Image copyright Reuters Image caption Cannabis, already legal for medical use in California, is now cleared for recreation

Maine has joined California, Nevada and Massachusetts in backing recreational marijuana use in state-wide polls.

The votes, which took place alongside the presidential election, legalise the growth and consumption of cannabis for those over 21 years old.

Arizona rejected legalising recreational use. Florida and North Dakota legalised medicinal use.

The drug will be an option in the management of conditions including cancer, Aids and hepatitis C.

California said the taxes on the sale and farming of cannabis would support youth programmes, environmental protection and law enforcement.

'Reckless disregard'

In other ballot initiatives across the US on election night:

Colorado voters approved a measure allowing assisted dying for the terminally ill through "medication that can be self-administered" - five other states have similar laws

Nebraska reinstated the death penalty, overturning the state legislature's move last year to repeal capital punishment

Oklahoma gave its capital punishment law constitutional protection, meaning it cannot be declared cruel and unusual punishment by state courts

California voters rejected a proposal to make porn stars wear condoms in all their sex on-set scenes

Arizona, Colorado and Maine voters approved a $12 (£9.60) minimum hourly wage by 2020, and Washington state raised it to $13.50 - the federal hourly minimum wage is $7.25

Legal marijuana is among the fastest growing industries in America, with some analysts suggesting sales could reach $22bn (£17.6bn) by 2020.

Opponents, however, had said the proposition opened the way for promotion of the drug on shows watched by young people, exhibiting "reckless disregard for child health and safety".

In Massachusetts, the legislation is set to take effect in December, with similar taxation measures to those in California.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption A volunteer displays jars of dried cannabis buds at a medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles

California was one of the first states to legalise the drug for medicinal purposes in 1996.

On Tuesday, voters in Florida and North Dakota followed suit, making medicinal use legal in a majority of US states.

Many states used the general election as an opportunity to put a range of questions to the public on matters such as tax, the minimum wage or the death penalty.</s>President Obama has been politically artful in his approach to legal pot, providing states such as California with a road map on how to legalize. Donald Trump has said the decision should be left to states.

There’s no question Barack Obama has been the best president for the legalization of pot. By far.

But that’s a very low bar, say advocates such as Tom Angell, founder of the pro-legalization group Marijuana Majority.

Obama disappointed many activists by not reining in DEA agents and federal attorneys who prosecuted medical-marijuana dispensaries. He also never endorsed legalization and didn’t do a lot to help pot merchants facing challenges with pesticide, tax and banking regulations due to federal prohibition.

Still, Obama has been politically artful in allowing legalization to proceed in pioneering states such as Washington and Colorado, said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Oregon. He’s charted a course for other states to follow, without inciting a political backlash.

And with voters in California, Massachusetts and Nevada — and possibly Maine, pending final results — approving legal weed Tuesday, about 25 percent of the nation’s population will live in states with legal pot.

Federal prohibition appears impractical, if not impossible, Blumenauer said. Obama suggested as much in a recent interview.

President-elect Donald Trump has said, “I really believe you should leave it to the states. I think it should be a state issue.”

Obama’s great accomplishment, some say, was getting out of the way after voters in Colorado and Washington approved state-regulated pot production and sale in 2012.

“What he did was respect the democratic process,” said Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, a sponsor of Washington’s groundbreaking Initiative 502.

Obama didn’t try to quash state laws with federal pre-emption. And he didn’t prosecute legal pioneers.

Even then, Washington officials were not sure if they could implement and oversee a legal pot industry without federal opposition. “It’s easy for us to forget that we didn’t know what the feds would do,” Holmes said.

That uncertainty evaporated with the so-called Cole Memo in August 2013. Authored by U.S. Deputy Attorney General James Cole, the memo told Washington and Colorado they could carry out the voters’ will as long as they adhered to eight Department of Justice priorities, such as preventing sales to minors and preventing legal pot revenue from going to criminals.

“That memo in 2013 was doing two things. Superficially it was saying, ‘we’re watching you.’ But what is was really doing was providing a road map,” said Alison Holcomb, chief author of I-502. “It says, ‘by the way, states, here’s how you legalize.’ That’s huge, telling states what legalization looks like.”

The Obama administration followed up in 2014 with official guidance for how the banking industry could provide services to legal pot merchants without running afoul of Treasury Department rules for reporting money laundering.

“They’ve been elegantly cautious,” said Brendan Kennedy, CEO of Seattle-based Privateer Holdings, which announced last week that it has raised $122 million from investors for legal pot businesses.

