The Democratic “blue wall” officially crumbled, with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin falling overnight, and then Michigan being called for Republican Donald Trump early Wednesday afternoon.
The Associated Press called Michigan and its 15 electoral votes for the former and now future president at 12:54 p.m.
As the hours passed on Election Night, it became increasingly clear that Kamala Harris’s only path to victory would require the Democrats’ so-called “blue wall” to hold. Donald Trump won two other swing states, Georgia and North Carolina, early Wednesday, and he is also leading in the two western swing states, Arizona and Nevada.
Trump previously won the three “blue wall” states in his upset over Hillary Clinton in 2016, only to see Joe Biden narrowly win them back in 2020. Trump’s team filed legal challenges contesting those losses, as well as losses in Arizona and Georgia, but they were rejected.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Trump has won 292 electoral votes while Harris has 224, according to AP vote counts. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the White House.
In addition to Arizona and Nevada, the AP still hasn’t called the race in Alaska, which is viewed as a no-doubt win for Trump. Maine’s two statewide electoral votes still haven’t been called, though Harris seems to have a solid lead there.
Trump Storms Back to the White House with Win in Wisconsin, Popular-Vote Mandate
Former president Donald Trump won Wisconsin’s ten electoral votes, putting him over the 270 vote-threshold needed to return to the White House in January.
The Associated Press called the Wisconsin race for Trump at 5:34 a.m. ET Wednesday. With 99 percent of the votes counted, Trump is ahead in the swing state with 49.8 percent to Vice President Kamala Harris’s 48.8 percent, according to the AP. Wisconsin was the same state that gave Trump his last presidential victory in 2016.
By the time of the race call, Milwaukee’s remaining uncounted votes were not enough to give Harris a victory in Wisconsin. Nearly every other county wrapped up their vote counts by then.
The win in Wisconsin leaves open the possibility that the former president will run the table in the swing states: As of early Wednesday morning, he had won Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, and is leading in Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada.
As of Wednesday morning, Trump is also winning the popular vote with 71.1 million votes, or 51 percent, to Harris’s 66.2 million votes, or 47.5 percent, according to the AP.
The last time a Republican president won the popular vote was two decades ago when George W. Bush defeated Democrat John Kerry with 50.7 percent of the vote. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000.
Trump Clinches Pennsylvania
The Associated Press called the race for Trump at 2:24 a.m. With 95 percent of the votes counted, Trump is ahead in the Keystone State with 51 percent to Democrat Kamala Harris’s 48.1 percent, according to the AP. Trump was leading by more than 190,000 votes when the race was called.
In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden won Pennsylvania with 50 percent of the vote and a 80,555-vote margin over Trump.
Trump’s win in Pennsylvania this year brings his electoral vote count to 267, according to AP counts. Assuming he wins Alaska’s three electoral votes, a near certainty, Trump will reach the 270 electoral vote finish line. The Cook Political Report lists Alaska as a solid Republican state.
As of early Wednesday, Trump is also winning the popular vote with 67.8 million votes, or 51.2 percent, to Harris’s 62.8 million votes, or 47.4 percent, according to the AP.
Trump Clinches Georgia
Republican Donald Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris in Georgia, reversing his 2020 loss there to Joe Biden who flipped the state by a narrow margin of fewer than 13,000 votes. The Associated Press called the race for Trump at 12:58 a.m.
With 94 percent of the vote in, Trump had 50.9 percent to Harris’s 48.4 percent, and Trump had a more than 125,000-vote lead.
Georgia was considered one of the key swing states this cycle. The Real Clear Polling average showed the former president with a narrow, 1.3 percent lead in the state, and almost all the polls were within the margin of error.
Trump’s wins in Georgia and North Carolina significantly narrow’s Harris’s potential path to victory. Trump is also leading in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada.
Four years ago, Trump refused to concede that he’d lost in Georgia, famously calling secretary of state Brad Raffensperger on January 2, 2021 and pressuring him to “find” enough votes to reverse the election results. Last year, a Fulton County grand jury indicted Trump and 18 co-defendants on racketeering and conspiracy charges for their efforts to overturn the state’s election results. Four of them pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors.
Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis, who was reelected on Tuesday, is continuing to pursue the case against the former president. Lawyers for the remaining defendants have attempted to have Willis disqualified from the case.
Moments after Georgia was called for Trump, Harris campaign co-chairman Cedric Richmond announced that the candidate will not address supporters at Howard University tonight.
“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. So you won’t hear from the vice president tonight. But you will hear from her tomorrow.”
Republicans Flip Ohio Senate Seat
Republicans have flipped another Senate seat, this time in Ohio, thanks to car salesman Bernie Moreno, who has bested three-term Democratic senator Sherrod Brown.
Moreno, a political newcomer who had handily sailed to victory in the state’s three-way GOP primary to take on Brown, was seen as one of Republicans’ best shots at picking up a seat to boost their goal of taking back the Democrat-controlled Senate. The contest was the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history, with more than $500 million spent on ads.
Brown had been unusually lucky in his previous election cycles: He first ran for Senate in 2006, a banner year for Democrats over voter frustrations with President George W. Bush’s second term and the war on terror. Six years later, Brown ran alongside Democratic president Barack Obama, who narrowly carried the state. Then came the blue wave in 2018, a midterm cycle when Democrats across the country romped to victory in backlash against President Donald Trump’s first term.
This time around, Republicans worked to paint Brown as a “down-the-line Democrat” and “Biden’s best friend.”
While Moreno trailed Brown in polling throughout the summer but entered Election Day with a tie in the polls.
Ohio has trended red in recent years, having voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020.
House Too Close to Call
After election night, the House remains too close to call as Democrats and Republicans captured the seats they were expected to, without either side breaking through in Election Night results.
Two toss-up races have been called, one for the Democrats in New York and another for Republicans in Iowa. Results in states such as California, Arizona, Michigan, Alaska, and Pennsylvania are still coming in, leaving several close House seats yet to be decided.
Florida Republican lawmakers Anna Paulina Luna, Maria Elivira Salazar defeated Democratic challengers in semi-competitive southern districts that forecasters universally projected for the GOP, according to the Associated Press.
Salazar won about 60 percent of the vote against Democratic opponent Lucia Baez-Geller, a local school-board member who struggled with fundraising. Luna faced off against communications professional Whitney Fox and won with nearly 55 percent to gain a second term.
On the Democratic side, veteran lawmaker Darren Soto won his blue-leaning district with slightly over 55 percent, despite being out fundraised.
Mixed Bag for New York House Republicans
New York’s House contests have been a mixed-bag for a group of Republicans seeking to defend their crucial seats. GOP incumbent Marc Molinaro lost to Democratic opponent Josh Riley in the 19th district. Near by, freshman Democratic incumbent Pat Ryan handily defeated Republican challenger Alison Esposito, holding onto his seat by a 16-point margin.
Vulnerable Republican Brandon Williams was defeated in blue-leaning NY-22 by challenger John Mannion. Anthony D’Esposito, another vulnerable Republican incumbent, is trailing Democratic challenger Laura Gillen in New York’s fourth district in Nassau County, Long Island.
Republican Mike Lawler looks like he’ll easily knock off Representative Mondaire Jones to win the 17th district, a suburban area slightly north of the Big Apple. Republicans were also able to breathe a sigh of relief when incumbent Nick LaLota comfortably defeated Democratic challenger John Avlon, a well-known journalist, to retain New York’s first district on the eastern part of Long Island.
In neighboring New Jersey, Republican Tom Kean Jr. held the seventh district against Democratic challenger Sue Altman. The Kean family name remains powerful in the state, which shifted noticeably rightward this cycle.
Klobuchar Handily Defeats GOP Populist Upstart Royce White
Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar handily defeated Republican populist and provocateur Royce White, according to the Associated Press, which called the race at 11:43 p.m.
Klobuchar, a popular Democrat, was expected to easily defeat White, a former NBA player who won the state GOP’s endorsement despite his checkered history. With 51 percent of the vote counted, Klobuchar is leading with 58.5 percent of the vote to White’s 38.4 percent.
“Do you believe these numbers? I have my skepticisms! They know who will bring all the smoke to DC,” White wrote on X Tuesday night.
In 2020, while the Twin Cities were burning during the George Floyd riots, White, a St. Paul native, led racial-justice protesters on a march down Interstate 35, eventually taking over a Minneapolis bridge.
In 2022, White rebranded himself as a far-right populist in the image of Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former advisor, and conspiracy theorist and radio host Alex Jones, both of whom have endorsed him. He lost a race for Congress that year, spending more than $1,200 in campaign funds at a Miami strip club, and thousands more at high-end hotels and limo services far from Minnesota.
More recently, White has denigrated his critics and political opponents as “uniparty cucks,” “f*gs,” and “c**ts,” and defended his language by claiming that he comes from a black community that is “a very vulgar community culturally, and just in general.” He’s said that “Jewish elites” run the Federal Reserve. On X, formerly Twitter, he’s claimed that “the bad guys won in World War II” and that there were “no ‘good guys’ in that war.”
Over the summer, he told National Review that Minnesota Republicans have “become feckless and spineless,” and that is why GOP candidates have struggled to win statewide.
Republican critics charged that White’s presence at the top of the ballot would hurt down-ballot Republicans trying to flip the state house.
Harris Campaign Tells Staffers to Call It an Early Night
Despite early election returns not looking great for Kamala Harris, the Democrat’s campaign manager wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday night that “we feel good about what we’re seeing” in the Blue Wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
While Harris’s camp had hoped to rack up some wins in the South (Georgia or North Carolina) and in the West (Arizona and Nevada), campaign manager Jenn O’Malley Dillon wrote that “our clearest path to 270 electoral votes lies through the Blue Wall states.”
In Pennsylvania, O’Malley Dillon said Harris has “overperformed turnout expectations in Philadelphia, and overperformed in our early vote expectations in Bucks County,” which is a prominent Philadelphia suburb.
In Michigan, she wrote, they’ve seen “strong turnout” in Detroit. And in Wisconsin, “we know there is a significant amount of vote remaining in Dane and Milwaukee counties.”
O’Malley Dillon wrote that “this race is not going to come into focus until the early morning hours,” urging staffers to “get some sleep, and get ready to close out strong tomorrow.”
Trump Seals the Deal in North Carolina
Donald Trump won a key victory in North Carolina, picking up the swing state’s 16 electoral votes. The Associated Press called the race for Trump at 11:18 p.m.
The Cook Political Report classified the Tar Heel State a toss-up, while the Real Clear Politics polling average showed the former president with a narrow lead.
Trump won in North Carolina despite a high-profile scandal involving the state’s Republican nominee for governor, Mark Robinson, whom Trump had praised and endorsed.
In September, CNN reported that Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor, had made dozens of disturbing comments on pornographic website before he entered politics. The comments included calling himself a “black NAZI!” and a “perv,” recalling “peeping” on women in the showers at a gym when he was a teenager, and calling “tranny on girl” porn “f**king hot!”
Trump narrowly defeated Joe Biden in the state in 2020, winning 49.9 percent of the vote to Biden’s 48.6 percent.
In addition to winning North Carolina, Trump has also recently won Idaho (four electoral votes), Iowa (six electoral votes), Kansas (six electoral votes), and Ohio (17 electoral votes), according to the AP.
Harris has won California (54 electoral votes), Colorado (ten electoral votes), Hawaii (four electoral votes), New Mexico (five electoral votes), Oregon (eight electoral votes), Virginia (13 electoral votes), Washington state (12 electoral votes), and Washington D.C. (three electoral votes).
As of 12:05 a.m., Trump has won 230 electoral votes, while Harris has 209. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
Democrat Angela Alsobrooks Bests Republican Larry Hogan in Maryland Senate Race
Democrat Angela Alsobrooks has defeated former Maryland governor Larry Hogan in the race for U.S. Senate in the Old Line State.
The race for the open seat, which is currently held by retiring Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, had been rated “likely Democrat” by the Cook Political Report. But Republicans had hoped running the popular former governor would give them a shot in the blue state as Republicans look to flip control of the Senate.
Hogan emphasized his pro-choice stance to give himself an edge in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1. Alsobrooks led Hogan by 7 percentage points in polling ahead of Election Day.
The Democrat is currently winning with 54.6 percent support with 52 percent of the vote counted.
Trump Pockets Texas Electoral-Vote Haul
As expected, Republican Donald Trump hauled in 40 electoral votes from Texas, according to the Associated Press, which called the race for the former president at 9:12 p.m.
With 57 percent of the vote counted, Trump was ahead of Democrat Kamala Harris 54 percent to 44.8 percent.
Texas hasn’t voted for a Democrat for president since 1976. Trump won the Lone Star State with 52.1 percent of the vote in 2020 and 52.2 percent in 2016.
The AP has also called Louisiana (eight electoral votes), Montana (four electoral votes), Ohio (17 electoral votes), North Dakota (three electoral votes), South Dakota (three electoral votes), Utah (6 electoral votes), and Wyoming (thee electoral votes) for Trump. The former president has also won two statewide electoral votes in Nebraska, which also awards three other electoral votes, one each to the winner of three congressional districts.
Harris has won New York (28 electoral votes), Illinois (19 electoral votes), Rhode Island (four electoral votes), and Delaware (three electoral votes), according to the AP.
As of 10 p.m., Trump has 198 electoral votes to Harris’s 99.
North Carolina GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Mark Robinson Defeated after CNN Bombshell
North Carolina state attorney general Josh Stein (D) has defeated the state’s Republican lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, to become the state’s next governor.
The win comes as little surprise, as a bombshell CNN report in September about Robinson’s alleged comments on a porn site had essentially ended any shot he had at the governor’s mansion.
The report claimed Robinson made inappropriate comments on a porn site called Nude Africa between 2008 and 2012 in which he said, among other things, that he is a “black NAZI” and he believes slavery should be brought back.
The news came more than a year after North Carolina GOP officials and operatives began privately warning about damning opposition research on the lieutenant governor, according to reporting from NR’s Audrey Fahlberg. Robinson had dismissed the reporting as false and insisted on staying in the race.
Stein had a whopping 14.3 percentage point lead in polling leading up to Election Day.
Trump Easily Wins Florida
Donald Trump easily won Florida’s 30 electoral votes, according to the Associated Press, which called the race at 8:01 p.m. With 90 percent of the vote counted, Trump was leading Democrat Kamala Harris 55.9 percent to 43.2 percent.
The win further solidifies Florida as a comfortable red state.
For decades the Sunshine State was one of the nation’s most critical swing states. George W. Bush carried the state by 537 votes in 2000, after a recount and a Supreme Court ruling. Democrat Barack Obama won Florida in 2008 with 50.91 percent of the vote and carried it again in 2012 with 50.01 percent. Trump won Florida with a plurality of the vote in 2016, winning 49.02 percent. He won it more handily in 2021 with 51.22 percent.
Florida has moved decisively to the right and become a laboratory for conservative policymaking under Republican governor Ron DeSantis, who pushed back hard on Covid-19 restrictions adopted in bluer states. DeSantis won a landslide reelection in 2022 with 59.4 percent of the vote.
In addition to Florida, the AP has also called Alabama (nine electoral votes), Arkansas (six electoral votes), Mississippi (six electoral votes), Oklahoma (seven electoral votes), Tennessee (eleven electoral votes), and South Carolina (nine electoral votes) for Trump.
The AP has called Connecticut (seven electoral votes), Maryland (10 electoral votes), Massachusetts (eleven electoral votes), New Jersey (14 electoral votes), and Rhode Island (four electoral votes) for Harris.
As of 8:30 p.m., Trump has won 101 electoral votes to Harris’s 49. None of the results in the presidential race have been surprises so far.
Meanwhile, Florida Senator Rick Scott has won reelection against Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. Scott, whose race was rated “likely Republican” by the Cook Political Report, has 55.3 percent support with 86 percent of the vote counted.
The win for Scott was the first relatively easy victory in his nearly 15-year political career. He was narrowly elected governor in 2010, winning only 48.9 percent of the vote. He was reelected in 2014, again without a majority vote — he won 48.1 percent that year.
Scott was elected to his first Senate term in 2018, winning 50.1 percent of the vote to Democrat Bill Nelson’s 49.9 percent.
This year, Democrats had been hoping that Mucarsel-Powell, a former congresswoman, could pull off an upset, though polls showed that was unlikely.
Republican Jim Justice Wins Outgoing Senator Joe Manchin’s Seat
West Virginia governor Jim Justice will assume the U.S. Senate seat left open by longtime Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, according to an AP race call. Manchin’s retirement nearly guaranteed the seat in the ruby red state would go to Republicans, but Justice’s win over Democratic challenger Glenn Elliot makes the flip official.
