This page will be updated with the best analysis and reaction through the night. Please scroll down for the latest.

The timetable

10pm UK time (5pm EST): First exit polls are released

11pm (6pm): First results posted
Polls in most of Indiana will close and the very first votes will come in.

Midnight (7pm): Polls close in Georgia (16 electoral votes), Indiana (11), Kentucky (8), South Carolina (9), Virginia (13) and Vermont (3)
Kentucky will go to Trump and Vermont to Clinton. Virginia and Indiana, homes of Tim Kaine and Mike Pence, should be much tighter: if they are called, it will be a very good sign for whoever wins them.

12.30am (7.30pm): North Carolina (15), Ohio (18) and West Virginia (5)
Ohio has long been a key swing state, but Nate Silver and his team at FiveThirtyEight give Trump a 65 per cent chance there. North Carolina is much tighter: Clinton has a 51 per cent chance.

1am (8pm): Alabama (9), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Florida (29), Illinois (20), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), Mississippi (6), Missouri (10), New Hampshire (4), New Jersey (14), Oklahoma (7), Pennsylvania (20), Rhode Island (4) and Tennessee (11)
If Trump doesn’t win Florida, it’s almost certainly over – most polls have the campaigns neck and neck. Pennsylvania is another one to watch here: Clinton has a 76 per cent chance here, says Silver: but if she has a large enough majority that it is declared immediately, she’s liable to have a great night. And if this is a tight race, New Hampshire could be one of the key states.

1.30am (8.30pm): Arkansas (6)

2am (9pm): Arizona (11), Colorado (9), Kansas (6), Louisiana (8), Michigan (16), Minnesota (10), Nebraska (5), New Mexico (5), New York (29), South Dakota (3), Texas (38), Wisconsin (10) and Wyoming (3)
Colorado was the tipping-point state in both 2008 and 2012. But the biggest state to watch here is Michigan, where Trump has been making a last-ditch effort. New Mexico could be interesting if Libertarian Gary Johnson, its former governor, grabs some of Clinton’s voters.

3am (10pm): Iowa (6), Nevada (6), North Dakota (3), Montana (3) and Utah (6)
If New Hampshire gets away from Clinton, Nevada – where she is a 54 per cent favourite – could repair the damage. Utah could be a wild-card, with independent Evan McMullin trying to become the first third-party candidate to win a state since George Wallace of Alabama in 1968.

4am (11pm): California (55), Hawaii (4), Idaho (4), Oregon (7) and Washington (12)
This is the moment Hillary Clinton hopes she becomes President-Elect of the United States. She is virtually guaranteed 78 of the 82 electoral votes in these western states. If she has already passed 192 votes before 4am, that’s when Democratic celebrations will start.

6am (1am): Alaska (3)
If Clinton hasn’t given her acceptance speech by this point, she might not her get the chance. The longer the night goes on the better, the odds for Trump.

Recommended reading

Everything you need to know to understand tonight’s election, from CapX and from across the web.

The state of the race

How the electoral college works (The Economist)
If Trump wins tonight, it will be a genuine peasants’ revolt (Robert Colvile, CapX)
Can the ‘hidden’ white vote bring Trump victory? (William H Frey, Brookings Institution)
The new silent majority is voting for Clinton (Matthew Yglesias, Vox)
How women are defeating Trump (Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight)
Trump’s ‘rigged election’ talk may backfire (Reason)
21 surprising facts about the American electorate (Dylan Matthews, Slate)
Could the US election be hacked? (Jordan Robertson, Bloomberg TV)
Why electoral fraud is largely a myth (Various authors, Slate)
How one 19-year-old from Illinois is distorting polling averages (Nate Cohn, New York Times)

The campaigns

Hillary Clinton: ‘I’m the last thing standing between you and the apocalypse’ (Mark Leibovich, New York Times)
Inside Donald Trump’s last stand (Various authors, New York Times)
Inside the Trump bunker (Bloomberg)
Here’s what it’s like to go to more than 170 Donald Trump rallies (Jenna Johnson, Washington Post)
Why these are the least popular candidates in presidential history (Pew Research Centre)
230 things Donald Trump has said and done that make him unfit to be President (Various authors, Slate)

The battle of ideas

A conservative case against Trump’s apocalyptic vision of America (James Pethokoukis, Vox)
Is America heading down the road to Roman ruin? (Marian L Tupy, CapX)
Politicians must stand up for the glories of globalisation (Ian Birrell, CapX)
Is American democracy dying? (Daron Acemoglu, Foreign Policy)

The wider context

Why investors are terrified of a President Trump (Derek Thompson, The Atlantic)
How white nationalists learned to love Donald Trump (J M Berger, Politico)
Will a Clinton win turn the lights out? (Rupert Darwall, National Review)
How the internet is loosening our grip on the truth (Farhad Manjoo, New York Times)
How teens in the Balkans are duping Trump supporters with fake news (Craig Silverman, BuzzFeed)

What happens next

Can American politics break its fever? (Robert Colvile, CapX)
The nightmare scenario: this election goes to the Supreme Court too (Mark Sherman, PBS)
The GOP must reform or die (Joe Scarborough, Washington Post)
Why free trade is at the top of Obama’s bucket list (Jack Graham, CapX)

For fun

The only article you need to read about why Trump voters are angry (Benjamin Hart, The Awl)
Build your own electoral map (270 To Win)