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Russian embassy denies accusations of Moscow’s meddling in US election
Russia’s embassy in the United States has denied accusations of Moscow’s interference in the US presidential election after authorities said hoax bomb threats to polling stations appeared to originate in Russia.
The FBI confirmed Tuesday that bomb threats to polling locations in several states likely stemmed from Russian email domains. Though the FBI said none of the threats were determined to be credible, they forced the temporary closure of several polling places.
It comes after US intelligence last month assessed that Russian operatives were behind a fake video purporting to show someone destroying mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania in late October.
The Russian embassy in Washington said the US accusations were “slanderous and baseless.”
The embassy said it “did not receive any evidence in its contacts with US officials or even any requests regarding the story being promoted in the press,” and accused US authorities and media of “hysterics” over alleged Russian disinformation related to elections.
Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov has repeatedly denied any electoral interference by Moscow, saying the allegations were “absolutely unfounded,” according to RIA Novosti.
CNN has reported that a spinoff of the Russian “troll factory” that targeted the 2016 US presidential election appeared to be at the heart of a disinformation campaign trying to sway Western and especially US audiences, according to a joint investigation with researchers at Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub.
Remaining absentee ballots beginning to be processed and counted in Detroit, city official says
Some of the remaining ballots left to be tabulated in Detroit are being brought into the city’s counting center, a top official said in the early hours of Wednesday.
City election workers had been waiting for a final batch of 4,500 ballots to be delivered. A portion of those ballots are now in the convention center where votes are being counted, while other ballots from that tranche are still undergoing signature verification before they can be tabulated.
“That’s it tonight,” Detroit Elections Department Chief Operating Officer Daniel Baxter told reporters, adding that as signatures are verified on the outstanding ballots, they’ll be brought into the center to be counted.
The 86,000 absentee ballots that Detroit was able to count ahead of Election Day, thanks to Michigan’s new laws, have already been reported to Wayne County, Baxter said.
About 14,000 absentee ballots were received in the city today, including the 4,500 that are being processed currently.
Trump praises Elon Musk in early morning address to supporters
Former President Donald Trump praised tech billionaire Elon Musk as a “super genius,” speaking to supporters early Wednesday morning.
Trump told his supporters that Musk’s Starlink satellite service helped save “a lot of lives” during Hurricane Helene, which devastated the southeastern United States in October.
“I said Elon they need it really, really badly in North Carolina. Can you get it? He had that there so fast, it was incredible. It saved a lot of lives. They saved a lot of lives,” Trump said.
Trump then described Musk to the audience as “a character, he’s a special guy, he’s a super genius. We have to protect our geniuses, we don’t have that many of them.”
Some context: In October, when Trump told reporters he asked for the communications access, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had already announced that 40 Starlink satellite systems were in place, with an additional 140 on the way. Musk’s Starlink is a government contractor, and Musk has been a stalwart supporter of Trump.
“God spared my life for a reason,” Trump told supporters
Former President Donald Trump has said that people tell him that “God spared my life for a reason.”
“And that reason was to save our country and restore America to greatness. And now we’re going to fulfill that mission together,” he told supporters early Wednesday morning.
“The task before us will not be easy, but I will bring every ounce of energy, spirit, and fight that I have in my soul to the job that you’ve entrusted to me,” he added.
CNN Projection: Harris wins Connecticut
Vice President Kamala Harris will win Connecticut, CNN projects.
There are seven electoral votes at stake in Connecticut. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: President Joe Biden carried the state and won the general election.
Vance thanks Trump for allowing him to join campaign
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance thanked former President Donald Trump for allowing him to join his campaign.
Talking to a crowd of supporters early Wednesday in West Palm Beach, Vance thanked Trump for the “trust that you placed in me.”
“I think that we just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America,” Vance said, though several states are still counting votes.
He promised that he and Trump would now “lead the greatest economic comeback in American history.”
CNN has not yet called the race for the former president, and votes are still being counted in several states.
Trump celebrates Republicans taking control of Senate
Former President Donald Trump celebrated Republicans winning control of the Senate while speaking at an address to supporters early Wednesday morning. CNN has projected the GOP will win control of the Senate in a significant victory for the party.
“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate. We have taken back control of the Senate – wow that’s good,” he told his supporters.
CNN has not yet called the race for the former president and votes are still being counted across several states, however according to CNN projections he only needs four more electoral votes to win the presidency.
“And the Senate races in Montana, Nevada, Texas, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania were all won by the MAGA movement they helped so much,” Trump said.
“The number of victories in the Senate was absolutely incredible,” he added.
Trump thanks the American people
Former President Donald Trump on early Wednesday morning ET addressed his supporters in Florida.
“I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president, and your 45th president,” he said.
CNN has not yet called the presidential race.
“I will fight for you, for your family and your future every single day. I will be fighting for you with every breath in my body. I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve. This will truly be the golden age of America,” he told his supporters in Florida.
Trump tells Americans that this moment will “help this country heal”
Former President Donald Trump told his supporters early Wednesday that this moment will “help this country heal.”
According to CNN projections, Trump only needs four more electoral votes to win the presidency. CNN has not yet called the race for the former president and votes are still being counted in several states.
“We have a country that needs help and it needs help very badly. We’re going to fix our borders and we’re going to fix everything about our country,” Trump said.
“It’s now clear that we’ve achieved the most incredible political thing… look what happened, is this crazy?” Trump added.
At a convention center in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump promised Americans that “every single day I will be fighting for you” and said he would usher in the “golden age of America.”
Trump was joined on stage by members of his family and his wife, Melania Trump, as well as his running mate, JD Vance, and House Speaker Mike Johnson.
This post has been updated with additional remarks from Trump.
NOW: Trump addresses supporters
Former President Donald Trump is currently delivering remarks to a group of his supporters in West Palm Beach, Florida.
His team moved members from the Mar-a-Lago viewing party to the convention center earlier this evening, according to a source familiar with the matter.
CNN projected that Trump will win the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina. Voting continues in several key states.
Trump needs 4 more electoral votes to win presidency, CNN projects. Here’s where things stand
Based on CNN’s current projections, Vice President Kamala Harris’ path to victory is shrinking.
Former President Donald Trump has 266 electoral votes and Harris has 188 electoral votes, CNN projects. That means Trump only needs to win four more electoral votes to win the presidency.
CNN has projected that Trump will win several key battleground states — including North Carolina, Georgia, and more pivotally, Pennsylvania.
Here’s the latest look at where things stand:
CNN Projection: Trump wins 1 additional electoral vote in Nebraska
Former President Donald Trump will win an additional electoral vote in Nebraska, making his total count four out of five, CNN projects.
There are five electoral votes at stake in Nebraska. Nebraska is one of only two states (Maine is the other) to allow its electoral votes to be split.
Two of Nebraska’s five electoral votes go to the winner of the statewide vote. One electoral vote goes to the popular vote winner in each of the state’s three congressional districts.
It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
CNN Projection: Harris wins 1 electoral vote in Nebraska
Vice President Kamala Harris will win one electoral vote in Nebraska, CNN projects, and Donald Trump won four electoral votes in Nebraska.
There are five electoral votes at stake in Nebraska. Nebraska is one of only two states (Maine is the other) to allow its electoral votes to be split.