“We never imagined the velocity with which this industry and the political landscape would change,” said Kennedy, whose firm markets the Marley Natural brand of cannabis products in California, Oregon and soon in Washington. Privateer also owns Leafly, a marijuana information and news service.

The vote in California, home to the world’s sixth-largest economy, is potentially a game-changer, Kennedy said. “When visitors to California see a fully implemented regulatory framework I think that will begin to change cultural perceptions,” he said.

Blumenauer has been frustrated that the administration was not more aggressive in making sure federal agencies followed his example.

He called it “mind numbing” that a Native American teenager faced federal charges and a year in jail for possessing a gram of pot earlier this year before prosecutors backed down amid a storm of protest.

“We have people in the bureaucracy, particularly in the DEA, who are just in the Stone Age,” Blumenauer said.

Angell called it a big disappointment that Obama did not remove pot from the federal controlled-substances list where it resides alongside heroin as the most dangerous of drugs.

And, there’s the most obvious shortcoming of Obama’s strategy — the Cole memo is just a memo, not a change in federal law. It could disappear under Trump, although he’s said several times he favors medical marijuana and legalization should be left to states to decide.

There was political risk to Obama going further, Blumenauer said. “If he were to be more forthcoming he would’ve invoked more discord with the Republican-controlled Congress. It would’ve made it intensely partisan, would’ve made it harder,” he said.

And, Obama went further than any previous president in admitting his own youthful marijuana use and by saying pot was not as dangerous as alcohol.

In an interview last week with HBO’s Bill Maher, Obama reiterated his position that “legalization is not a panacea.” But he also went on to say that if California and other states legalized, “it’s going to call the question.”

With roughly one-quarter of the country under one set of laws and the rest under different rules, “that is not going to be tenable,” Obama said.

Angell said his organization plans to hold Trump to his pledges, particularly in light of polls showing a majority of Americans (though not Republicans) support legalization.

“Reversing course and going against the tide of history would present huge political problems that the new administration does not need,” he said.</s>Marijuana was on track to be one of the winners of an otherwise bitterly divisive presidential election campaign, as voters in several states appeared ready to support measures that would permit some legal use of the drug.

Legalized marijuana was the most common among a raft of ballot measures – 162 in 35 states – on policy issues ranging from gun control to the death penalty.

Voters in three of the most populous states – California, Florida and Massachusetts – backed plans to relax marijuana laws. Voters in California and Massachusetts supported legalizing marijuana for recreational use, while Floridians supported measures to expand the number of conditions that can be treated with medical marijuana.

Early results also showed support for legalizing recreational marijuana use in Maine and Nevada, even as Arizona voters appeared poised to reject the idea. North Dakota backed support for medical marijuana, with preliminary returns showing support for similar proposals in Arkansas and Montana.

Pot stocks have surged in the past three months as investors predicted the election would significantly boost support for legalized marijuana, according to the Marijuana Index, a benchmark that tracks North American publicly traded stocks that are tied to the industry. Public opinion on the issue has changed swiftly. A Gallup poll last month showed 60 per cent of U.S. adults support legalizing marijuana, up from 44 per cent in 2009.

California became the first U.S. state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996. But it has only been in recent years that states have begun to allow residents to possess or grow small amounts of the drug. Colorado and Washington became the first to vote to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012.

Four states and Washington, D.C., have since legalized recreational marijuana, while another 21 states now allow doctors to prescribe cannabis for medical reasons. Several states have decriminalized the drug by scrapping jail sentences for people caught carrying small amounts of marijuana for personal use.

Ballot initiatives – state-level referendums that allow residents to vote directly on policy issues – have fallen below the radar during the high-stakes presidential election. But they have historically proven to be important barometers of shifting public sentiment on social issues that have deadlocked Congress and state legislatures. This year, interest groups spent more than $900-million (U.S.) on ballot-measure campaigns, according to website Ballotpedia, which tracks the state referendums.

As both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump signalled support to raise the federal minimum wage above the current $7.25, voters in Arizona supported a measure to gradually raise the state’s minimum wage to $12 by 2020, with early results showing voters poised to support similar measures in Colorado and Maine. In Washington state, early returns showed voters set to hike the minimum to $13.50 an hour. Arizona voters also approved a plan to require employers to offer paid sick leave, which has been a contentious issue in the state legislature. In South Dakota, meanwhile, voters rejected an initiative proposing to roll back minimum wage from $8.50 to $7.50 for workers under the age of 18.

Gun control has remained a divisive issue for presidential candidates, but in the wake of deadly mass shootings in Orlando and San Bernardino, voters in four states faced proposals for new firearm restrictions.

