests for additional US assistance during the war, saying, “It never ends.”

    “I will have that settled prior to taking the White House as president-elect,” Trump said at an event in June.

    It remains to be seen if Trump will curtail US aid to Ukraine if he is re-elected, but the prospect has raised serious concerns among Ukrainian leaders.

   An election of firsts

    Whoever wins the US presidency is set to make history.

    Harris would be the first woman, and Black and South Asian American to serve as commander-in-chief in the country’s 248-year history.

    While there is no question that Harris’s candidacy is historic, she has deliberately downplayed the identity-focused aspects of her campaign, pitching herself as a candidate for “all Americans”.

    A Trump victory, meanwhile, would hold a different kind of historical significance.

    The 78-year-old would become the first person convicted of a felony and elected to the US presidency, having been convicted of 34 felony counts in a New York hush-money case a little more than five months ago.

    He would also be the first president to serve non-consecutive terms in more than 100 years.

    Trump, who still faces felony charges in at least two separate criminal cases, argues he is the victim of a politizied justice system.