Two of Nebraska’s five electoral votes go to the winner of the statewide vote. One electoral vote goes to the popular vote winner in each of the state’s three congressional districts.
It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Former President Donald Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
CNN Projection: Trump wins Pennsylvania
Former President Donald Trump will win the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, CNN projects.
There are 19 electoral votes at stake in Pennsylvania. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: President Joe Biden, a native of Scranton, Pennsylvania, flipped the state in 2020, winning by just over 80,000 votes. In 2016, Trump became the first Republican to win Pennsylvania since George H.W. Bush in 1988, carrying the state by just over 44,000 votes.
Pennsylvania is the most important battleground state of the 2024 election. Harris and Trump have made the commonwealth’s electoral votes central to their respective paths to victory.
Trump’s team felt confident this morning — but nowhere near this level
Donald Trump’s campaign team woke up confident Tuesday morning as polls opened and voting got underway. But multiple campaign aides that CNN spoke to didn’t expect his wins to be anywhere near where the numbers are tonight.
Aides constantly predicted it would be close — potentially take days — but in the end, Trump would pull it off.
Trump was even directly counseled he likely wouldn’t have a decision tonight.
Now, that has all changed.
Nevada officials counting in-person ballots cast on Election Day
Officials in Nevada are working on tallying votes that were cast in-person on Election Day. The last voter in the state cast their ballot at 9:45 p.m. local time, according to Clark County Registrar Lorena Portillo.
Authorities will “start processing mail ballots” in Clark County tomorrow, Portillo said at a news conference Tuesday.
Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said that “there were no major issues across the state” in the election process.
Aguilar had previously told CNN that some 11,000 ballots still needed verification and needed to be cured, in part because many signatures didn’t match with what authorities had on file. Aguilar said many young people struggled to write their signature because they “live in a digital world.”
To cure their ballots, voters can go to a newly launched website, cure.nv.gov, he added.
Magic Wall analysis: With Trump taking North Carolina and Georgia, Harris needs to win Pennsylvania
With former President Donald Trump projected to win in North Carolina and Georgia — and leading in all other battleground states — Vice President Kamala Harris’ path to victory is narrowing and winning in Pennsylvania a must, CNN’s John King said.
While Harris could put together a path to victory with a combination of the “Blue Wall” states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — and the Sun Belt states — Nevada and Arizona — “there’s no way to get there without Pennsylvania,” King said early Wednesday morning.
With 93% of votes counted in Pennsylvania, Trump has just over a 3 point lead. Though the vice president could still build her lead in the democratic stronghold of Philadelphia, staking a win on outstanding votes there is “it’s improbable at the moment, let’s be honest, but it’s not impossible.”
Philadelphia county at around 1:00 a.m. had reported 78% of its votes — 78.1% for Harris and 20.7% for Trump. Former President Joe Biden won that county 81.4% to Trump’s 17.9% in 2020.
Not only did Trump improve by 3 points in this major democratic city, the former president has generally over performed over 2020 by 3 points in red counties he won in 2020, too, King said.
Republicans will flip the Senate, CNN projects, shifting balance of power in Washington
Republicans will win the US Senate majority, CNN projects, significantly shifting the balance of power in Washington.
A GOP majority will put the Senate in position to boost a possible Donald Trump presidency or impede a possible Kamala Harris administration if the Democratic vice president wins the White House.
With several races still to be declared, Republicans now have 51 seats in the chamber and will assume control, under a yet-to-be chosen Republican leader when the new Congress convenes in January.
The Senate takeover was the first big success of the night for Republicans, with the fight between Trump and Harris yet to be resolved and the destiny of the House of Representatives, where the GOP is trying to defend its narrow majority, also up in the air.
The new GOP Senate will be in a position to back Trump’s agenda if he wins a second term and to resume the ex-president’s significant reshaping of the judiciary with scores more conservatives if he ends up in the Oval Office. Should Harris prevail, she would face problems in confirming members of her Cabinet and judicial nominees, and the GOP Senate could thwart her domestic plans.
The Republican march to control started early on election night when West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice was projected to pick up the Senate seat vacated by retiring Democrat-turned–independent Sen. Joe Manchin. Democrats had stopped contesting the seat after Manchin announced he wouldn’t seek reelection.
In Ohio, Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who has served in the chamber for three terms, will lose his reelection bid, CNN projects, in a state that has gone from a perennial political bellwether during his tenure to a deep red stronghold. The new Republican senator will be businessman Bernie Moreno, a vehement Trump supporter.
Why these 3 Arizona Republican voters are backing Trump
CNN spoke to Republican voters in Scottsdale, Arizona, about how they’re voting and why:
Denzel Kismayo, 30: Kismayo and his family immigrated to the US from Kenya. A registered Republican in Arizona who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020, Kismayo said he’s supporting Donald Trump because he believes the former president will make the economy better, lower the price of gas and groceries, and that other countries respected the US under his presidency. He also liked that Trump took on criminal reform. But he felt that women should make their own decisions on the issue of abortion.
Mary Wepprecht, 59: “The last four years have been hard. The economy was terrible. The border was not good at all,” Wepprecht said on why she voted for Trump. She said that she knows more people who are now no longer afraid to voice their support for Trump.
Bruce Twersky, 45: A Trump Force Captain, Twersky told CNN that he has knocked on more than hundred doors in the Phoenix area and been part of the campaign’s efforts to get Republicans to vote early. He said he’s “100% confident” that Trump will win Arizona. He cited the US border security and Israel as the two issues that matter most to him, approving of Trump’s immigration proposals and support for Israel.
The last polls have closed. Here’s where things stand in the race to 270
Based on CNN’s current projections, former President Donald Trump has 246 electoral votes while Vice President Kamala Harris has 187 electoral votes.
CNN has projected that Trump will win the key battleground states of North Carolina and Georgia.
Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
Here’s the latest look at where things stand:
Polls are closing in Alaska
It is 1 a.m. ET and polls are closing across Alaska, where 3 electoral votes are at stake.
The presidential candidates need at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
In presidential politics, Alaska is a safe Republican state. It has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate only once since gaining statehood in 1959. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson beat Republican nominee Barry Goldwater by almost 31 percentage points in Alaska.
This is Alaska’s first presidential election held under ranked choice voting, where voters can rank up to four candidates in order of preference.
CNN Projection: Harris wins New Mexico
Vice President Kamala Harris will win New Mexico, CNN projects.
There are five electoral votes at stake in New Mexico. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: President Joe Biden carried the state and won the general election.
While Biden did well in the state’s largest urban areas and improved from Hillary Clinton in many of state’s suburban areas, former President Donald Trump did better in the rural parts of the state.
US officials still investigating source of bomb threats at polling locations
US officials continue to say that at least some of the bomb threats made to polling locations in multiple states appeared to originate from Russian email domains. But the investigation is ongoing, and the FBI has yet to publicly confirm that someone in Russia was behind the threats.
“The FBI said in their statement it looks like these threats came from .ru domains,” Jen Easterly, the head of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told reporters Tuesday night.
“If, in fact, it is definitively linked to a foreign adversary, or Russia, I think we would think through what the implications are as a whole of government,” Easterly said.
The FBI is working with local law enforcement and officials in four states who have received bomb threats to polling and election related locations, a law enforcement official told CNN Tuesday night.
