Donald Trump and JD Vance will be the 47th president and vice president of the US after securing a win in a contentious race with Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

From Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to Georgia, tensions and turnout appeared high as the ballot boxes opened for a historic US election after a fatiguing campaign trail and record early voter turnout.

It’s an election only Americans participate in but whose results the rest of the world must contend with, particularly as wars continue in the Middle East and Ukraine.

Regional leaders were some of the first to congratulate Mr Trump on his win, and from afar in Palestine and Lebanon, people have expressed their hopelessness for this election.

Mr Trump is now the oldest person to be elected president of the US and the first convicted felon in the office, with a policy on the Middle East that’s decisive and vocal in contrast to that of the Biden-Harris administration.

With Arab Americans at an unlikely centre of this cycle, questions linger about politics, policy and the potential for change both at home and in the Middle East.

In this special episode of the Year of Elections podcast on the US race, we are on video in studio with Paul Salem, vice president of international engagement at the Middle East Institute and Mina Al-Oraibi, our editor in chief here at The National.

This episode was produced by Doaa Farid and Yasmeen Altaji. Our multimedia producer is Mahmoud Rida, and our audio engineer is Arthur Eddyson.

The US election on November 5 will be historic, as has been the race leading up to it. In the early stages of the campaign, this was the first election between a sitting president and a former president in more than 60 years. In June there was the earliest presidential debate in history between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, soon after which Mr Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed his Vice President, who secured and accepted the Democratic party's nomination for the presidency.

This election cycle is rife with tension and conflict, packaged with information about swing states and an electoral college that voters and onlookers can find daunting. It comes with war raging in the Middle East, Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine close to its three-year mark, and worries at home, from recent natural disasters to economic woes.

With the White House up for grabs, we’re taking a look at what makes up a US election race, with Arab Americans and war in the Middle East unexpectedly to the fore.

The US election on November 5 will surely be one of the most consequential in recent memory.

Former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are competing for the Oval Office in what seems like a rippled reflection of the contest we saw between Mr Trump and Joe Biden in 2020.

Still, the race is seeing a lot of the unexpected: Mr Trump courting Arab American voters, and Ms Harris campaigning with Liz Cheney (the daughter of former Republican vice president Dick Cheney). Polls show both candidates grasping at narrow leads and, depending on where you look, trading places.

American voters – and global onlookers – are left with plenty of unanswered questions.

In the shadow of Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon, and Russia’s continuing war in Ukraine, one question is: What does each candidate’s foreign policy look like, particularly when it comes to the Middle East?

That’s the question host Sulaiman Hakemy asks in this episode of Year of Elections.

Yasmeen Altaji gives a round-up of today's headlines

In our previous Year of Elections episode, we looked ahead to the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. A lot has changed since.

After all, this is a historic election. Mr Biden is the first sitting president in more than 50 years to drop out of a presidential race and his anointed successor would be the first female president in US history.

But while this election seems essentially a contest between Mr Trump and Ms Harris, there are those who take pains to point out that these two candidates are not voters’ only options.

The US operates under a two-party system but only unofficially.

With less than 120 days until millions of Americans cast their ballots to decide their next president, the 2024 election is shaping up to be one of the most consequential in recent history. Amid the campaign trail, pressing questions are being raised about President Joe Biden’s fitness for office and the high-profile legal challenges facing Republican challenger Donald Trump.

For months, the candidates have been neck and neck, promising a nail-biting contest. The outcome of the November 5 election, alongside races for 33 Senate seats and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, will have significant repercussions, not only for the United States but also for its allies and adversaries worldwide.

In this episode of the Year of Elections podcast by The National’s Opinion Desk, host Declan McVeigh is joined by Washington correspondent Ellie Sennett to ask could pivotal foreign policy issues, such as the war in Gaza, influence the results in key battleground states?