Early returns show voters in Maine and Nevada poised to reject measures requiring mandatory background checks for private gun sales. Preliminary returns pointed to Californians supporting bans on large-capacity magazines and background checks for ammunition sales, while in Washington State, early voting signalled support for a measure allowing courts to issue “extreme protection orders” that would prohibit potentially dangerous people from accessing firearms based on the concerns of police or family members.

Voters also faced decisions on the future of capital punishment in the United States, which last year saw the lowest level of new death penalty convictions and executions in decades, according to the non-profit Death Penalty Information Center.

In California, voters faced two opposing measures on the death penalty, which has remained legal in the state despite a decade-long moratorium on executions. Early results pointed to voters rejecting a measure to outlaw capital punishment, while supporting a separate proposal to speed up the review and appeal process by imposing a time limit on death-row cases. Oklahoma, where botched executions triggered a moratorium on death-row cases and a Supreme Court ruling on the issue last year, approved a measure to enshrine the right to execute prisoners in the state’s constitution.

In Nebraska, where legislators overturned the death penalty last year, voters backed a plan by Governor Pete Ricketts to reinstate the practice. Colorado, the lone state to hold a vote on euthanasia, legalized physician-assisted death for terminally ill patients with six months or less to live.

The Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, was a hot-button issue in the presidential campaign, but state-level ballots saw few debates over health care. Colorado rejected a plan to create a universal health care plan financed through a 10-per-cent payroll tax.

Some of the most contentious votes did not involve traditionally divisive social issues. In Florida, voters shot down an initiative that would have enshrined the right of consumers to generate their own power through solar energy. Solar power advocates complained that the measure was actually an electricity industry policy in disguise because it contains language that would restrict the rights of consumers and companies to sell excess power back into the grid.

In Alabama, where Governor Robert Bentley faces impeachment proceedings after allegations of improper relationship with a top political aide, voters were set to narrowly approve a measure requiring state’s Senate to have a two-thirds majority vote to impeach a top official.

Arkansas voters struck down a 102-year-old law that requires sitting governors to temporarily give up their political powers to the lieutenant governor if they travel out of the state. The issue emerged after former Republican Lieutenant Governor Mark Darr used the antiquated rule in 2013 to pass a law exempting public disclosure of gun-permit holders while then-Governor Mike Beebe, a Democrat, was in Washington D.C. for a convention.

Voters in Oklahoma supported banning the use of government property for religious purposes. The proposal comes after the state’s Supreme Court ruled last year that a Ten Commandments monument be removed from the grounds of the legislature.</s>Another hot-button issue — gun control — was on the ballot in four states, including California, which already has some of the nation's toughest gun-related laws. Voters there approved a measure that will outlaw possession of large-capacity ammunition magazines, require permits to buy ammunition and extend California's unique program that allows authorities to seize firearms from owners who bought guns legally but are no longer allowed to own them.</s>Election results 2016: Trump takes Ohio and Florida while Clinton hangs on with California and Virginia

WASHINGTON: The Latest on Election Day 2016 (all times EST):

Hillary Clinton has won California and Hawaii. Donald Trump has won Idaho’s four electoral votes.

The results in the West bring Clinton’s electoral vote total to 190 and Trump’s to 201. It takes 270 votes to win the presidency.

The results were not surprising. California, with 55 electoral votes, has voted for Democrats beginning in 1992. Hawaii has chosen Democrats consistently since 1988.

Idaho has voted for Republicans beginning in 1968.

Donald Trump has won the key battleground state of Florida.

He now has 197 electoral votes. His Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton has 131.

Both candidates have spent an extraordinary amount of time in Florida, one of the most important prizes on the map. Trump calls Florida his “second home” and his campaign acknowledged that a win there is vital to his White House hopes.

Barack Obama captured the Sunshine State in both 2008 and 2012.

The Democratic nominee captured its nine electoral votes Tuesday. She now has 131 total electoral votes while her Republican opponent Donald Trump has 168.

Colorado has become an attainable state for Democrats in recent years thanks to shifting demographics.

Clinton tried to woo a surge in Latino voters and the state’s college-educated whites while Trump repeatedly made pitches to Colorado’s large military population and swaths of rural voters.

The Democratic nominee has captured its 13 electoral votes.

Virginia was reliably Republican for decades until Barack Obama won it twice, thanks in part to huge turnout from Washington, D.C.’s suburbs. Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, is a senator from Virginia, though Trump made a late push in the state.

The victory gives her 122 electoral votes. Her Republican opponent Donald Trump has 168.

Donald Trump has won the electoral prize of Ohio, a state known for picking presidents.

The Republican wins the state’s 18 electoral votes in Tuesday’s election, bringing his total to 168. Hillary Clinton has 109.