The states that have received these threats — Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia —evacuated polling places in the wake of the threats, some of which the FBI previously confirmed originated from Russian email domains and deemed non-credible.
Harris not expected to speak tonight, campaign co-chair says, stressing votes still need to be counted
Vice President Kamala Harris will not address supporters tonight, but is expected to speak tomorrow, the co-chair of her campaign said, as election results from across the country continue to come in.
Richmond made the brief remarks to supporters gathered at Harris’ election night event on Howard University’s campus in Washington, DC.
His announcement comes after CNN projected that former President Donald Trump will win two of the key battleground states: North Carolina and Georgia.
Richmond said the campaign will continue to fight “to make sure that every vote is counted. That every voice as spoken.” He also thanked those who attended the election night event, and thanked campaign staff and volunteers for working on behalf of Harris and for “believing in the promise of America.”
This post has been updated with additional details.
Counting continues in Philadelphia, where there were “logistical challenges,” official says
The city of Philadelphia has received 202,713 mail-in ballots and another 437,427 votes have been cast at polling places as of 11:55 p.m., City Commissioner Omar Sabir said.
The city’s results are important because Kamala Harris will need a large pickup there to win Pennsylvania, where she trails Donald Trump in the current count.
“We will continuously post updates. We will not stop until we have finished,” Sabir said in a news conference early Wednesday morning local time.
In-person results are still coming in, so it’s still hard to predict turnout, Commissioner Seth Bluestein said.
“We’ll report them as they come in,” Sabir said, noting there were “logistical challenges.”
About 165,000 mail-in ballot results have been posted to the election website, Sabir said. Of those mail-in ballots received, some won’t count because they are unsigned or undated, Bluestein said.
CNN Projection: Trump wins Georgia
Former President Donald Trump will win the key battleground state of Georgia, CNN projects.
There are 16 electoral votes at stake in Georgia. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Georgia is a relatively new battleground state in presidential politics and helped deliver President Joe Biden his White House victory in 2020. Georgia flipped blue for the first time in nearly 30 years when Biden won by just 11,779 votes.
The state also determined Democrats would control the Senate in two runoff elections in 2021. The state then again backed the Democratic candidate for Senate in 2022, helping Democrats maintain control of the chamber.
Georgia became a focal point of national politics after the 2020 presidential election, when Trump called on Georgia state officials, including Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to flip the state for him to win. The former president and several of his advisers have been indicted for their actions in Georgia during the 2020 election.
Trump team is moving people from Mar-a-Lago to the convention center
Former President Donald Trump’s team is moving members from the Mar-a-Lago viewing party to the convention center now in buses, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.
They were expected to arrive at the convention center ahead of Trump’s speech.
All polls are now closed in Nevada’s largest county
All polls have closed in Clark County now that the last voters have cast their ballots.
The largest county in the state of Nevada saw long lines earlier.
Michigan still on track to be first battleground to report results, secretary of state says
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said her state is still on track to be the first battleground to report complete unofficial results, potentially overnight, and explained why not much data out of Wayne County can be seen yet.
Benson said to expect a final delivery of about 4,000 Detroit ballots to arrive at the city’s counting center in “about an hour or so.” Those ballots will need to be processed and tabulated before the city can begin reporting results from that batch.
Then, Detroit’s election department sends those results to Wayne County to validate and post the data at the county level. It’s up to the discretion of county clerks, Benson said, to decide whether to report out partial results from city clerks or wait until a locality has finished counting to post that data.
Benson said her office is not aware of any issues holding up results from Wayne County, it’s just a matter of the process. “This is really just the system working,” she said, adding “so many ballots” had already been tabulated. A delivery that came in earlier in the evening is being processed.
Benson also said Warren, Michigan’s third largest city, only had “a few 100” ballots left to tabulate after the clerk there declined to take advantage of a new law allowing for early tabulation of absentee ballots.
Where things stand in the House and Senate races
Based on CNN’s current projections, this is how the balance of power in Congress is shaping up.
In the Senate, Republicans have 49 seats so far. Democrats have 40. Either side needs 51 seats to have a majority.
Republican Bernie Moreno will defeat Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio’s Senate race, CNN projects, a key pickup for the GOP in a state that’s been trending its way to red. Republicans also flipped a seat in West Virginia as CNN projects Gov. Jim Justice will succeed retiring Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Joe Manchin.
In the House, Republicans have 178 seats. Democrats have 150.
Republicans have flipped three seats so far as they defend a narrow majority in the chamber. One seat to flip was North Carolina’s 6th Congressional District, where Republican Addison McDowell is projected to win.
CNN Projection: Harris wins Virginia
Vice President Kamala Harris will win Virginia, CNN projects.
There are 13 electoral votes at stake in Virginia. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: President Joe Biden carried the state and won the general election.
CNN Projection: Harris wins Hawaii
Vice President Kamala Harris will win Hawaii, CNN projects.
There are four electoral votes at stake in Hawaii. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: President Joe Biden carried the state and won the general election.
Polls are closing in Hawaii
It is midnight ET and polls are closing across Hawaii, where 4 electoral votes are at stake.
The presidential candidates need at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
Hawaii is a Democratic stronghold in presidential, Senate and gubernatorial races. It has voted for a Republican presidential candidate only twice since gaining statehood in 1959 – Richard Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Analysts react to Trump’s projected North Carolina win
Donald Trump is projected by CNN to win North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes.
Voters in West Palm Beach, Florida, could be seen and heard cheering to the news, as CNN’s Kaitlan Collins said Trump winning the battleground state would be a “gut check” for the party.
“North Carolina is an important benchmark for the Trump campaign because they were watching it to get a gut check for how they believe the rest of the evening could go,” Collins told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Trump campaign sources, she said, have told her that they are “increasingly confident as the night is going on.”
Following the projected North Carolina win, CNN’s Chris Wallace said the election is currently feeling more like the 2016 election rather than the 2020 race. Wallace did acknowledge that there still are plenty of votes to still count.
“Generally speaking, he is over-performing what he did in 2020 and she is under-performing what Joe Biden did in 2020,” Wallace said.
Only 62 out of 135 polling stations closed in Nevada’s Clark County as voters remain in line
As the first returns arrive at Nevada’s largest county – Clark County – only 62 out of 135 public polling stations have officially shut their doors.
Long lines across Clark County and the state will delay the reporting of any results and the secretary of state pledged that the polls won’t close until every late voter in line before 7 p.m. casts their ballot.
CNN Projection: Trump wins 3 electoral votes in Nebraska
Former President Donald Trump will win three of five electoral votes in Nebraska, CNN projects.
There are five electoral votes at stake in Nebraska. Nebraska is one of only two states (Maine is the other) to allow its electoral votes to be split.
Two of Nebraska’s five electoral votes go to the winner of the statewide vote. One electoral vote goes to the popular vote winner in each of the state’s three congressional districts.
It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
Hear from young voters who waited in a 300+ person line to vote at Arizona State University
Arizona State University graduate student Terry Surveyor, 27, estimated that she waited a full hour tonight to vote in-person at ASU’s Tempe campus fitness center, which at one point drew a 300 plus person line.
A Hopi and Navajo voter, Surveyor had mixed feelings about both candidates, telling CNN that she wasn’t “100%” for either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump but ultimately decided to back Harris. She was, however, encouraged to see the long line of young voters “showing up.”
