Trump edges ahead in Florida as Biden keeps leads in other battlegrounds

Donald Trump is clinging to a narrow lead in Florida, the battleground voting experts say he cannot afford to lose. With roughly 90% of estimated votes counted, Trump sits at 50.5% to Joe Biden's 48.5%. Georgia and North Carolina, two other swing states that will help settle the race, are still hanging in the balance.

Trump's Florida strength came partly from Latino-heavy counties, where he ran better than he did in 2016. Biden is still ahead in counties where Hispanics make up more than 20% of the population, but Trump's slice of that vote grew. More than four in 10 Hispanic voters in Florida backed Trump, according to an Edison Research exit poll.

Biden has other roads to 270 without Florida. He leads Trump 52.5% to 46.4% in North Carolina with 68% of estimated votes reported, and 55.3% to 43.5% in Ohio with 43.5% counted. In Texas, he's ahead by a whisker at 49.4% to 49.3% with 55% of estimated votes in. Reuters/Ipsos polling found North Carolinians who already voted backed Biden over Trump by more than 2-to-1.

Voters turned out in masks and kept their distance, with long lines in a few spots and short waits in many others. Officials had braced for trouble, but there were no signs of disruptions or violence at polling sites. More than 100 million people cast early ballots by mail or in person, according to the U.S. Elections Project, a record haul that has some experts predicting turnout unseen since 1908 and a total that could reach 160 million, up from 138 million in 2016.

Exit polls put the economy first for a third of voters, with two in 10 naming COVID-19. Four in 10 said efforts to contain the virus were going very badly. Edison's data also showed Trump slipping with some of his core groups: he won seven in 10 white men in Georgia, down from eight in 10 in 2016, and six in 10 voters 65 and older there, down from seven in 10. In Virginia, his support among white men and whites without college degrees also dipped compared with four years ago.

The winner may not be clear for days. The next president inherits a country strained by a pandemic that has killed more than 231,000 people, millions of lost jobs and deepening political division, with control of Congress also on the ballot. Biden, who told reporters in Delaware he was hopeful, still has multiple paths to 270. No US president has lost a reelection bid since Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992.