Clinton had appeared ready to concede Ohio’s 18 electoral votes to Trump as polls showed him pulling ahead even in some traditionally Democratic blue-collar areas. But Trump struggled after release of a video in which he talked about groping women and kissing them without their permission.

Republicans held their nominating convention in Cleveland. Governor and one-time Republican presidential rival John Kasich refused to endorse Trump.

The Republican nominee was awarded its 10 electoral votes. The result was not as a surprise, as the last Democratic victory in the Show Me State came in 1996.

Trump now has 150 electoral votes. His Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton has 109.

Hillary Clinton has won New Mexico and its five electoral votes.

That brings her electoral college vote total in Tuesday’s election to 109. Republican Donald Trump has 140 votes.

Republican Gary Herbert has been re-elected governor of Utah.

Herbert had a strong advantage in Tuesday’s elections and was considered the favorite in the conservative state. But many Utah conservatives were not enthused about GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. And Herbert had vacillated on his support for the New York billionaire.

Herbert has been in office since 2009 and had been challenged by Democrat Mike Weinholtz, a wealthy former CEO of a medical staffing company.

The Republican presidential nominee on Tuesday was awarded the state’s three electoral votes.

The result was not a surprise, as Montana was considered a safely Republican state.

Trump now has 132 electoral votes. His Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton has 104 votes.

Preliminary exit polls show the racial divides that were expected to define the 2016 presidential election.

Polls conducted for national media by Edison Research show Republican Donald Trump winning a majority of white voters while Democrat Hillary Clinton is drawing support from about three out of four nonwhite voters.

Trump’s support is strongest among whites without a college degree. He’s winning nearly two-thirds of them. Whites with college degrees are split between Trump and Clinton. Trump is winning both among white men and white women, though his margin is much higher among men.

Clinton’s strongest support comes from African-Americans. She’s winning about nine out of 10 black voters. She’s winning about two out of three Hispanics and Asian-Americans.

Republican Donald Trump is maintaining Republicans’ advantage among white voters nationwide, but perhaps not by the usual margin that the party’s nominees have enjoyed.

Preliminary exit polls of voters who have already cast presidential ballots show Trump winning a majority of whites. He has not quite reached the roughly six-out-of-10 share that Mitt Romney notched four years ago in his unsuccessful challenge of President Barack Obama.

The difference appears to come among white women. Trump is posting about the same, if not a slightly wider margin among white men as Romney did in 2012. But his lead over Clinton among white women appears to be in single digits, short of Romney’s double-digit advantage four years ago.

Donald Trump has won Louisiana and its eight electoral votes.

That extends his Electoral College total in Tuesday’s elections to 137, compared with Hillary Clinton’s 104.

History was on Donald Trump’s side in the state. Louisiana hasn’t given its electoral votes to a Democrat since Bill Clinton won 52 percent of the vote two decades ago.

The Democratic nominee on Tuesday was awarded Connecticut’s seven electoral votes.

The result was not a surprise, as Connecticut was considered a safely Democratic state.

Clinton now has 104 electoral votes. Her Republican opponent Donald Trump has 129.

Republican Eric Holcomb has won the governor’s race in Indiana and Democrat Jim Justice has won the governor’s race in West Virginia.

Holcomb defeated Democrat John Gregg in Tuesday’s election and will succeed Gov. Mike Pence. Pence is presidential candidate Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate.

Republican Donald Trump has won Arkansas and its six electoral votes.

That brings his electoral vote total in Tuesday’s election to 129. Democrat Hillary Clinton has 97.

It takes 270 votes to win the presidency.

The result was expected. Earlier polling showed Trump leading Clinton by double digits in the state where she served as first lady for 12 years while her husband was the governor.

The once reliably blue state has turned red in recent years. Republicans now control all of Arkansas’ statewide and federal offices, as well as a majority of seats in both chambers of the state legislature.

Arkansas has backed the Republican candidate for the White House in every election since 1980 — except for years when Bill Clinton was running for president.

Hopeful Hillary Clinton supporters have gathered on a Brooklyn street corner they expect to be prophetic: The intersection of President and Clinton Streets.

Photos and video posted on social media Tuesday show hundreds of people gathered for a block party where the streets cross.

Organizers have set up a large screen to stream election coverage. A food truck is dispensing tacos to the crowd.

The street signs in the intersection have been an attraction all Election Day for Clinton boosters snapping selfies.

It is just under a mile from Clinton’s national campaign headquarters in Brooklyn.

Polls in Colorado will close at 7 p.m. MST after a judge denied the Colorado Democratic Party’s request to extend voting by two hours.

