WASHINGTON –

While the outcome remains uncertain Tuesday night, the 2024 presidential election has already revealed the depths of a fractured nation as candidates navigated a political realignment based on gender and class while facing the near-constant threat of misinformation and violence.

Not since the 1968 election, when the country was torn over racial tensions and the Vietnam War, has the divide seemed so obvious.

But the biggest conclusions so far may be the most obvious.

The United States is on the verge of electing either its first female president, Vice President Kamala Harris, or its first president with a felony conviction, former President Donald Trump, whose continued political strength despite the chaos – much of it of his own making – costs have brought little political success so far.

As votes are still being counted across the country, here are some initial takeaways:

A new president will assume leadership of a nation with deep divisions

Regardless of whether Harris or Trump ends up behind the Resolute Desk, the 47th president will lead a nation with widening political and cultural divisions and a worried electorate.

AP VoteCast, a comprehensive survey of more than 110,000 voters across the country, found that about four in 10 voters viewed the economy and jobs as the country's biggest problem. About two in 10 voters said the top issue was immigration, a core theme of Trump's argument, and about one in 10 chose abortion, a pillar of Harris' campaign.

As a reminder of how unusual this election was, about one in four Trump voters said the assassination attempts against him were the most important factor in their election.

But when asked what had the greatest influence on their choice, about half of voters cited the future of democracy. That was more than the share of those who answered the same on inflation, immigration or abortion policy. And it cuts across the two major parties: About two-thirds of Harris voters and about a third of Trump voters said the future of democracy was the most important factor in their vote.

Given the realities of the Trump era and the rhetoric of the campaign, this is not surprising.

Trump refused to acknowledge his defeat in 2020 and watched as his supporters ransacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, as Congress met to certify Democrat Joe Biden's victory. Trump even mused two days before Election Day that he “shouldn't have left” the White House after repeatedly promising retaliation against his political enemies.

Harris joined other critics at the end of the campaign – including some of Trump's former White House chiefs of staff – in calling the former president a “fascist.” Trump, meanwhile, called Harris a “fascist” and “communist.”

He then told voters that the numerous prosecutions against him proved that Democrats were the real “threat to democracy” and in the final days of the campaign doubled down on debunked claims that the US election was being rigged against him.

Questions about “election integrity” persist, thanks to misinformation

Trump spent the final days of the election aggressively spreading baseless claims about the integrity of the election, emphasizing that they would only lose if Democrats cheated. Not long after, he claimed on social media, without evidence, that “there was a lot of talk about massive FRAUD in Philadelphia.”

There is no credible information indicating significant voter fraud in this or the last election, despite Trump's claims to the contrary. A broad coalition of senior government and industry officials, including many Republicans, concluded that the 2020 election was the “safest” in American history.

At the same time, a misinformation campaign is spreading online, propagating false cases of election fraud.

The FBI issued a statement Tuesday highlighting two examples of the misuse of his name and badges in election videos. One of them contained a fake press release claiming that management at five prisons in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona had manipulated inmate voting and colluded with a political party.

“This video is also not authentic and its content is false,” the FBI said.

There is a new battlefield map and mixed coalitions

College-educated white voters, even in metropolitan areas, once leaned Republican. White working-class voters, particularly in union households, were important components of the Democratic coalition. Black voters – men and women – formed the party's foundation and also had a strong appeal to Latino voters. This also applied to young voters.

Those coalitions have been shaken up in the Trump era, and that has rearranged the presidential battleground map. Florida and Ohio, traditional battlegrounds, are now firmly Republican. Other states in the Great Lakes region – Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – also remained divided in counting votes. And the state of North Carolina in the southern Sun Belt, which was once reliably represented in the Republican president's column, also came close.

Trump boasted throughout the fall that he would get more support from black and Latino men than Harris typically does. Harris, meanwhile, targeted more educated voters — including moderate Republicans — who were repulsed by Trump. It may turn out that the Trump era does not represent a lasting realignment of major party coalitions. But it's clear that old coalitions and long-standing ideas about how to win the White House simply don't work with Trump.

Mars and Venus: Abortion and “bro” politics illuminate differences in gender selection

It was the first presidential election after the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade had repealed and ended a woman's national right to have an abortion. It was also the first time a Republican presidential candidate overly courted men with a hypermasculine approach.

And it seems to have been important. Both Harris' and Trump's advisers expected a historic “gender gap” between the two candidates, with women making up a clear majority of Harris' supporters and men making up a clear majority of Trump's total.

AP VoteCast, meanwhile, found that about one in 10 voters said abortion was the country's top issue, underscoring the newfound importance of an issue that received little attention from voters four years ago.

About a quarter of voters said abortion policy was the most important factor in their vote, while nearly half said it was an important factor but not the most important.

Certainly, in national politics, women have been leaning toward Democrats for years, while men have leaned toward Republicans. But the growing divide only underscores how fragmented the American electorate has become.

The Year of the Billionaires highlights the power of money in politics

Elon Musk, one of the richest men in the world, has become Trump's favorite campaign partner in recent weeks. Musk enjoyed the spotlight, as he has since buying Twitter, changing its name to X and shaping the social media platform's political identity into his own.

Musk poured tens of millions of dollars — a fraction of his wealth — into a voter turnout effort designed to help Trump. The former president promised to make Musk a key part of his incoming second administration, potentially giving him broad control over federal regulations and bureaucracy.

According to the New York Times, on the Democratic side, Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg each donated $50 million to a pro-Harris super PAC.