Just behind her in line was ASU freshman Andrew Armour, who also had concerns about both candidates but felt that Trump was the better of the two, citing immigration, Israel and abortion as the issues he cares about.
Lawrence Parrett, a 21-year-old first-time voter who is backing Harris, said that he’s “happy to be a part” of such a historic election and felt it was important that he wait in line to cast his vote, no matter how long the line was. He said that while he waited, various speakers and volunteers have been making the experience “fun” and that he’s been handed out voter guides, food, water and even glow sticks.
“I think it’s very patriotic,” fellow ASU student Fatima Alaaraji said of her fellow ASU students and other voters who braved the line to vote.
While waiting to cast her vote, Daniela, a 25-year-old Phoenix voter and ASU alum who declined to share her last name, shared that this is the first time she’s decided to vote Republican this election cycle. The daughter of Mexican immigrants whose father runs a restaurant, Daniela said the reason her family and their business were able to survive the COVID pandemic was because of the grants and loans provided under the Trump administration. A Christian, Daniela also cited the GOP’s stance on abortion as being more aligned with her opposition to abortion.
CNN Projection: Harris wins Washington state
Vice President Kamala Harris will win Washington state, CNN projects.
There are 12 electoral votes at stake in Washington state. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: President Joe Biden carried the state and won the general election.
Long lines remain to vote at student union at University of Nevada
The line to vote at the student union at the University of Nevada, Reno, remained about an hour long as of 8:15 p.m. local time, according to a county poll worker at the location.
She said the wait was three hours long earlier in the evening but has reduced considerably since the close of polls at 7 p.m. She said the line was due in part to a surge of students who registered on Election Day.
Edwin Calva, a 20-year-old sophomore from Las Vegas, was the last student in line. He skateboarded from chemistry class and arrived three minutes before polls closed at 7p.m.
He’d been waiting about an hour and half and had another hour to go, but said it was worth it. “I’ve been preaching all day to my friends about how important it is to vote,” he said. “I would feel bad for not doing my part for the country.” He said he intends to vote for Kamala Harris.
A battleground state now projected to go to Trump. Here’s where the race to 270 stands
CNN has just projected a key battleground state for former President Donald Trump.
Based on CNN’s current projections, Trump will win North Carolina. That means that Trump has 227 electoral votes while Vice President Kamala Harris has 153.
Here’s the latest look at where things stand:
CNN Projection: Trump wins battleground North Carolina
Former President Donald Trump will win the key battleground state of North Carolina, CNN projects.
There are 16 electoral votes at stake in North Carolina. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump narrowly carried the battleground state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
The state is one of the most evenly divided in the country, and while Barack Obama won the state in 2008, Republicans have won it narrowly every election since, even as states like Georgia and Arizona have moved away from them.
Outstanding Georgia votes include in-person from metro Atlanta and absentee from Savannah area
Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer with Georgia Secretary of State’s office, told CNN a big chunk of the outstanding roughly 400,000 ballots in the state are in-person votes from metro Atlanta.
There are also two batches of absentee ballots — including 10,400 ballots in Chatham County in the Savannah area that still need to be sent in.
Some context to keep in mind: Key suburban counties in and around the metro Atlanta area like Cobb, Dekalb, Gwinnett and Fulton counties are ones to watch.
Both candidates have also made visits to cities like Savannah to rally voters there, and the Kamala Harris’ campaign embarked on a two-day bus tour in August around parts of the state usually untouched by Democrats.
“Get some sleep”: Harris campaign chair says results won’t be known for hours and Blue Wall still in reach
The Harris campaign’s chair Jen O’Malley Dillon told staffers in an email late Tuesday she did not expect a quick resolution to the race as she remained optimistic that Vice President Kamala Harris still has a path to victory.
While the email did not foreclose any pathways to 270 electoral votes, O’Malley Dillon placed heavy emphasis on the “Blue Wall” of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — always viewed by the campaign as the likeliest path to victory — rather than Sun Belt states like Arizona.
She cited outstanding vote totals from metro areas in each of the states — including Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee — and suggested the campaign had seen high turnout that could tilt the race in her favor.
She said the results were unlikely to be known until hours from now.
“This is what we’ve been built for, so let’s finish up what we have in front of us tonight, get some sleep, and get ready to close out strong tomorrow,” she told the Harris campaign team.
The Harris campaign has long been least bullish on Arizona among the battlegrounds, an adviser tells CNN, even as the campaign remains hopeful that a slim pathway to secure all seven battleground states remains.
It’s 11:30 p.m. ET, and polls have closed in most of the US. Here are the latest updates on voting
Polls have closed in most of the United States while voting continues in some Western states, as tens of millions of American voters went to the polls Tuesday to choose the country’s next leaders.
Here’s the latest on the voting front:
Young voters’ signature issue in Nevada: In an emerging issue with ballot signatures, an official told CNN that many young voters do not know how to sign their name. More than 11,000 ballots need to be cured, which means signatures don’t match signatures on file, according to Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar. “What we’re finding is there’s a lot of younger people who have a signature issue because they live in a digital world, they haven’t used a real signature in real life,” Aguilar told CNN.
Hand-counting in a Pennsylvania County: Cambria County is conducting a hand count of ballots that could not be scanned at the precinct earlier today due to a software issue, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt said, adding that process can “take some time.”
“Logjams” in North Carolina’s election data appearing online: There may be some “logjams” that cause brief delays in North Carolina election data appearing online, because so many counties will be sharing vast amounts of data around the same time, according to Patrick Gannon, spokesperson for the State Board of Elections.
Milwaukee swiftly recounts 30,000 absentee ballots: Milwaukee has counted more than 63,000 out of about 107,000 absentee ballots, officials announced just after 8:30 p.m. local time – making fast progress after an error in setting up tabulator machines required a recount of about 30,000 ballots.
Voting extensions in two Pennsylvania polling places: Two polling places near the West Chester locations evacuated due to a bomb threat will remain open until 10 p.m. ET to accommodate voters who are being redirected, according to Josh Maxwell, chair of the Chester County Board of Elections.
Milwaukee has finished counting about 75% of all absentee ballots
Milwaukee has finished processing 80,601 out of a total 108,325 absentee ballots as of about 9:45 p.m. local time, city election commission chair Paulina Gutierrez told reporters.
Polling places around the city have also reported the results from about 132,000 Election Day votes to Milwaukee County, with eight polling sites still sending results, she said.
“We’re still a couple hours away” from finishing the absentee count, Gutierrez said, predicting that the tally would wrap up sometime after midnight.
Gutierrez emphasized that despite the issue with tabulator machine doors being improperly closed, which led officials to rerun about 30,000 ballots through the machines earlier this evening, the count in Milwaukee has a clear paper trail for each vote.
Meagan Wolfe, the administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, noted at a separate news conference that Milwaukee may take longer to count votes tonight but stressed: “No equipment malfunctioned. No ballot was compromised.”
Wolfe also debunked a video that circulated online allegedly showing a Donald Trump supporter being attacked by Kamala Harris voters at a Wisconsin voting location as disinformation.
“That is not a Wisconsin location. That is not a Wisconsin polling place,” Wolfe said of the video, noting that the video was disinformation which voters needed to be aware of.
When asked by CNN where the video may have come from – including if it came from foreign malign actors – Wolfe said, “that’s going to have to come from the intelligence community.”
CNN Projection: Harris wins Oregon
Vice President Kamala Harris will win Oregon, CNN projects.
There are eight electoral votes at stake in Oregon. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: President Joe Biden carried the state and won the general election.
It’s after 11 p.m. ET. Here’s where the count of electoral votes stands
Based on CNN’s current projections, Vice President Kamala Harris has 153 electoral votes while former President Donald Trump has 211 electoral votes.
The seven key battleground states are still too close to call.
Here’s the latest look at where things stand:
Georgia’s Fulton County close to having all votes reported
The final memory cards that need to be scanned in and uploaded with today’s in-person votes have just arrived at the Fulton County elections hub, so they should be done uploading results in relatively short order.
County officials said it feels “amazing” to have the counting go so smoothly, particularly after the county grappled with 32 bomb threats today.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said just before 11 p.m. ET he expects it “to be a short night tonight.”
“I didn’t want to promise and not deliver, so I said end of the night. Well, it looks like it’s ending early tonight. It looks like this is pretty much done. Oh yes, we will have to wait for that final 400,000 to come in… but I think the results are pretty much baked in based on where the leads are right now,” Raffensperger said in a news conference.
Georgia secretary of state praises quick election result reporting
Georgia’s secretary of state said he anticipates most election results will be reported by the end of the night.
At least 88% of votes have been reported statewide. Brad Raffensperger said having a majority of the votes counted already is a “first in our history.”
He said “counties around Georgia received 60 bomb threats” but voters still turned out in record numbers. Earlier today, Raffensperger said that all of the bomb threats against polling places in Georgia appear to have originated from Russia.
He also thanked election workers across the state. He said that “Georgia had a successful election because you worked every day to protect every legal vote.”
Remember: Georgia is a key state in the race against former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. It first took center stage in 2020, flipping blue for the first time in nearly 30 years when Joe Biden won by more than 11,000 votes
Judge grants restraining order against people recording and threatening voters in Michigan
A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order against six individuals accused of voter intimidation by recording, following and threatening people inside Michigan polling locations.
According to a complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, six unnamed people were working to “threaten, intimidate, harass, and deter voters” from participating in the presidential election.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson addressed the accusations brought by the ACLU, saying that state officials have “been working with partners throughout the state to investigate any claims of intimidation,” but assured that there have been “no credible reports of anyone being stopped from voting or in other ways, blocked from participating in the process.”
Federal Judge Terrence Berg, a Barack Obama appointee, approved the emergency action, ordering the individuals to “cease the harassment or intimidation of voters at or outside of the polls during the November 2024 Election.”
Berg said the defendants could not film people going in and out of polling locations, come within 100 feet of the entrance to polling locations, follow people to or from their cars, or otherwise intimidate voters.
CNN Projection: Harris wins California
Vice President Kamala Harris will win California, CNN projects.
There are 54 electoral votes at stake in California. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: President Joe Biden carried the state and won the general election.
CNN Projection: Trump wins Idaho
Former President Donald Trump will win Idaho, CNN projects.
There are four electoral votes at stake in Idaho. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
Speaker Johnson says he is expecting to join Trump tonight
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters at an event in Louisiana that he is expected to fly to Mar-a-Lago tonight to be with former President Donald Trump at his election watch party.
“I think in a little bit we’re going to go to Mar-a-Lago, I think. And be down there with President Trump” Johnson told reporters.
“I am very hopeful that we’re going to have not only a larger majority in the House to make my job easier, but we retake the Senate and the White House as well,” Johnson added.
It is 11 p.m. ET and polls are closing in California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington state
It is 11 p.m. ET, and polls are closing in California, which boasts the largest number of electoral votes in the nation, as well as in Idaho, Oregon and Washington state.
These are the electoral votes at stake in each state:
- California: 54
- Idaho: 4
- Oregon: 8
- Washington state: 12
The presidential candidates need at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
Nevada faces signature problems with younger voters who “live in a digital world,” official says
An issue with ballot signatures is emerging among young voters in Nevada: many do not know how to sign their name, Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar told CNN.
State officials are urgently reaching out to a large number of young voters to confirm their signatures so their votes can be counted. But officials say many teenagers and young adults in their 20s only know how to sign their names electronically.
In Clark County, Nevada, more than 11,000 ballots still need verification.
Aguilar has urged people to visit the secretary of state’s website to cure their ballots –– a process that gives voters the opportunity to fix any issues in their absentee or mail-in ballots.
Some background: “Curing” is a process in which voters correct problems with their mail ballot, ensuring that it gets counted. This can mean validating that a ballot is truly from them by adding a missing signature, or by addressing signature-match issues.
Election officials stress that voters can still cast their ballots if they are in line before 7 p.m. local time. Mail-in ballots can also still be counted if they arrive before November 9, so long as they are postmarked by November 5.
The Trump campaign is feeling increasingly optimistic
People inside Donald Trump’s campaign are feeling increasingly optimistic as the initial numbers roll in Tuesday night.
That optimism is being boosted by results in Virginia and Iowa, which appeared to prove wrong a poll that sent a shockwave through the campaign Saturday night.
Trump’s convention center is cheering loudly with every call in his favor and several partygoers from the Mar-a-Lago event in Florida are starting to filter in.
It remains to be seen if — and when — Trump will come over.
Pennsylvania secretary of state says Cambria County is conducting hand count after software issue at precinct
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt said Cambria County is conducting a hand count of ballots that could not be scanned at the precinct earlier today due to a software issue, adding that process can “take some time.”
The hand-count is typically done by “partisan teams of two” who work together, and the process would be open to observation by candidates and authorized representatives, Schmidt said.
Voting time was extended in Cambria County after a “software malfunction” disrupted voters’ abilities to scan their ballots, the Office of County Commissioners said. The county’s top election official, Scott Hunt, told CNN earlier Tuesday the malfunction was caused by a printing error, and new ballots are on their way to polling places. The ballots that were already cast but could not be read by the machine will be hand-counted, he said.
Meanwhile, at least 41 counties have begun reporting their unofficial results to the department of state, according to Schmidt.
As of 8:15 p.m. ET, 87% of nearly 2.2 million mail-in ballots had been returned, Schmidt said, adding that number will increase because mail ballots could be returned until 8pm. Schmidt also told reporters his office should know by early Wednesday morning the total number of mail ballots returned to counties, adding those numbers will not include overseas and military ballots.
Schmidt said the number of mail-in ballots is lower this year compared to 2020, noting:
Schmidt said earlier said the number of mail-in votes in 2020 was about 2.5 million.
Pennsylvania election officials said previously they had expected fewer mail-in ballots compared to 2024.
CNN Projection: Trump wins Kansas
Former President Donald Trump will win Kansas, CNN projects.
There are six electoral votes at stake in Kansas. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
CNN Projection: Trump wins Iowa
Former President Donald Trump will win Iowa, CNN projects.
There are six electoral votes at stake in Iowa. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
Logjams may cause brief delays in North Carolina’s election data appearing online, official says
There may be some “logjams” that cause brief delays in North Carolina election data appearing online, because so many counties will be sharing vast amounts of data around the same time, according to Patrick Gannon, spokesperson for the State Board of Elections.