The head of the Colorado Democratic Party argued that voting hours should be extended to account for a 29-minute computer glitch Tuesday afternoon. The statewide glitch affected same-day voter registration and caused some voters to have to cast provisional ballots.

The Secretary of State opposed the extended hours. Deputy Secretary of State Stephanie Staiert says no one was prevented from voting because of the glitch.

The Fargo businessman and onetime Microsoft Corp. executive was considered a shoo-in in Tuesday’s election. He defeated Democrat Marvin Nelson.

The matchup focused on qualifications to lead the socially conservative state amid declining oil and crop revenues.

Burgum has stuck to themes of budget discipline, job creation and opposition to tax increases. Nelson has been highly critical of deep cuts to government agencies and a massive raid on the oil-rich state’s savings to make up for a more than $1 billion budget shortfall due to a drop in oil drilling and depressed crude prices

Donald Trump has won Texas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Kansas and Nebraska while Hillary Clinton has won New York and Illinois.

Trump also on Tuesday won two of Nebraska’s congressional districts. In the state that awards by congressional district, one remains too close to call.

Trump was awarded Texas’ 38 electoral votes, the second-largest prize on the map. He also won six from Kansas, four from his victories in Nebraska and three apiece from Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Clinton was awarded 20 from Illinois and 29 from New York, the state both candidates call home. Trump had declared he would try to win New York but never mounted a serious effort there.

The Republican nominee now has 123 electoral votes. Clinton has 97.

Hillary Clinton is watching election returns with a collection of close campaign aides and her family in a suite at the Peninsula New York, a luxury hotel in midtown Manhattan.

Aides say the group is snacking on salmon, roasted carrots and fries — along with vegan pizza and crème brulee for former President Bill Clinton, who’s careful about his diet. Her granddaughter, Charlotte, is wearing a dress emblazoned with the campaign logo.

Clinton and her husband have also been working on her election night remarks with her speechwriters.

Later Tuesday evening, they’ll move to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City for her election night party. It’s a building with a glass ceiling — a nod to the historic moment.

Donald Trump has won Mississippi and its six electoral votes.

That brings his Electoral College total in Tuesday’s election to 66, compared with Hillary Clinton’s 48.

The outcome was not unexpected. Mississippi has voted for Republicans in every presidential election starting with 1972, with the exception of Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976.</s>Donald Trump was on the cusp of creating history as he inched closer to clinching the US presidency with a strong showing in battleground states helping him trump Hillary Clinton in the knife-edge race.



 Major US news networks projected Republican candidate Trump to have won the crucial battleground states of Florida, Ohio and North Carolina. Clinton, 69, who grabbed the traditional Democratic strongholds of California and Virginia, was now facing a tough challenge from the 70-year-old real estate billionaire, who joined politics only 18 months ago.



 "Trump moves closer to White House," said Politico as Trump's total of electoral college votes -- as per CNN projections -- touched 238, against Clinton's 215.



 To win the presidential election, a candidate needs 270 of the 538 electoral college votes.



 According to CNN, Trump won Florida (29 electoral college votes), Iowa (6) Georgia (16), Ohio (18), North Carolina (15), North Dakota (3), South Dakota (3), Nebraska (4), Kansas (6), Oklahoma (7), Texas (38), Wyoming (3), Indiana (11), Kentucky (8), Tennessee (11), Mississippi (6), Arkansas (6), Louisiana (8), West Virginia (5), Alabama (9), South Carolina (9), Montana (3), Idaho (5) and Missouri (10). Clinton emerged victorious in California (55), Nevada (6) Hawaii (4), Illinois (20), New York (29), New Jersey (14), Maryland (10), District of Columbia (3), Vermont (3), Massachusetts (11), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Colorado (9), New Mexico (5), Virginia (13), Oregon (7), Washington (12) and Rhode Island (4). Crucially, Trump was ahead in the vote count in the keys states of Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) and Michigan (16).



 Results were also awaited from the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Wisconson, Minnesota, Utah, Arizona and Alaska. Trump, who ran an improbable and often ugly campaign against the establishment, was holding on to small but significant leads in a series of key states, upending months of polling that had given the advantage to Clinton and raised Republican hopes of seizing back the White House.



 "Reaction to the prospect of a Trump presidency rippled across the globe, with financial markets abroad falling as American television networks raised the prospect that Mrs Clinton might lose," The New York Times said.



 Virginia, won by Clinton, has a significant Indian- American population and is home to Democratic vice- presidential nominee, Senator Tim Kaine. In terms of overall vote percentage, Trump has so far received 48.5 per cent of the votes counted so far as against 47 per cent gained by Clinton.