Meanwhile, Polls have now closed in the key battleground state of Ohio, where all eyes are on the Senate race between incumbent Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown and Republican car salesman Bernie Moreno. Brown has served in the Senate for 18 years, but polling shows a tight race. A RealClearPolitics polling average has Moreno leading by 1.7 percentage points.
GOP House Candidates Rack Up Wins in Florida
Florida Republican lawmakers Anna Paulina Luna, Maria Elivira Salazar defeated Democratic challengers in semi-competitive southern districts that forecasters universally projected for the GOP, according to the Associated Press.
Salazar won about 60 percent of the vote against Democratic opponent Lucia Baez-Geller, a local school-board member who struggled with fundraising. Luna faced off against communications professional Whitney Fox and won with nearly 55 percent to gain a second term.
On the Democratic side, veteran lawmaker Darren Soto won his blue-leaning district with slightly over 55 percent, despite being out fundraised.
Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia for Trump; Vermont for Harris
Elsewhere, the AP has called races in favor of incumbent Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and U.S. Representative Jim Banks, who will now serve as Indiana’s junior senator after winning a race for the seat left open by Senator Mike Braun, who has won his race for governor of Indiana.
Donald Trump has won Indiana’s eleven electoral votes and Kentucky’s eight electoral votes, according to the Associated Press, which called the races in the two Republican-heavy states at 7 p.m. In-person voting ended in those two states at 6 p.m., though both states cover two time zones.
The AP also called Vermont for Kamala Harris at 7 p.m. Vermont, a solid Democratic state, has three electoral votes. The AP called the race so early based on its AP VoteCast, a comprehensive survey of the 2024 electorate.
At 7:30 p.m., the AP called West Virginia and its four electoral votes for Trump.
None of the results in the four states is a surprise.
Four years ago, Trump won Indiana with 57.1 percent of the vote, Kentucky with 62.1 percent, and West Virginia with 68.6 percent.
Polls Show a Dead Heat
As they have for weeks, polls show the presidential race between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris is essentially tied. The RealClearPolitics polling average shows the race is a coin-flip, with Harris ahead nationally by only a hair, 48.7 percent support for the vice president to 48.6 for Trump, well within the margin of error.
But Trump is similarly ahead very slightly in the top battleground states, according to the RCP polling averages. Those state races are also well within the polling margin of error.
The presidential race will likely be decided by which candidate had the strongest ground game, how independents and late-deciders break, and how many voters cast ballots for third-party and protest candidates, or simply skip the race altogether.
Control of the Senate will likely come down to ten battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.
The Democrats currently control the upper chamber with a functional 51-49 seat majority, but the Republicans have a good chance at winning back control with a good night on Tuesday. Democrats are defending 23 of the 34 Senate seats up this year.
The GOP is overwhelmingly favored to capture the Senate seat held by retiring Democrat-turned-independent Joe Manchin and appears poised to defeat Democrat Jon Tester in Montana. Longtime Ohio Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown is also facing a tough challenge from Republican Bernie Moreno in a state that is increasingly a GOP stronghold.
To maintain Senate control, Democrats are hoping for upset wins against Ted Cruz in Texas or Rick Scott in Florida.
Like the presidential contest, the contest for control of the House is a bona-fide toss-up, and whichever party wins will do so with the narrowest of majorities. The non-partisan Cook Political Report is predicting ten Democratic seats and 12 Republican seats will be toss-up races. In total, roughly 70 congressional districts will be in play nationwide.
Two states to watch for the House are the Democratic bastions of New York and California. Each state has a handful of ultra-competitive seats where vulnerable Republican incumbents are fighting to hold on against well-funded Democratic challengers. The slow pace of California’s vote counting means some of those seats could take potentially weeks to call, leaving the house majority in limbo after the senate and presidency are decided.
If Democrats reclaim the House, a decisive factor could be the party’s significant fundraising advantage over the GOP. Democrats spent $35 million more on ads than Republicans in the 25 most competitive races over the past month and in 22 of those races the Democratic candidate had the fundraising advantage, Punchbowl reported. In 15 of the 25 races, Democrats have a spending advantage of $1 million or more.
In the presidential race, voters will likely get their first sense of how things are going with results out of Georgia and North Carolina, two East Coast battlegrounds that typically count votes fast. On the other hand, it could take days to get final results from battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada.
Trump will be hosting an Election Night party at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach County, Florida. Harris is slated to watch results come in at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington D.C.