Presidential Election Live: Donald Trump
Nears Victory as Financial Markets Tumble

Donald J. Trump, who ran an improbable and often ugly campaign against the establishment, was holding on to small but significant leads in a series of key battleground states on Tuesday night, upending months of polling that had given the advantage to Hillary Clinton and raising Republican hopes of seizing back the White House.

Just after 11:30 p.m, Mr. Trump was declared the victor in Florida, earning him the state’s 29 electoral votes and giving him a more certain grip on the presidential contest with Mrs. Clinton.

Reaction to the prospect of a Trump presidency rippled across the globe, with financial markets abroad falling as American television networks raised the prospect that Mrs. Clinton might lose. Asian markets were trading sharply lower, down around two percentage points, and in the United States, Dow Jones futures were down as much as 800 points in after-hours trading.

Several hours after polls closed, the vote margins separating Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton remained razor thin in states that will determine the outcome of the presidential contest, with voters clearly demonstrating the polarized nature of the American electorate.

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But Democratic hopes that Mrs. Clinton would easily defeat Mr. Trump appeared to be crumbling as the Republican candidate’s bombastic style seemed to be winning support among white, working-class and rural voters across the country.

Campaign advisers to Mrs. Clinton watched with increasing alarm on Tuesday night as healthy leads that had been predicted in polling for much of the past several months appeared to evaporate as votes were tallied. Mr. Trump also won North Carolina and Ohio, and he was clinging to small leads in Michigan and Wisconsin.

Mrs. Clinton’s inability to secure an early knockout blow in the Southeast means the contest will turn to the North. The vote count will proceed much more slowly in states like Michigan and Wisconsin than it has in Florida or North Carolina, so there is unlikely to be a quick decision in either state.

After Mr. Trump’s victories in North Carolina and Florida, he will have to win one of three battleground states — Michigan, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania — to win the election. His strength among white working-class voters makes that a real possibility. Even if he falls short, it will take a while to reach a decision.

In another boost for Republicans in Florida, Senator Marco Rubio, a onetime presidential hopeful, won re-election in a hard-fought contest that could help thwart Democratic hopes to take over the Senate.

In Georgia, a Southern state where Democrats had expressed hope for a surprise victory for Mrs. Clinton, the race appeared too close to call shortly after balloting ended.

A race that was dominated by ugly, personal attacks appeared to have taken a toll on voters, and the country’s mood appeared darker and more pessimistic than it was four years ago, with about 60 percent of voters saying the country was seriously on the wrong track. Voters said they were eager for change in Washington, though they expressed dismay that issues had been overlooked in the brutal, long and nasty campaign.

Here are some other developments happening now:

• Both candidates earn some expected victories. From the department of the unsurprising, the results from a slew of noncompetitive states: Mrs. Clinton won in Illinois, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Delaware, as well as the District of Columbia. Mr. Trump won in South Dakota, Wyoming, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee.

• Evan Bayh loses in Indiana. Another blow to Democratic Senate hopes: Mr. Bayh, a former senator and governor from Indiana, failed in his bid to return to the chamber, losing to Todd Young, a Republican who attacked him as a Washington insider.

• Does anyone trust the presidential hopefuls? Months of personal character attacks by both candidates appeared to leave voters largely dissatisfied with their choices, according to early exit polls: Only about four in 10 voters viewed Mrs. Clinton as honest and trustworthy, while slightly fewer said that Mr. Trump was honest.

• Whose résumé is better? Mrs. Clinton’s experience appeared to pass the test with voters, about half of whom said the former senator and secretary of state was qualified to serve as president. Fewer than four in 10 said the same of Mr. Trump, who has embraced his status as a businessman and a Washington outsider.

• How did the scandals play? More than four in 10 voters said Mrs. Clinton’s email controversies bothered them “a lot,” while a larger proportion — six in 10 — said they were bothered a lot by Mr. Trump’s treatment of women.

• So is this a record-breaking day for voter turnout? It is hard to say just yet. The Times’s Steve Eder reported that voting was robust in the bellwether state of Florida; by 1 p.m., more than 900,000 voters had cast ballots in Miami-Dade County, surpassing the total turnout from four years ago. But in Lucas County, Ohio, data from the first part of the day suggested that voting tallies would be on par with 2008 and 2012, officials with the board of elections said.

Nevada Judge Denies Trump Campaign’s Suit

A Nevada judge denied a request by Donald J. Trump’s campaign to preserve documents from early voting sites in Las Vegas, after the campaign alleged voting irregularities. “What are you saying?” Judge Gloria Sturman asked Mr. Trump’s lawyer in one exchange.

The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to have votes in Nevada impounded on the grounds that poll workers illegally extended early-voting hours to accommodate people who were waiting in long lines.

Thousands of Hispanic voters lined up outside polling places to vote on Friday in Clark County, which is home to Las Vegas and has the state’s largest Hispanic population. Record turnout has raised fears among Republicans that they could lose the battleground state, and Trump campaign officials have been complaining that the extension of hours in some locations is evidence that the election is rigged.

The lawsuit alleges that the people were allowed to vote illegally because they cast ballots after the published closing times at polling places.

The campaign also sent a letter to Nevada’s secretary of state asking for an investigation into the allegations of “egregious violations.”

Clinton and Trump vote.

Parents held their children in the air to get a glimpse as Mrs. Clinton voted for herself in Chappaqua, N.Y., on Tuesday morning.

“It’s a humbling feeling,” Mrs. Clinton said.

Mr. Trump appeared to be in good spirits when he arrived at a Manhattan polling place just before 11 a.m. with his wife, Melania, to vote for himself.

He was met with a mix of cheers and boos as he left his motorcade and waved to pedestrians.

Inside Public School 59, Mr. Trump shook hands with other voters and offered high-fives to some children who came along with their parents.

The vice-presidential candidates also voted in the morning.

George W. Bush leaves the top of his ballot blank.

Former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, did not vote for Mr. Trump, a Bush spokesman said, making official their rejection of the Republican presidential nominee.

Mr. and Mrs. Bush “left the top blank and voted Republican down-ballot,” according to Freddy Ford, an aide to the former president.

Mr. Bush, his father and his younger brother, Jeb, all indicated after the primary contest that they would not support Mr. Trump. George W. Bush, the 43rd president, has avoided commenting publicly on the campaign ever since, even as he obliquely criticized Mr. Trump’s brand of populism at a series of fund-raisers for Republican Senate candidates.

Bob Dole is the only former Republican nominee who supported Mr. Trump’s candidacy.

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