 The incoming returns follow a frenzied day of voting across America marked by long lines and last-minute appeals for support from both campaigns.</s>There's More to This Election Than Clinton and Trump: Universal Healthcare, Legal Pot, Rank-Choice Voting, And More

If you're sick of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, The Intercept has a helpful list of cool ballot initiatives—measures in which voters have direct opportunities to turn progressive reforms into law—around the country. Some of the highlights:
• In California, Proposition 69 would drive down the cost of medicine.
• In Maine, the state could become the first to enact rank-choice voting—a system much friendlier to third parties and truly representative democracy.
• Arizona, Colorado, Maine—like Washington—are all considering increasing the minimum wage.
• California, Massachusetts, Maine, Arizona and Nevada all could legalize recreational marijuana.
• Initiatives in Colorado and California would prohibit prisoners from being forced to do unpaid labor and expand opportunities for parole for nonviolent offenders, respectively.

One of the most exciting initiatives at the municipal level is in San Francisco, where there's a campaign to give 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote. If this doesn't intuitively make sense to you, read this Vox explainer. Or watch this video of these badass kids—I defy you to not feel inspired:</s>Election results 2016: Trump takes Ohio and Florida while Clinton hangs on with California and Virginia

WASHINGTON: The Latest on Election Day 2016 (all times EST):

Hillary Clinton has won California and Hawaii. Donald Trump has won Idaho’s four electoral votes.

The results in the West bring Clinton’s electoral vote total to 190 and Trump’s to 201. It takes 270 votes to win the presidency.

The results were not surprising. California, with 55 electoral votes, has voted for Democrats beginning in 1992. Hawaii has chosen Democrats consistently since 1988.

Idaho has voted for Republicans beginning in 1968.

Donald Trump has won the key battleground state of Florida.

He now has 197 electoral votes. His Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton has 131.

Both candidates have spent an extraordinary amount of time in Florida, one of the most important prizes on the map. Trump calls Florida his “second home” and his campaign acknowledged that a win there is vital to his White House hopes.

Barack Obama captured the Sunshine State in both 2008 and 2012.

The Democratic nominee captured its nine electoral votes Tuesday. She now has 131 total electoral votes while her Republican opponent Donald Trump has 168.

Colorado has become an attainable state for Democrats in recent years thanks to shifting demographics.

Clinton tried to woo a surge in Latino voters and the state’s college-educated whites while Trump repeatedly made pitches to Colorado’s large military population and swaths of rural voters.

The Democratic nominee has captured its 13 electoral votes.

Virginia was reliably Republican for decades until Barack Obama won it twice, thanks in part to huge turnout from Washington, D.C.’s suburbs. Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, is a senator from Virginia, though Trump made a late push in the state.

The victory gives her 122 electoral votes. Her Republican opponent Donald Trump has 168.

Donald Trump has won the electoral prize of Ohio, a state known for picking presidents.

The Republican wins the state’s 18 electoral votes in Tuesday’s election, bringing his total to 168. Hillary Clinton has 109.

Clinton had appeared ready to concede Ohio’s 18 electoral votes to Trump as polls showed him pulling ahead even in some traditionally Democratic blue-collar areas. But Trump struggled after release of a video in which he talked about groping women and kissing them without their permission.

Republicans held their nominating convention in Cleveland. Governor and one-time Republican presidential rival John Kasich refused to endorse Trump.

The Republican nominee was awarded its 10 electoral votes. The result was not as a surprise, as the last Democratic victory in the Show Me State came in 1996.

Trump now has 150 electoral votes. His Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton has 109.

Hillary Clinton has won New Mexico and its five electoral votes.

That brings her electoral college vote total in Tuesday’s election to 109. Republican Donald Trump has 140 votes.

Republican Gary Herbert has been re-elected governor of Utah.

Herbert had a strong advantage in Tuesday’s elections and was considered the favorite in the conservative state. But many Utah conservatives were not enthused about GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. And Herbert had vacillated on his support for the New York billionaire.

Herbert has been in office since 2009 and had been challenged by Democrat Mike Weinholtz, a wealthy former CEO of a medical staffing company.

The Republican presidential nominee on Tuesday was awarded the state’s three electoral votes.

The result was not a surprise, as Montana was considered a safely Republican state.

Trump now has 132 electoral votes. His Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton has 104 votes.

Preliminary exit polls show the racial divides that were expected to define the 2016 presidential election.

Polls conducted for national media by Edison Research show Republican Donald Trump winning a majority of white voters while Democrat Hillary Clinton is drawing support from about three out of four nonwhite voters.

