As the clock ticked toward 3am on Wednesday morning on the US east coast, three of the seven swing states – Georgia, North Carolina, and, crucially, Pennsylvania – had been called for Donald Trump, putting him within spitting distance of 270 electoral college votes. The Republican candidate currently has 267 electoral college votes.
On a stage in West Palm Beach, Trump declared victory and pledged to bring a “golden age” to the United States.
Earlier on Wednesday, the mood at the Kamala Harris campaign party at her alma mater, Howard University, in Washington DC shifted from jubilant to quiet as Trump appeared to be in a stronger position than Harris to claim the White House.
What have Trump and Harris said about the election?
Speaking on Wednesday, Trump said: “This was a movement like nobody’s ever seen before, and frankly, this was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time. There’s never been anything like this in this country, and maybe beyond.”
Earlier, Harris’s campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond addressed the crowd at her campaign party in Washington and said, “We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not been called yet”, but made clear that the Democratic candidate wouldn’t be speaking.
States still to be called
The swing states still to be called are Wisconsin (10 electoral college votes), Nevada (6), Michigan (15) and Arizona (11).
The other states still to be called are Alaska and Maine. Alaska is considered a red state, and its three electoral college votes could deliver Trump the presidency.
Here’s what else happened on Tuesday:
Missouri, Colorado, New York and Maryland all passed measures to protect abortion rights, while in Florida, an effort to roll back a six-week ban fell short.
Republicans have retaken the majority in the Senate, the Associated Press reported, after picking up seats in Ohio and West Virginia, and fending off challenges to their candidates in Texas and Nebraska. Republicans will control Congress’s upper chamber for the first time in four years. Donald Trump will be in a position to confirm his supreme court justices, federal judges and appointees to cabinet posts.
The House is still in play, but Republicans hold a strong lead, with 190 representatives to the Democrats’ 168.
There were decisive victories for Democrats elsewhere in the election. The US will have two Black women serving as senators for the first time in American history, with the election of Lisa Blunt Rochester from Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland.
Sarah McBride, a Delaware state senator, also made history as the first out transgender person elected to the US House of Representatives. McBride, 34, won Delaware’s at-large House seat in Tuesday’s general election against the Republican candidate John Whalen III, a former Delaware state police officer and businessman. The House seat, Delaware’s only one, has been Democratic since 2010.
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage
When do polls close?
When we’ll know the results
What to watch for tonight