Election 2016: Clinton and Trump in Swing States Deadlock

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are locked in a knife-edge battle in swing states after polls closed across most of the US in the White House election.

Republican nominee Mr Trump won Ohio and Mrs Clinton won Virginia, but the race is too close to call in Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

He also racked up wins in the Midwest and South, while Democrat Mrs Clinton swept the Northeast, ABC News projects.

The markets lurched as Mrs Clinton’s path to victory seemed less assured.

The US dollar and Mexican peso plummeted while the Dow futures dropped more than 750 points.

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Mr Trump’s Ohio win is a big boost, as no Republican has ever taken the White House without winning the Midwestern bellwether.

He is also ahead in neighbouring Michigan, which has not voted for a Republican White House candidate since 1988.

Image captionMr Trump and his family watch the results come in

As expected, Mr Trump has also been victorious in the Republican strongholds of Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina, Nebraska, Indiana, West Virginia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Texas, ABC News projects.

And he is forecast to win Missouri, Montana, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming – all solidly conservative states.

The network tips Mrs Clinton to have won the Democratic heartlands of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Vermont, Delaware, Illinois, Rhode Island and District of Columbia, as well as New Mexico and Colorado.

A candidate must secure 270 of the 538 electoral college votes to declare victory.

Voting has ended across more than two-thirds of the US, and full results are expected some time after 23:00 EST (04:00 GMT on Wednesday), once voting ends on the West Coast.

In other developments:

• The North Carolina Board of Elections agreed to extend voting in eight precincts in Durham County amid long queues

• Failed Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio won his bid for re-election in Florida’s Senate race

• A gunman was found dead after allegedly killing one person and wounding three others near a polling station in the southern California city of Azusa

Mr Trump, a 70-year-old Manhattan real estate tycoon, and Mrs Clinton, who 69, would be the first US female president, voted earlier on Tuesday in New York City.Media captionUS election: Relive the wild ride in 170 seconds

Mr Trump was booed as he arrived to cast his ballot at a school in Manhattan, alongside his wife, Melania, and daughter, Ivanka.

The two presidential hopefuls will spend election night in New York City, staging events barely a mile apart.

Mrs Clinton will address supporters at the Javits Centre in Manhattan, while Mr Trump holds an event at the Hilton Midtown hotel.

More than 5,000 police officers have been deployed across America’s biggest city to keep order on election night.

Courtesy : BBC