Kristin Mavromatis, a spokesperson for the elections board in Mecklenburg County, home to Charlotte, said her county has results from more than 110 of 195 precincts in as well as early-vote results “but the state site is not updating.”
Danner McCulloh, a spokesperson for the elections board in Wake County, home to Raleigh, said they’re getting results out as fast as possible “but there may be a delay when it actually displays.”
McCulloh the county has received results from about half of its precincts and is uploading them.
Arizona will be the ultimate test of Trump’s risky ground game strategy
Donald Trump’s campaign took a different and risky approach to 2024 that relied heavily on wealthy conservative groups for data, infrastructure and significant bank accounts to help the former president find a pathway to 270 electoral votes.
Of those groups, perhaps one of the most important, is Turning Point Action, helmed by Trump loyalist Charlie Kirk and based in Arizona.
TPA — an affiliate of Turning Point USA — spent tens of millions in the state on a get-out-the-vote effort, while Trump’s actual campaign left most of the heavy lifting to them. The “Chase the Vote” program has built out an infrastructure in the state centered around “relational organizing,” a form of community organizing that requires hired “ballot chasers,” full-time staff who are trained to build relationships with specific members of the community and ensure they vote in the upcoming election.
Ballot chasers were hired locally and given a list of 400 to 600 of these voters that they are responsible for getting to the polls this cycle however they can, within the laws of the state — including driving them to cast their ballots, helping mail their ballots and encouraging early voting.
The approach of relying so heavily on outside groups has been untested — until tonight. If it is successful, the campaign will take a victory lap after months of batting away criticism from both Republican and Democratic operatives that this strategy was too risky and unlikely to work.
Early reactions to what we know about the US presidential election results
There are still many ballots to count across the country and polls are still open in a few western states. Analysts and insiders are reacting to some of the early projections of the presidential election.
Here’s what they’re saying:
“No surprises”: CNN’s Chris Wallace said that there have been “no surprises” or states that have flipped parties. He said the projected electoral vote counts that we’re seeing now are consistent with how the presidential race has been called in past elections. “All the states that [Donald] Trump won in that he’s won tonight are states that he won in 2020,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “All the states that [Kamala] Harris won are states that [Joe] Biden won in 2020. There’s been no swing state that has been flipped yet.”
Increasing signs of concern for Virginia: Two attendees of a private event with many of Harris’ biggest donors at Washington DC’s Conrad Hotel are showing increasing signs of concern at some of Trump’s strength in Virginia and other places on the map. The race in the key state has been nearly neck-and-neck, but has not yet been projected.
Trump senior advisers tout Latino voter support: Senior advisers to Trump are touting the number of Latino voters breaking for Trump, particularly Latino men. One of their major efforts this cycle was chipping away at the traditionally democratic voting bloc, with a focus on men. While Republicans don’t think they will win over Latinos as a whole, they believe that in a race where every vote counts, if they are outperforming Trump in 2020 and 2016 with Latino men, it could give him a very important edge. In one example, Trump’s team believes Latino voters could help him win the critical state of Nevada.
Huge batch of votes will be posted soon in battleground Georgia
A large tranche of about 320,000 votes will soon be reported in Gwinnett County, Georgia, a crucial swing state, the elections supervisor in that county told CNN.
The votes represent both absentee and mail-in ballots, Gwinnett County elections supervisor Zach Manifold said.
“We have uploaded it to the state, so they’re just going through it, and it should be up here in a few minutes,” Manifold said.
Manifold said it is taking longer for the votes to be recorded than it usually does.
“It usually isn’t that slow. It was just literally, kind of excruciatingly slow,” he said.
Trump’s strategy in Nevada: Win over Latinos and rank-and-file union members
Former President Donald Trump’s team believes that if they can win Nevada, it will be due to Latino voters and rank-and-file union members.
The Trump campaign launched the “Latino Americans for Trump” coalition as it looked to increase its outreach to Hispanic voters ahead of the election. The decision to launch the new program in Nevada was no coincidence. Latino voters make up a sizable portion of the electorate, and the campaign believed siphoning away some of them from Vice President Kamala Harris could help deliver Trump the critical battleground state — and potentially the White House.
Nevada has backed the Democratic nominee for president in four consecutive elections, but Joe Biden carried it by just 2 points in 2020.
The campaign also “infiltrated” the Culinary Workers Union, which has traditionally worked closely with Democrats as part of a massive get-out-the-vote operation crafted by late Nevada Sen. Harry Reid. While they steered clear of union leadership, campaign representatives held meetings with and had regular discussions with rank-and-file members in an effort to chip away at the voting bloc.
One of Trump’s only new proposals this cycle, eliminating taxes on tips, was announced during a campaign rally in Las Vegas in an effort to win over Nevada voters due to its sizable number of service industry workers.
Despite close race in Georgia, Trump and Gov. Kemp haven’t spoken in a month
Former President Donald Trump is watching the Georgia returns from Mar-a-Lago in Florida as Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp watches from the governor’s mansion in Atlanta.
But despite both having a vested interest in a GOP victory in the state, the two men have not spoken in a month, a person familiar tells CNN.
Trump was in the state for a storm briefing last month, but he and Kemp spoke only briefly and never appeared together on the campaign trail otherwise.
CNN Projection: Trump wins Ohio
Former President Donald Trump will win Ohio, CNN projects.
There are 17 electoral votes at stake in Ohio. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Once the nation’s quintessential battleground state, Ohio is now solidly in the Republican column. Trump won Ohio in 2016 and 2020 by similar margins.
President Joe Biden performed marginally better than Hillary Clinton in Columbus and Cincinnati but performed worse in Cleveland.
The blue-collar coalition that President Barack Obama put together in northeast Ohio slipped away from Democrats – Trump flipped Mahoning County and boosted his margins in Trumbull and Portage counties. All these places voted for Obama twice in 2008 and 2012.
Magic Wall analysis: Georgia in 2020 and now
With former President Donald Trump currently leading in Georgia as of 10 p.m. ET with 51.8% of the vote to Vice President Kamala Harris’ 47.2%, with 81% of votes counted, there could be a slow shift blue over the course of the night and morning if 2020 serves as any indication, according to an on-air analysis from CNN’s John King.
In 2020, at 9 p.m. ET on election night in Georgia, Trump led by just over 240,000 votes and more than 15 points. By 12:00 a.m. Wednesday, Trump was still up by nearly 10 points. But 12 hours later, at noon that same day, Biden began chipping away at Trump’s lead as the state counted mail-in ballots, with the Republican nominee leading by just over 2 points.
By Friday, Biden had taken a razor-thin lead of only a couple thousand votes, which grew slightly to .1 point when the race was called for Biden on Saturday. After a final count, Biden had won the state by 11,779 votes and .3 points.
That does not mean Harris will take Georgia, King said, but “it just means that she can. It means that there’s still math out there to do it.”
King also pointed out that votes will be counted quicker this year than four years ago.
CNN Projection: Trump wins Mississippi
Former President Donald Trump will win Mississippi, CNN projects.
There are six electoral votes at stake in Mississippi. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
CNN Projection: Harris wins Colorado
Vice President Kamala Harris will win Colorado, CNN projects.
There are 10 electoral votes at stake in Colorado. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: President Joe Biden carried the state and won the general election.
