Early results from East Coast and Rust Belt battleground states showed a tight race between Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton for the Oval Office as Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a onetime presidential hopeful, won re-election in a hard-fought contest that could help thwart Democratic hopes to take over the Senate.
The Run-Up
The podcast that makes sense of the most delirious stretch of the 2016 campaign.But a handful of key states on the East Coast remain too close to call shortly after polls closed at 7 p.m., reflecting an intense battle for votes that could lead to a long night before a White House victor is determined.
The two candidates campaigned intensely in Virginia, where it remained too early to determine a winner as polls closed across the commonwealth. And in Georgia, a Southern state where Democrats had expressed hope for a surprise victory, the race also appeared too close to call shortly after balloting ended.
A race that has been dominated by ugly, personal attacks appears to have taken a toll on voters, and the country’s mood appears darker and more pessimistic than it was four years ago, with about 60 percent of voters saying the country is 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 of the day’s other highlights:
• Ohio may be very close. While pre-election polls have consistently shown Mr. Trump in the lead in the Buckeye State, the results of early exit polls there suggest that late deciders have leaned toward Mrs. Clinton, giving her more of a chance. Among the one in six voters who decided in the past week, Mrs. Clinton holds a modest but clear advantage over Mr. Trump, and she performed best among women, younger voters, black voters and the nonreligious. Mr. Trump’s strongest support came from men, older voters, white voters and evangelicals.
• Both candidates earn some expected victories. From the department of the unsurprising, more results from a slew of noncompetitive states: Mrs. Clinton has won in Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Delaware, as well as the District of Columbia. Mr. Trump has won in Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee.
• Does anyone trust the presidential hopefuls? Months of personal character attacks by both candidates appear to have left 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 appears 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 reports 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.
• The Hispanic population, a sleeping giant, is now awake. The Hispanic turnout will be far higher than it was in 2012. It has the best shot of deciding the election in Florida, where Hispanic voters represent a well-above-average share of the population.
Trump campaign sues over Nevada voting.
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 on the Upper East Side 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. 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.
