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Follow along for live updates as Donald Trump secures victory after surpassing 270 Electoral College votes in 2024 presidential race
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Donald Trump has clinched victory in the 2024 presidential election against Kamala Harris after securing 277 Electoral College votes.
The Republican eliminated any chance for his Democratic rival and will return to the White House in January 2025 to serve a second term.
Trump is projected to win Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes, which surpasses the number of 270 he needs to take the White House, according to the Associated Press.
The former president — who was rejected by a majority of Americans in 2020 during his re-election campaign after winning an unprecedented race in 2016 —flipped nearly every swing state that President Joe Biden won in 2020, with new Republican majorities in Congress.
Trump won Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes, along with other battleground states Georgia and North Carolina.
Harris did not address the nation or supporters from her watch party at her Howard University alma mater as vote counting carried on into the early morning hours of Wednesday.
Earlier in the night, her campaign adviser Cedric Richmond told The Independent he remains “very confident” that the campaign will be in a better place tomorrow. “We left it all on the field,” he said.
At 1:47 a.m., as Trump prepared to speak to supporters in West Palm Beach, and as votes were still being counted in several states that had not yet been decided, Fox News declared Trump’s victory.
“It’s a political victory that our country has never seen before. Nothing like this,” Trump told his supporters from a convention center stage at 2:30 a.m. while surrounded by members of the Trump family and his closest allies.
“This will be the golden age of America,” he said.
Federal law enforcement agencies and election officials were prepared for disruptions this year after the chaotic aftermath of the 2020 election and Trump’s spurious efforts to overturn the results of a race he lost. Officials attributed noncredible bomb threats in several states to Russian actors. Voters ranked the state of democracy as their number one issue informing their voting decision, according to exit polls.
Trump has also won in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming, according to preliminary results.
Harris is projected to win California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington state as well as Washington DC.
Of the swing states that Biden won in 2020, Harris was only projected to win Minnesota.
She also picked up electoral votes in Maine and Nebraska, two states with a unique split electoral vote scenario, rather than the winner-take-all outcome in other states.
Trump’s victory in Georgia reverses Democratic gains in the state after Biden narrowly defeated Trump there in 2020, when he became the first Democratic candidate to carry the state since Bill Clinton in 1992.
His victory in Florida marks his third consecutive win in the state, after Democratic former president Barack Obama carried the state in both 2008 and 2012.
He also is expected to win two of Nebraska’s electoral votes in that state’s split electoral vote count, and another in Maine.
Media outlets make their projections for each state’s winner as election workers count ballots and preliminary voting data is released.The Independent relies on projections from the Associated Press.
Experts previously told The Independent that the timeline for calling the race largely depends on two things: how close the election is in individual states and the specific laws of those states regarding counting votes and potential recounts, which all vary.
While outlets are expected to publish their final projections in the hours after November 5, their determination is only ever a projection. The results must be certified in each state and then certified by Congress on January 6, 2025.
Republicans have seized control of the Senate for the first time in four years after flipping two seats, wresting a narrow majority in the upper chamber of Congress from Democrats.
House and Senate races across the country will determine the balance of power in Congress — where Democrats currently hold the narrowest majority in the Senate and Republicans maintain a slim majority in the House — and will determine whether the president-elect’s agenda has legislative support.
A Republican trifecta — with clear leadership in the White House, Senate and House of Representatives — could quickly usher through the GOP’s sweeping agenda that has largely been restrained by Democratic lawmakers and Biden’s presidency.
Voters in Ohio have ousted Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown and elected Republican challenger Bernie Moreno, who previously called the former president a “lunatic” but has since adopted his agenda.
West Virginia’s Republican Governor Jim Justice is projected to win a seat in the Senate, flipping a seat previously held by now-former Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who is not seeking re-election.
Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida is also projected to defeat Democratic opponent Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. And in Texas, Republican Ted Cruz fended off a challenge from Democratic candidate Colin Allred.
In Maryland’s Senate race, Democratic candidate Angela Alsobrooks defeated the state’s former governor Larry Hogan, an anti-Trump Republican.
Alsobrooks is set to become the first Black person the state ever elected to the Senate.
Only 34 of the nation’s 100 seats in the Senate are currently up for election, as senators serve six-year terms with a third being elected every two years. Eighteen of those seats were previously held by Democratic senators, posing a threat to their slim majority.
But all 435 seats in the House are up for election.
Voters in Delaware have elected Democratic candidate Sarah McBride to fill the state’s single House seat, making her the first openly transgender member of Congress in American history.
Results will be refreshed live as they come in. Check back for updates.
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