AP News Guide: A night of decision after venomous campaign

WASHINGTON (AP) - Americans bid goodbye with their ballots Tuesday to a presidential campaign of venom, audacity and history, choosing between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in a contest that cleaved the nation as hotly competitive races unfolded into the night in battleground states.

Trump the Republican and Clinton the Democrat scored in their expected strongholds, fought fiercely in Florida, Ohio and North Carolina and searched for their first big tipping-point victory.

Clinton appeared to have more paths to the prize as she sought to become the first woman elected president; Trump appeared to tighten the race in the campaign's final days. Both left multitudes of Americans dissatisfied with their choices.

The struggle over whom to support was voiced by two voters in Independence, Missouri, after casting their ballots.

"I had such a hard time, harder than I've ever had," said Joyce Dayhill, 59, a school bus driver who "reluctantly" voted for Trump. "I just prayed on it as hard as I could and felt this was the right decision."

Said Clinton voter Richard Clevenger, 58: "I think Trump's not stable. But I can't say there was really anything Hillary's shown me that made me feel like voting for her. But Trump just doesn't know what the hell he's doing, and he's surrounded by the Mickey Mouse Club."

The first states to be decided Tuesday night produced expected results: Kentucky, Indiana, Oklahoma, West Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee went for Trump; Vermont, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware and the District of Columbia for Clinton. Closer races shaped up in Florida and several other battlegrounds. Virginia defied an early call.

In a later wave, Trump added Texas, Kansas and more to his column while Clinton took New York and Illinois, each reaping significant gains in the contest for 270 electoral votes but shy of a game-changer, with plenty of states ahead.

Control of the Senate also hung in the balance on a night that was reshaping the political calculus in Washington, a dozen governors' offices and statehouses.

VOTERS SAY...

The nation's divisions were reflected in surveys of voters as they left polling stations. Women nationwide supported Clinton by a double-digit margin, while men were significantly more likely to back Trump. More than half of white voters backed the Republican, while nearly 9 in 10 blacks and two-thirds of Hispanics voted for the Democrat.

And people were markedly unhappy with the choice in front of them, the exit polls found. More than half of voters for each candidate cast their ballots with reservations about the one they voted for or because they disliked the alternative. Only 4 in 10 voters strongly favored their candidate.

In contrast, about two-thirds of voters in 2012 strongly favored the candidate they chose.

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CLINTON vs. TRUMP

The two New Yorkers pounded each other relentlessly, each preaching that the other is wholly unqualified, as the race tightened in the final days after a persistent if elastic lead for Clinton, the Democrat, in preference polling. Those who dreamed of Bernie Sanders for the Democratic ticket or anyone but Trump for Republicans face their time of reckoning. Will they come home to their party or just stay home?

Clinton, inheritor of Obama's vaunted campaign apparatus and a skillful (and well-financed) organizer in her own right, fielded an impressive professional and volunteer operation. She had big names on the stage, loads of people tracking down supporters and getting them to early-voting places, committed and well-heeled interest groups behind her and lots of money for sustained advertising.

Trump's effort paled in comparison, seeming as unpolished and improvised as the candidate himself. What he had that she didn't were the pulse and the passion of huge crowds, day after day.

To those in Trump country, no boastful, stomach-turning video about women, no "lock-her-up" insult from the stage, no toxic tweet in the wee hours, could peel them away from the man whose crudities only made him more authentic in their eyes. To many of the Republicans who didn't come to the rallies - and to some of the lawmakers who faced the prospect of working with him in Washington - he was a disaster, a Republican Titanic sailing alongside Clinton's Democratic Lusitania. To the country at large, and much of the world, he polarized, repelled, entertained, shocked and fascinated.

Did that make Clinton less of a divisive figure?

Not to the Republicans who are already itching to impeach her if she wins.

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WHAT TO WATCH

Democrats hoped for an early win in Virginia but the contest dragged on. Exit polling in the state suggested Clinton was drawing strong support from women and minorities; Trump was favored by whites without a college degree, and whites with a college education were more evenly divided between the two.

Trump and Clinton were neck and neck in Florida, a big prize and one sorely needed by the Republican. Closing the campaign, Trump also made an audacious play for Minnesota and scared Clinton in Michigan, which drew both the Democratic nominee and Obama on the campaign's final day.

Republicans fretted about Utah, normally as GOP-friendly as can be. The state was courted by an independent who tapped anti-Trump sentiment among the state's many Mormons.

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SENATE SUSPENSE

The night's second big mystery was which party will control the Senate, now Republican-dominated. Democrats needed to gain five seats to take an outright majority. If they gained only four - and if Clinton were elected - her vice president would be able to break 50-50 Senate ties.

Democrats blew two of their chances, as Republican Rep. Todd Young thwarted a comeback by Evan Bayh, a former Democratic senator and governor, in Indiana; and as Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida held his Florida seat against a challenge from Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy.

But Democrat Tammy Duckworth toppled Sen. Mark Kirk in Illinois, and with undecided races elsewhere, Senate Republicans were not home free.

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HOUSE HUNTING

Barring a shocker, Republicans will keep control of the House. They populate that chamber in numbers not seen since the 1930s.

The breakdown is 247-188 for the GOP, with three vacancies. GOP losses of 10 to 15 seats have been predicted by people in both parties.

Notable names: Republican Liz Cheney is expected to win the Wyoming seat once held by her father, Dick Cheney. GOP Rep. Darrell Issa of California, investigator of the Benghazi, Libya, episode and other Obama administration actions, could be upended.

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SHE-NANIGANS/HE-NANIGANS?

Trump pronounced in advance that the election is rigged, in what sounded like a hedge should he lose. He warned without evidence that Clinton partisans would commit fraud and prodded his supporters to watch for misdeeds at polling stations. The prospect of vigilante election monitoring and the anger seething behind that impulse raised concerns about confrontations Tuesday, especially if the result was close.

But there are no early reports of large-scale fraud, intimidation or hacking - just long lines, an assortment of voting-machine glitches and some frayed nerves.

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BALLOT BONANZA

Voters in Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada are deciding whether to legalize recreational marijuana use; Arkansas, Florida, Montana and North Dakota are weighing whether to do so for medical marijuana. Arizona, Colorado and Maine are deciding whether to raise the minimum wage to $12 by 2020; Washington state is considering $13.50. The federal minimum is $7.25. Voters in several states may tighten controls on guns and ammunition.

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SOME POLITICS IS LOCAL

Of a dozen races for governor, at least seven appear competitive and most of those have Democrats on the hook. Republicans went into the campaign with 31 governorships, just one short of their historic high. And Republicans control more than two-thirds of statehouse chambers.