Trump’s support is strongest among whites without a college degree. He’s winning nearly two-thirds of them. Whites with college degrees are split between Trump and Clinton. Trump is winning both among white men and white women, though his margin is much higher among men.

Clinton’s strongest support comes from African-Americans. She’s winning about nine out of 10 black voters. She’s winning about two out of three Hispanics and Asian-Americans.

Republican Donald Trump is maintaining Republicans’ advantage among white voters nationwide, but perhaps not by the usual margin that the party’s nominees have enjoyed.

Preliminary exit polls of voters who have already cast presidential ballots show Trump winning a majority of whites. He has not quite reached the roughly six-out-of-10 share that Mitt Romney notched four years ago in his unsuccessful challenge of President Barack Obama.

The difference appears to come among white women. Trump is posting about the same, if not a slightly wider margin among white men as Romney did in 2012. But his lead over Clinton among white women appears to be in single digits, short of Romney’s double-digit advantage four years ago.

Donald Trump has won Louisiana and its eight electoral votes.

That extends his Electoral College total in Tuesday’s elections to 137, compared with Hillary Clinton’s 104.

History was on Donald Trump’s side in the state. Louisiana hasn’t given its electoral votes to a Democrat since Bill Clinton won 52 percent of the vote two decades ago.

The Democratic nominee on Tuesday was awarded Connecticut’s seven electoral votes.

The result was not a surprise, as Connecticut was considered a safely Democratic state.

Clinton now has 104 electoral votes. Her Republican opponent Donald Trump has 129.

Republican Eric Holcomb has won the governor’s race in Indiana and Democrat Jim Justice has won the governor’s race in West Virginia.

Holcomb defeated Democrat John Gregg in Tuesday’s election and will succeed Gov. Mike Pence. Pence is presidential candidate Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate.

Republican Donald Trump has won Arkansas and its six electoral votes.

That brings his electoral vote total in Tuesday’s election to 129. Democrat Hillary Clinton has 97.

It takes 270 votes to win the presidency.

The result was expected. Earlier polling showed Trump leading Clinton by double digits in the state where she served as first lady for 12 years while her husband was the governor.

The once reliably blue state has turned red in recent years. Republicans now control all of Arkansas’ statewide and federal offices, as well as a majority of seats in both chambers of the state legislature.

Arkansas has backed the Republican candidate for the White House in every election since 1980 — except for years when Bill Clinton was running for president.

Hopeful Hillary Clinton supporters have gathered on a Brooklyn street corner they expect to be prophetic: The intersection of President and Clinton Streets.

Photos and video posted on social media Tuesday show hundreds of people gathered for a block party where the streets cross.

Organizers have set up a large screen to stream election coverage. A food truck is dispensing tacos to the crowd.

The street signs in the intersection have been an attraction all Election Day for Clinton boosters snapping selfies.

It is just under a mile from Clinton’s national campaign headquarters in Brooklyn.

Polls in Colorado will close at 7 p.m. MST after a judge denied the Colorado Democratic Party’s request to extend voting by two hours.

The head of the Colorado Democratic Party argued that voting hours should be extended to account for a 29-minute computer glitch Tuesday afternoon. The statewide glitch affected same-day voter registration and caused some voters to have to cast provisional ballots.

The Secretary of State opposed the extended hours. Deputy Secretary of State Stephanie Staiert says no one was prevented from voting because of the glitch.

The Fargo businessman and onetime Microsoft Corp. executive was considered a shoo-in in Tuesday’s election. He defeated Democrat Marvin Nelson.

The matchup focused on qualifications to lead the socially conservative state amid declining oil and crop revenues.

Burgum has stuck to themes of budget discipline, job creation and opposition to tax increases. Nelson has been highly critical of deep cuts to government agencies and a massive raid on the oil-rich state’s savings to make up for a more than $1 billion budget shortfall due to a drop in oil drilling and depressed crude prices

Donald Trump has won Texas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Kansas and Nebraska while Hillary Clinton has won New York and Illinois.

Trump also on Tuesday won two of Nebraska’s congressional districts. In the state that awards by congressional district, one remains too close to call.

Trump was awarded Texas’ 38 electoral votes, the second-largest prize on the map. He also won six from Kansas, four from his victories in Nebraska and three apiece from Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Clinton was awarded 20 from Illinois and 29 from New York, the state both candidates call home. Trump had declared he would try to win New York but never mounted a serious effort there.

The Republican nominee now has 123 electoral votes. Clinton has 97.

Hillary Clinton is watching election returns with a collection of close campaign aides and her family in a suite at the Peninsula New York, a luxury hotel in midtown Manhattan.

Aides say the group is snacking on salmon, roasted carrots and fries — along with vegan pizza and crème brulee for former President Bill Clinton, who’s careful about his diet. Her granddaughter, Charlotte, is wearing a dress emblazoned with the campaign logo.

Clinton and her husband have also been working on her election night remarks with her speechwriters.

Later Tuesday evening, they’ll move to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City for her election night party. It’s a building with a glass ceiling — a nod to the historic moment.

Donald Trump has won Mississippi and its six electoral votes.

That brings his Electoral College total in Tuesday’s election to 66, compared with Hillary Clinton’s 48.

The outcome was not unexpected. Mississippi has voted for Republicans in every presidential election starting with 1972, with the exception of Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976.</s>Last night’s string of electoral primary victories for Republican candidate Donald Trump could go down as a pivotal point in US history. Like the 2000 Republican primaries that gave us George W. Bush, and his subsequent invasion of Iraq, the consequences of Trump’s Super Tuesday wins may affect the trajectory of the country for at least a generation. It’s an ominous sign that America may have taken one step too far down the road toward anwhere entertainment and shock value are paramount.So what might a Trump Presidency mean for the medical cannabis movement and the associated adult use effort? In true Trump fashion, the man is all over the place, and could at best become a lukewarm ally for state’s rights, or at worst, the leader of a new pot pogrom akin to that of Ronald Reagan. "Do I want Donald Trump in the White House determining marijuana policies? Absolutely not," said Isaac Dietrich, CEO of pot social network MassRoots, in a VICE interview . “If we elect a president that's anti-marijuana, he could choose to enforce federal law here in Colorado. He could go around and shut down all these dispensaries and put tens of thousands of people out of work and decimate local economies, so it's a huge gamble."Trump's positions on pot have been erratic. In the Nineties, he was for the legalization of all drugs."We're losing badly — the war on drugs," Trump reportedly said at the time. "You have to legalize drugs to win that war."But in June 2015, he said he strongly opposed Colorado legalization. "I think it's bad, and I feel strongly about that," Trump said, adding, "They've got a lot of problems going on right now in Colorado, some big problems."Then in October, Trump said, “in terms of marijuana and legalization, I think that should be a state issue, state by state."Trump has repeatedly supported the medical use of marijuana. "Marijuana is such a big thing," Trump said. "I think medical should happen — right? Don't we agree? I think so."Last week on, when asked about his level of concern regarding legal Colorado pot leaking into other prohibition states, Trump reportedly said “I would really want to think about that one,” Trump said. “Because in some ways I think it’s good and in other ways it’s bad. I do want to see what the medical effects are. I have to see what the medical effects are, and, by the way, medical marijuana, medical? I’m in favor of it a hundred percent. But what you are talking about, perhaps not. It’s causing a lot of problems out there.”A President Trump who believes state legalization is "creating a lot of problems" is unlikely to continue the current administration's hands-off approach to state-legal pot activity.Cannabis' deep history is marked by cycles of tolerance and oppression. We are twenty years into a cycle of tolerance marked by California legalizing medical cannabis in 1996.As nativist, protectionist, xenophobia sweeps across America, the notion of tolerance appears to be waning.</s>There's More to This Election Than Clinton and Trump: Universal Healthcare, Legal Pot, Rank-Choice Voting, And More

If you're sick of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, The Intercept has a helpful list of cool ballot initiatives—measures in which voters have direct opportunities to turn progressive reforms into law—around the country. (Obviously, there are some fantastic initiatives and downballot candidates to support right here in Washington, too, if you haven't mailed in your ballot already.) Some of the highlights:
• In California, Proposition 69 would drive down the cost of medicine.
• In Maine, the state could become the first to enact rank-choice voting—a system much friendlier to third parties and truly representative democracy.
• Arizona, Colorado, Maine—like Washington—are all considering increasing the minimum wage.
• California, Massachusetts, Maine, Arizona and Nevada all could legalize recreational marijuana.
• Initiatives in Colorado and California would prohibit prisoners from being forced to do unpaid labor and expand opportunities for parole for nonviolent offenders, respectively.

One of the most exciting initiatives at the municipal level is in San Francisco, where there's a campaign to give 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote. If this doesn't intuitively make sense to you, read this Vox explainer. Or watch this video of these badass kids—I defy you to not feel inspired:
Notable propositions are passed in several states including legal recreational marijuana in California, Massachusetts, and Nevada; medical marijuana in Arkansas, Florida and North Dakota; tougher firearms restrictions in California and Washington state; physician assisted suicide in Colorado, and the reimposition of capital punishment in Nebraska.