Milwaukee finishes recounting 30,000 absentee ballots as counting proceeds swiftly
Milwaukee has counted more than 63,000 out of about 107,000 absentee ballots, officials announced just after 8:30 p.m. CT – making faster progress after an error in setting up tabulator machines required a recount of about 30,000 ballots.
The city redid all of those 30,000 ballots, and has been progressing swiftly since then, city spokesperson Jeff Fleming said, while declining to share a specific estimate of when the count will wrap up.
Despite the swift recount, Republicans are already raising concerns about the snafu and demanding answers from Milwaukee.
Sen. Ron Johnson and Wisconsin GOP chair Brian Schimming visited the city’s central count as election observers and spoke with the city’s chief elections official.
Wearing a neon green “election observer” sticker and trailed by a bevy of reporters and Republican election observers, Johnson walked around the hangar-like counting center, looking at the machines and watching the vote count take place.
After his time at the count center, Johnson told reporters that he had concerns about the validity of the count.
Johnson said the city should be able to provide him videos of the count and the results of the initial tabulation of those 30,000 ballots, Johnson said. “If we don’t have that, I get very, very suspicious.”
In an exchange that lasted several minutes, Johnson told Milwaukee Election Commission executive director Paulina Gutierrez to preserve all surveillance videos of the count and all records about the vote totals from the first tally of the roughly 30,000 ballots.
When Johnson asked to see one of the tabulators, she responded, “knock yourself out.”
Some Nevada polling places have hours-long wait as polls are closing
Multiple polling places in Nevada had waits of over an hour as polls were scheduled to close at 10 p.m. ET, according to election officials in the state.
Voters who are in line by the time polls are scheduled to close will be able to vote, despite the long wait time. In Nevada, no election results will be published until all polling places have officially closed.
There are nine polling places with over an hour’s wait in Washoe County, according to the county communications manager Bethany Drysdale. In Nye County, a county clerk says the estimated line is two and a half hours for at least one polling place.
CNN Projection: Trump wins Montana
Former President Donald Trump will win Montana, CNN projects.
There are four electoral votes at stake in Montana. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
The last Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state was Bill Clinton in 1992.
CNN Projection: Trump wins Utah
Former President Donald Trump will win Utah, CNN projects.
There are six electoral votes at stake in Utah. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
It is 10 p.m. ET and polls are closing in battleground Nevada, as well as Montana and Utah
It is 10 p.m. ET and polls are closing in the key battleground state of Nevada, as well as Montana and Utah.
These are the electoral votes at stake in each state:
- Montana: 4
- Nevada: 6
- Utah: 6
The presidential candidates need at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
More on the political landscape in Nevada: While Republicans haven’t won Nevada since 2004, this could be the year that breaks the trend. Nevada moved to the right relative to the nation in 2020: even as President Joe Biden won the national popular vote by more than Hillary Clinton had four years earlier, the Silver State’s margin stayed virtually identical.
Nevada, with its large tourism industry, was hit especially hard by the Covid pandemic, and the state’s large population of service workers still struggles with high prices. Perhaps the biggest issue that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump agree on, ending taxes on tips, is especially important here.
Latinos are a critical voting group in Nevada, and they made up 17% of the 2020 electorate, according to the CNN exit poll. Reflective of his performance overall, Biden won 61% of the Latino vote — a similar showing to Clinton’s. In 2012, when Obama won the state by almost seven percentage points, he won 71% of Latino voters.
How vote counting is going in some of Georgia’s largest counties
Georgia is a key state in the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. It first took center stage in 2020, flipping blue for the first time in nearly 30 years when Joe Biden won it by just more than 11,000 votes
Key suburban counties in and around the metro Atlanta area like Cobb, Dekalb, Gwinnett and Fulton counties will still be ones to watch this cycle: all of them went for Joe Biden in 2020.
Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for Georgia’ secretary of state’s office, told CNN there are about 1.5 million outstanding votes statewide.
Here’s where things stand in the vote counting process in some of Georgia’s largest counties:
Fulton County, state’s most populous and home to Atlanta:
- An estimated 80% of the votes have been reported as of about 10 p.m. ET.
DeKalb County, large county which also includes parts of Atlanta:
- About 80% of votes are in right now. Most of those (about 79.4%) reported so far are for Harris.
- A federal judge on Tuesday said he would not order several Georgia counties — including DeKalb and Cobb Counties — to reject absentee ballots that were hand-delivered to polling places over the weekend, despite Republican allegations that those ballots were cast improperly.
Gwinnett County, large suburban Atlanta county:
- Only about 16% of the vote is in as of just after 10 p.m. ET.
- Issues with the adjudication software that certifies write-in votes are expected to be resolved soon, County Elections Supervisor Zach Manifold told CNN.
Cobb County, large suburban Atlanta county:
- 82% of the vote has been reported so far.
- About 403,300 voters cast their ballots — about 85,400 of them voted on Election Day, the county said on Facebook.
Two Pennsylvania polling places to stay open until 10 p.m. to accommodate voters at locations affected by bomb threat
Two polling places near the West Chester, Pennsylvania, locations evacuated due to a bomb threat will remain open until 10 p.m. to accommodate voters who are being redirected, according to Josh Maxwell, chair of the Chester County Board of Elections.
A Chester County court order allows the affected voters to fill out provisional ballots at the alternative locations and, as long as they are in line by 10 p.m. ET, will be permitted to vote even after 10 p.m. ET if necessary.
After one bomb threat prompted the evacuation of a building in West Chester, where voting services are located, voters were being redirected to nearby locations, according to Josh Maxwell, chair of the Chester County Board of Elections.
It’s just one of a string of reported bomb threats in multiple swing states on Election Day. Georgia and Arizona have also reported non-credible bomb threats, with officials there saying they suspect the threats originated from Russia.
CNN Projection: Trump wins Louisiana
Former President Donald Trump will win Louisiana, CNN projects.
There are eight electoral votes at stake in Louisiana. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
Watchdog reports relatively smooth election nationally, but cautions many races won’t be called tonight
Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog group monitoring elections across the country, said at a press briefing that elections ran “relatively smoothly” on Tuesday, but cautioned that most of the close races won’t be called tonight – and it may take days to count the votes.
“We need to prepare the public of this and that it is not abnormal – this only became abnormal when people made claims that everything should be available on election nights,” said Virginia Solomón, the president and CEO of Common Cause.
The organization briefed reporters on the election process in the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona and Georgia, and in two of the largest states: Texas and California.
According to Common Cause, issues voters encountered Tuesday included:
- Long lines with wait times ranging from 90 minutes to several hours. Long lines plagued districts with large populations of young college students and on university campuses.
- Issues with printed ballots and scanners, which led to several counties extending their polling hours.
- Some voter intimidation and agitation tactics in California and Texas, including asking voters for voter IDs, disrupting and agitating voters waiting in lines and improper electioneering in Michigan.
Harris says she’s thinking of her mother on Election Day
Vice President Kamala Harris reflected on her family in the closing hours of Election Day, telling a radio station in Milwaukee she was thinking about her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris.
Harris was raised primarily by her mother — a breast cancer researcher who died in 2009. She spoke about her at length as she accepted the Democratic nomination this summer.
Harris was asked to respond to voters who aren’t willing to support a woman for the nation’s highest office, and she pointed to her credentials.
