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.