Trump wins Georgia and North Carolina as Harris' path narrows

• Trump has won North Carolina and Georgia and is leading in the other five swing states.
• Republicans are also projected to retake control of the Senate.
• Harris' best chance of winning would be sweeping the "blue wall" states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

With results still coming in across several states, former President Donald Trump appears to have established a clear lead over Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump has now notched swing-state victories in North Carolina and Georgia, and he currently holds the lead in all five other "battleground" states.

The Harris campaign says they still feel good about her standing in the "blue wall" states in the Upper Midwest. But in order to win, she would have to sweep all three, and Trump currently has leads in each.

Trump has won 25 states and has 246 electoral votes. Harris has won 16 states plus Washington, DC, and she has 210 electoral votes. One candidate must win a majority of the 538 electoral votes — 270 — to win.

The election has not yet been called in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin.

Harris will not address supporters at her Washington, DC, event until the next morning

Cedric Richmond, the Harris-Walz campaign's co-chair, announced at about 1 a.m. ET that the vice president would not make remarks at Howard University on Tuesday night.

"We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not been called yet. We will continue overnight to fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken," Richmond said.

He added that Harris would instead speak on Wednesday morning at Howard University.

The presidential race remains close in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

The results in Arizona and Nevada — two Western battlegrounds where Harris and Trump have fought hard for votes — also remain outstanding.

Harris' one bright spot: Nebraska

Harris is projected to have won the Nebraska's 2nd congressional district and its single Electoral College vote, according to Fox News and The New York Times.

It means she could still win the presidency by sweeping the so-called "blue wall" states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, though Trump still leads in early returns in all three states.

This is the first bit of good news for Harris during an otherwise disappointing night thus far.

Supporters have left her victory party at Howard University as Trump leads in multiple swing states.

Nebraska and Maine are the only two states that award some of their Electoral College votes by the popular vote winner in individual congressional districts along with the overall statewide winner.

Republicans have retaken the US Senate, thanks to Ohio

Businessman Bernie Moreno is projected to have defeated Sen. Sherrod Brown in the closely watched Ohio US Senate race, Fox News and NBC News project.

That gives Republicans their 51st seat after easily winning Sen. Joe Manchin's seat in West Virginia.

The Ohio Senate race was the most expensive contest of its kind this cycle, with more than $500 million spent between the two sides.

Trump is projected to win North Carolina, taking the first swing state off the board

Donald Trump is projected to have won North Carolina and its 16 Electoral College votes, narrowing Kamala Harris' path to the presidency.

The Associated Press and CNN projected Trump's victory, setting him up to retain a state he had already won in 2020 and 2016. Trump gives himself multiple paths to the White House by winning the Tar Heel state. He could break through the so-called "blue wall" of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Trump could also win additional Sun Belt states, including Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia.

Harris' campaign made a significant play for North Carolina after she replaced Biden on the top of the ticket. Her staffers were delighted at how Trump held multiple rallies there in the race's closing days.

With Trump's projected win, Republicans have won the state in every presidential election since 1980 with the lone exception of 2008 when President Obama narrowly carried it.

Top Georgia official says Trump has a clear lead in the state

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said on Tuesday night that Trump's narrow lead in the state will hold given the votes that remain.

"If you look at who's leading the race right now, Donald J. Trump has an insurmountable lead, with the number of votes outstanding … it looks like this is done," he said.

Over 5 million votes were cast in Georgia in the 2024 presidential race, and both candidates were frequent visitors to the state in recent months as they fought for votes across the state.

Harris campaign says they 'feel good' about her standing in the 'Blue Wall'

Harris campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon emailed campaign staff highlighting the importance of the Blue Wall States: Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

"While we continue to see data trickle in from the Sun Belt States, we have known all along that our clearest path to 270 electoral votes lies through the Blue Wall states," wrote O'Malley Dillon, according to an email obtained by Business Insider. "And we feel good about what we're seeing."

As of shortly after 11:00 p.m., Trump was ahead in all three states.

Dillon noted, however, that Harris overperformed turnout expectations in Philadelphia and Bucks County, and that many votes still had to be counted in Michigan, especially the Democratic city of Detroit.

In Wisconsin, Dillon noted that Milwaukee still had a significant number of votes to count and full results aren't anticipated until approximately 3 a.m.

Trump and Elon Musk are seen chatting at the Mar-a-Lago Election Night watch party

A photo circulating on social media shows Trump and billionaire Elon Musk huddled over a table at Mar-a-Lago, where the former president is hosting his election watch party.

Musk has emerged as a key, if not the key, advocate for Trump's campaign. He has dumped millions into a super PAC supporting the former president, joined him at rallies, and campaigned loudly for him on X. The Tesla CEO has been tweeting as results roll in and celebrating Trump's performance.

Abortion is on the ballot in 10 states — so far, it's passed in four and failed in one

Reproductive rights were a key issue this election, with voters deciding on abortion in 10 states tonight, including the battlegrounds of Arizona and Nevada.

Referendums to enshrine the right to abortion passed in New York, Maryland, and Colorado as was expected. The measure also passed in Missouri, overturning what had been a near-total ban in the first state to outlaw the procedure. Voters in suburban areas turned out to pass the measure in large numbers, propelling it to its anticipated victory.

In Florida, the effort to enshrine a constitutional right to abortion failed. Yet the referendum faced a heavier lift in the Sunshine State than is typical — it needed to garner 60% of votes rather than a mere majority, as is the case in other states.

The closely watched Iowa poll was wildly off base — Trump won the state comfortably

The weekend before Election Day, the nationally recognized Des Moines Register poll, conducted by the Iowa pollster Ann Selzer, showed Harris leading Trump in the state by 3 percentage points.

It was a stunning twist of fate that injected enthusiasm into Harris' campaign.

Now, it's clear the poll missed the mark — Trump is projected to win Iowa and its six electoral votes by more than 10 percentage points.

Ted Cruz is projected to beat Colin Allred in Texas

Trump is projected to have won Texas and its 40 Electoral College votes. The former president's victory wasn't surprising, but it was a reminder that Democrats' decades of pining for a major upset in Texas have yet to come to fruition.

Meanwhile, Sen. Ted Cruz is also projected to retain his seat. That's despite Democratic Rep. Colin Allred's strong performance, outrunning Harris in the state.

Democrats have long seen the Texas race as one of their top pickup opportunities and were thrilled at Allred's moderate-minded campaign. But Democrats have not won a statewide race in Texas since 1994.

There will be two Black women serving in the US Senate

In just one election, Democrats have doubled the number of Black women who have won election to the US Senate. Prince George's County executive Angela Alsobrooks and Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester are projected to have defeated their Republican opponents.

Their victories, while expected, are historic in that only two Black women have ever been elected to the US Senate: Carol Moseley Braun in 1992 and Kamala Harris in 2017. Sen. Laphonza Butler of California was appointed to serve out the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein's term.

Blunt Rochester will be the first woman and the first Black lawmaker to represent Delaware in the US Senate. Alsobrooks will also be the first Black woman to represent Maryland in the US Senate.

The Trump trade is taking off

Investors are betting on a Trump victory, with a range of markets moving sharply on early election results.

The US dollar strengthened to a multimonth high, bitcoin hit a record high, and Treasuries sold off in moves that reflect the expected impact of a Trump presidency.

Trump is the first Republican since 1988 to win Miami-Dade county

Not only did Trump expand his margins of victory in Florida, but he also cinched Miami-Dade County, once a Democratic stronghold. His win in the county illustrates the phenomenal rightward swing of the Sunshine State.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won Miami-Dade by 30 percentage points; in 2020, Biden won it by 7 percentage points. Trump is projected to win the county by double-digit margins, the Associated Press reported, with 95% of the vote counted.

There's a significant Latino population in the county, and the key demographic group has started to move toward Republicans. Harris' campaign didn't spend a lot of money in Florida, considering the state, once a battleground, out of reach.

Democrats are starting to bite their nails in Georgia as the race tightens

With 66% of the votes counted in the key battleground of Georgia, Democrats are starting to get anxious. Trump has 53% of the votes to Harris' 47%, and the former president is establishing a comfortable lead in GOP-favored areas.

A senior Democratic analyst said that Harris "needs an Election Day Hail Mary" to a veteran political reporter in the state. At least 12 polling precincts in the state stayed open past the original 7:00 pm closing time after unfounded bomb threats linked to Russia caused temporary closures.

Marijuana legalization and abortion rights referenda fail in Florida

Floridians are projected to have rejected ballot measures that would have expanded abortion rights and legalized recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older, according to NBC, CNN, and The Associated Press.

The abortion referendum's expected failure is particularly notable, given that abortion rights advocates have racked up a string of unbroken victories in states around the country since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. As a result, Florida's ban on almost all abortions after six weeks will remain in place — one of the most restrictive policies in the country.

Gov. Ron DeSantis declared victory over the progressive referendums shortly after the final polls closed in the state. He and his allies made it their mission to sink the measures, each of which needed to garner at least 60% support to pass.

"With polls now closed in Florida — Amendment 3 has failed. Amendment 4 has failed," DeSantis wrote on X.

Trump had previously announced that he would support the marijuana legalization referendum.

DeSantis has powered a massive sea change in the state's politics, shifting what was once the nation's biggest swing state into favorable ground for Republicans.

How to read the Electoral College math

The US uses the Electoral College to elect a president. Each state gets a set number of votes that correlates with its population — if a state has two US senators and three House members, it has five electoral votes.

The winner must get at least 270 electoral votes — a majority of the 538 total. In the vast majority of states, either Harris or Trump is widely expected to win, leaving the campaigns to fight over the 93 electoral votes up for grabs in the seven battleground states.

If Harris wins Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan on Tuesday night or early Wednesday, she will have a projected 273 electoral votes — enough to make her the winner.

If Trump sweeps those states, he'll have a projected 266 electoral votes — not enough to be declared the winner, but it would put him in a very strong position to win.

Harris' easiest path to victory would be to win the traditional "blue wall" states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin — a result that should put her at 270 electoral votes. She has generally polled better in these states than the Sun Belt states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina.

For Trump, one path to victory would involve holding on to all or most of the Sun Belt states while also winning Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin.