AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EST

Biden, Trump locked in tight races in battleground states

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden were locked in tight races in battleground states across the country Tuesday night as they concluded an epic campaign that will shape America's response to the surging pandemic and foundational questions of economic fairness and racial justice.

Biden picked up the first battleground state of the night, New Hampshire, a small prize that Trump tried to steal from Democrats. But races were too early to call in the most fiercely contested and critical states on the map, including Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Biden won California, the nation's biggest electoral haul, and other predictable victories including Colorado and Virginia, two former battlegrounds that have become Democratic strongholds. Trump's wins included Kansas, North Dakota and other conservative bastions.

Americans made their choices as the nation faced a confluence of historic crises with each candidate declaring the other fundamentally unfit to navigate the challenges. Daily life has been upended by the coronavirus, which has killed more than 232,000 Americans and cost millions of jobs.

Millions of voters braved their worries about the virus — and some long lines — to turn out in person, joining 102 million fellow Americans who voted days or weeks earlier, a record number that represented 73% of the total vote in the 2016 presidential election.

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2020 Latest: Hundreds gather in Black Lives Matter Plaza

The Latest on the presidential campaign (all times local):

11:15 p.m.

Several hundred people have gathered in Black Lives Matter Plaza, just one block from the White House, holding signs and chanting about democracy.

It was a generally festive atmosphere Tuesday night as election results came in, with a few scuffles along the edges.

There were fears of widespread unrest connected to the election, and authorities around the country were on alert in their communities.

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EXPLAINER: A long night, or more, before president is known

WASHINGTON (AP) — There’s a fair chance Americans won’t know the winner of Tuesday’s presidential election while it's still Tuesday — or maybe even Wednesday.

The main reason? Many states have made it easier to request a mail ballot amid the coronavirus pandemic and concerns about crowded polling places. But mail ballots generally require more time to process than ballots that are cast in person.

DIFFERENT STATES, DIFFERENT APPROACHES

Some states with extensive experience in using mail-in ballots have adjusted for those extra steps.

In Florida, clerks can start counting ballots 22 days before an election. In North Carolina, beginning five weeks before the election, county boards insert approved ballots into a voting machine, allowing for a prompt tabulation on Election Day.

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Routes to Senate control narrow as GOP holds back Democrats

WASHINGTON (AP) — The battle for control of the Senate tightened Tuesday after Democrats picked up a seat in Colorado, but suffered a setback in Alabama, and Republicans held their own in high-profile races in South Carolina, Texas and Kansas, narrowing the political map.

Republicans fought to retain their Senate majority against a surge of Democrats challenging President Donald Trump’s allies. Both parties saw paths to victory, but the Democrats' were narrowing. With several races still too early to call, and one Georgia contest heading to a January runoff, the final verdict might not be known on election night.

Democrats ousted Cory Gardner for John Hickenlooper in Colorado, a must-win seat if Democrats were to wrest the majority. Gardner was among the most endangered incumbents as his state shifted leftward in the Trump era.

“It’s time for a different approach,” Hickenlooper said in an live video message posted on Facebook.

But several battlegrounds broke for Republicans, including an open seat in Kansas. Rep. Roger Marshall prevailed over Democratic state Sen. Barbara Bollier, a former Republican, who energized Democrats in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932.

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AP VoteCast: Voters favor Biden on virus, Trump on economy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters in the U.S. presidential election faced a public health crisis and a wounded economy, but neither candidate emerged as the clear choice to handle both of those issues, according to AP Votecast.

More voters — both nationwide and in key battlegrounds — said former Vice President Joe Biden would be better able to handle the coronavirus pandemic, the top concern for about 4 in 10 voters. But President Donald Trump edged out Biden on the question of who would be better to rebuild an economy besieged by nearly 11 million job losses and small businesses staring down a bleak winter. About 3 in 10 voters nationally ranked the economy as the most pressing issue.

The question of whether the pandemic or the economy mattered more to voters was a heated debate in the campaign. Biden has warned that the economy can never fully heal unless the coronavirus is first contained and businesses can fully reopen. Trump argued that the economy should not be a casualty of the disease and maintained, without evidence, that the nation was “rounding the turn."

Despite the months of debate, three-quarters of all voters said they knew all along who they supported. And Trump weighed heavily on their minds — two-thirds said their decision was driven by their opinion of the untraditional president, either for or against.

Trump voters overwhelmingly endorsed their president. About 8 in 10 said their vote was in support of him, not in opposition to Biden, and roughly as many said Trump has changed the way things work in Washington for the better.

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Virus hospitalizations surge as pandemic shadows US election

Americans went to the polls Tuesday under the shadow of a resurging pandemic, with an alarming increase in cases nationwide and the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 reaching record highs in a growing number of states.

While daily infections were rising in all but three states, the surge was most pronounced in the Midwest and Southwest.

Missouri, Oklahoma, Iowa, Indiana, Nebraska, North Dakota and New Mexico all reported record high hospitalizations this week. Nebraska’s largest hospitals started limiting elective surgeries and looked to bring in nurses from other states to cope with the surge. Hospital officials in Iowa and Missouri warned bed capacity could soon be overwhelmed.

The resurgence loomed over candidates and voters, fearful of both the virus itself and the economic toll of any new shutdowns to control its spread. The debate over how far to take economically costly measures has divided a country already sharply polarized over President Donald Trump’s turbulent four years in office.

The pandemic colored who voters chose at the ballot box and how they did it. While many Americans took advantage of expanded access to mail-in voting, lines were long in many polling places, with record turnout expected and reminders of the pandemic everywhere.

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Hurricane Eta grinds inland into Nicaragua; at least 3 dead

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — Hurricane Eta churned inland through northeast Nicaragua Tuesday night with devastating winds and rains that destroyed rooftops, caused rivers to overflow and left at least three people dead in the region.

The hurricane had sustained winds of 105 mph (165 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center, down from an overnight peak of 150 mph (240 kph). Even before it made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, Honduras reported the first death after a mudslide trapped a 12-year-old girl in San Pedro Sula and two miners were killed in a mudslide in Bonanza, Nicaragua.

Tuesday night, the Category 2 hurricane crawled inland from the coast, about 45 miles (70 kilometers) west-southwest of coastal Puerto Cabezas or Bilwi, and it was moving west near 6 mph (9 kph).

Landfall came hours after it had been expected. Eta's eye had hovered just offshore through the night and Tuesday morning. The unceasing winds uprooted trees and ripped roofs apart, scattering corrugated metal through the streets of Bilwi, the main coastal city in the region. The city's regional hospital abandoned its building, moving patients to a local technical school campus.

“It was an intense night for everyone in Bilwi, Waspam and the communities along the northern coast,” Yamil Zapata, local Bilwi representative of the ruling Sandinista Front, told local Channel 4 Tuesday.

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House Latest: Democrat Shalala loses Florida seat to Salazar

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the 2020 House races (all times local):

11:20 p.m.

Republican Maria Elvira Salazar has defeated Democrat Donna Shalala for a House seat in Florida.

Salazar, a Spanish-language television newscaster, won in her second try for the office after Shalala prevailed in 2018.

The district covers much of the central Miami area and has generally been considered Democratic. Salazar sharply criticized Shalala for failing to timely report several stock sales as required.

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EXPLAINER: Why AP hasn't called Florida

WHY AP HASN'T CALLED FLORIDA:

President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden were locked in a tight race in Florida late Tuesday, and it was too early for The Associated Press to call the perennial battleground state.

Florida has a history of close elections, including the state’s 2018 governor’s race, which went to a recount. The AP was waiting on more vote count to come in from south Florida, including Miami-Dade County, the largest county in the state.

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EXPLAINER: Postal Service, judge at odds over ballot search

WHAT HAPPENED:

The U.S. Postal Service says it can't meet a federal judge’s order to sweep processing centers for undelivered mail-in ballots. It is arguing that doing so would be disruptive to its Election Day operations and that it had “physical and operational limitations.”

THE SIGNIFICANCE:

Disputes about mail ballots, particularly those received after Election Day, could be the fuel for court fights over election results in some states.

THE BACKGROUND: