Election Day arrives, signaling the end of unprecedented, chaotic campaign season

American voters will head to the polls today and select either Donald Trump or Joe Biden as the next president of the United States, bringing to an end what may be the most unique and unprecedented presidential campaign season in the history of the country. 

The results of the race — which may not be known for days or even weeks — will stand as either a repudiation of President Trump's first term in office or a sharp rebuke of the gargantuan Democratic effort over the last four years to have him removed from the White House one way or the other. 

Record numbers of Americans have already voted, showing up to early polling stations or casting their ballots by mail out of fears that crowded polling stations on Election Day could become superspreader spots for COVID-19. 

The pandemic itself has overshadowed the entire second half of the campaign season. Democrats, including Biden, have sharply criticized the Trump administration for what they say is its lax handling of the pandemic in the U.S. that public health authorities report has killed more than 230,000 Americans. 

Trump and Republicans, on the other hand, have defended the White House's management of the virus here, and have criticized Biden for his repeated promises to potentially order a nationwide shutdown and/or issue nationwide mask mandates and other measures should he win. 

Trump's break into politics versus Biden's decades in Washington

Trump remains an unlikely victor in the race, at least according to polling numbers and public opinion, though he was an even unlikelier candidate in 2016, particularly going up against the well-funded, well-connected and seasoned political machine fronted by Hillary Clinton. 

Trump himself had flirted with political ambitions over his years as a well-known business tycoon. Regarded by most insiders as little more than a periodic political novelty, he briefly explored potential presidential runs in 2000 and 2012, though he dropped out in both cases. 

Following the 2012 election, Trump began exploring the possibility of running in 2016; he announced his candidacy in June of 2015, famously riding down a golden escalator in Trump Tower to do so. His historic victory against Hillary Clinton that year was delivered by razor-thin margins in several key battleground states, which Trump won in no small part by his appeal to what he called the "forgotten men and women" of the country, working-class Americans allegedly downtrodden by years of globalist policy. 

Joe Biden, meanwhile, is seeing the culmination of five decades of investment in Washington politics. The veteran Democratic politician was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1973; prior to that he had held one elected position, serving on the council of New Castle County, Del. 

Biden has also essayed presidential runs over the years, mounting efforts in both 1988 and 2008 to run for the White House. Both attempts failed, though in 2008 he would be selected as Barack Obama's running mate, going on to serve as vice president in the Obama administration for the next eight years. 

Biden has campaigned extensively on the Obama administration's record, citing in particular his own participation in 2010's health care reform efforts that resulted in the Affordable Care Act. 

Results may not be known for weeks

While normally a presidential winner is declared late on Election Day or into the early hours of Wednesday, the results of the 2020 election may take days or even weeks to fully process. 

That's because record numbers of Americans have voted by mail this year due to fears of COVID-19, sending millions of ballots to voting precincts and state election authorities and resulting in pileups of votes that officials have warned could take many days to sort through. 

Both the Democratic and Republican camps, meanwhile, have assembled platoons of lawyers ready to swoop in and aggressively litigate ballot challenges and recount efforts, hoping to secure every vote possible, particularly in the contested states in which the election will be decided. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a wrench in virtually every aspect of the campaign this year. First detected in the U.S. in January, the disease was quickly found to have spread throughout the country, resulting in most U.S. governors shutting down large swaths of the American economy in the hopes that the virus could be suppressed that way. 

Both the Trump and Biden campaigns suspended political events early on in the pandemic out of concerns that crowded rallies and fundraisers could spread the virus. The Trump campaign in the final months of the election season has resumed major crowded rallies, though with little evidence that they have contributed to major COVID outbreaks.

The Biden campaign, meanwhile, has been holding much smaller rallies in which participants are either confined to their cars or separated according to "social distance" guidelines. 

Biden and others have criticized Trump's campaign rallies as yet another indication of the president's failure to properly manage the virus in the United States. Politicians and public health experts for months pointed to Europe's apparent success in managing the virus via strict lockdowns, national mask mandates and other strong measures.

Yet recent major surges in infections in many of those countries — including the U.K., Italy, France, Spain and Germany — have complicated that picture. Trump himself has highlighted the unexpected spike in cases there after months of experts praising Europe's response. 

"Europe imposed draconian lockdowns, and cases were surging and deaths were surging," he said at a campaign rally this week. "Now they have to do it all over again." Countries that have imposed harsh lockdowns, he said, are now "the ones doing the worst."