“I have been vice president for four years, where I’ve met with over 150 world leaders, many of them multiple times. I’ve negotiated agreements between the United States and our allies around the globe. I have spent countless hours in the Situation Room, speaking with and working with the heads of our military and our intelligence community,” she said, going on to detail her career as a prosecutor.
Harris also encouraged listeners to “please get out and vote.”
It’s past 9:30 p.m. ET. Here’s what to know about the last few hours of voting across the US
In multiple swing states, a string of reported bomb threats was received, causing delays.
The FBI is engaged with local law enforcement and officials in four states, a law enforcement official told CNN. The states that have received these threats — Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia — evacuated polling places in the wake of the threats, some of which the FBI previously confirmed originated from Russian email domains and deemed non-credible.
Pennsylvania: A threat prompted the evacuation of a government building in West Chester, where voting services are located, according to Josh Maxwell, chair of the Chester County Board of Elections. The building was being searched by dogs and would be back in service shortly if nothing is found, Maxwell said in a social media post.
Separately, a Pennsylvania judge extended voting in Clearfield County until 9 p.m. ET following a bomb threat at the Clearfield County Administrative Building where votes were being cast.
Clearfield County is northeast of Pittsburgh.
Michigan and Georgia: Several bomb threats at a few Michigan and Georgia polling places caused delays in the vote as security officials cleared the locations. Twelve voting locations in Georgia had their hours extended due to bomb threats, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, as well as three additional polling locations due to “normal causes.”
Wisconsin also received threats apparently aimed at disrupting voting, a US official said.
Arizona’s Navajo County also received “unsubstantiated” bomb threats at four locations, and state officials have “reason to believe” that the threats originated in Russia, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said Tuesday afternoon.
This post has been updated with additional reporting.
The mood at Harris’ Howard University gathering remains upbeat
The mood remains upbeat and festive, with dancing, cheering and revelry at Howard University, where Kamala Harris’ campaign is holding an Election Night celebration for supporters.
Not far away in downtown Washington D.C., many of Harris’ biggest donors are gathering for a private event at the Conrad Hotel, where the mood is far more measured, two attendees said, with increasing signs of concern at some of Donald Trump’s strength in Virginia and other places on the map.
While the Harris campaign always said Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin offered “the most straightforward path” to winning 270 electoral votes, the reality of that is causing some angst among loyalists who had hoped for a sweep of all battlegrounds.
Trump campaign feels confidence boost from Virginia
The Trump campaign is feeling a new boost of confidence as they watch the numbers roll in from Virginia tonight, a person familiar says. But there is no celebrating yet as they are still watching very closely in Pennsylvania and Michigan.
CNN reported earlier that Trump briefly spoke to supporters tonight who are watching the election results roll in from his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, people familiar tell CNN.
This post has been updated with more reporting on the Trump campaign.
Harris still “very likely” to speak tonight
Regardless of whether there is an outcome to the presidential race, a senior Harris aide told CNN she is still “very likely” to address her supporters in Washington, DC.
The mood at tonight’s election watch party is more of a block party, with the campaign only periodically projecting election results to those gathered. Harris’ campaign has leaned heavily into the legacy of her HBCU alma mater with the pre-program featuring Howard students and organizations.
FBI engaged with states that received bomb threats at election locations
The FBI is engaged with local law enforcement and officials in four states who have received bomb threats to polling and election related locations, a law enforcement official told CNN.
The states that have received these threats — Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia —evacuated polling places in the wake of the threats, some of which the FBI previously confirmed originated from Russian email domains and deemed non-credible.
CNN Projection: Harris wins New York
Vice President Kamala Harris will win New York, CNN projects.
There are 28 electoral votes at stake in New York. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: President Joe Biden carried the state and won the general election.
Georgia’s Gwinnett County experiencing significant delays in reporting results due to “adjudication software”
According to a Gwinnett County official, the Georgia county is still experiencing significant delays in reporting their results due to “adjudication software” for certifying write-in votes.
The county in the key battleground state saw a total of 322,000 pre-election ballots including in-person and mail-in ballots and around 96,000 in-person votes cast today as of 6:30 p.m. local time and the final number is likely to be larger.
While 80-90% of the precincts have come in, the county can’t post the results until the write-in certification is completed. County officials were hoping to get the majority of the early ballots posted by 8:30 p.m. local time but they are further delayed.
Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for Georgia’s secretary of state office, told CNN there are about 1.5 million outstanding votes statewide.
Key things to know about the 7 battleground states that could determine who wins the election
As results continue to come in on election night, all eyes are on seven states that are believed to be pivotal this election as they could conceivably be won by either candidate.
The campaigns largely focused their time and energy energy in these areas. They can be broken up into two general categories:
3 Midwestern battlegrounds, aka “the blue wall” – These are the manufacturing and union-heavy states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. They used to be more reliably Democratic but have shifted in recent years as their populations have changed and as former President Donald Trump has appealed to White voters without a college degree.
When Trump won the White House in 2016, he won all three. When President Joe Biden won in 2020, he won all three. If Vice President Kamala Harris wins all three this year, she will likely have the electoral votes to be president. But polls suggest close races in all three. Turnout will be key, which for Harris means appealing to suburban women and Black voters. All three states have urban centers.
The blue wall states usually vote the same way. The last time they did not all go to the same candidate was in 1988 – notably also a year when California was red and West Virginia was blue. In those eight elections since 1988, the only time the blue wall states went to a Republican was in 2016, when they were won by Trump.
4 Sun Belt battlegrounds – These states with growing populations include Arizona and Nevada in the West and North Carolina and Georgia in the East. Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina used to be more reliably Republican. Trump won North Carolina twice, but the margins were close in 2020. The last Democrat to win there was Barack Obama in 2008. Biden was the first Democrat to win Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992 and Arizona since Clinton in 1996.
Arizona judge rules to keep Arizona’s Apache County open until 9 p.m. local time after earlier voting issues
An Arizona state judge has ruled that nine polling locations in Apache County must stay open until 9 p.m. local time after voting machine and printer issues at numerous locations earlier in the day.
The nine locations whose hours will be extended are Lukachukai, Lupton, Rock Point, Dennehotso, Chinle, Cottonwood, Wheatfields, Fort Defiance and St. Michaels, according to a court order.
The extended voting hours may mean voters have to fill out provisional ballots, according to Judge Michael Latham, who issued the ruling. According to audio of the Tuesday night hearing obtained by CNN, Latham said votes “need to be treated as a provisional ballot” and “be sequestered.”
The Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission filed a complaint in state court to keep polls there open two more hours, the commission’s executive director Leonard Gorman told CNN earlier Tuesday. This comes after multiple polling locations reported voting machines and printers failing earlier that day.
Buu Nygren, the president of Navajo Nation, said Tuesday he’s “very disappointed” after Apache County experienced the technical issues. He expressed concerns about the long commutes over vast and sometimes rough terrain that Navajo voters made this morning to vote, only to be told to come back later.
Some context: Apache County was one of the five counties in Arizona that voted for President Joe Biden in 2020, when Biden narrowly won the state by fewer than 11,000 votes. Apache County’s overall turnout in 2020 roughly doubled the turnout compared from 2016.
CNN Projection: Harris wins Illinois
Vice President Kamala Harris will win Illinois, CNN projects.
There are 19 electoral votes at stake in Illinois. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: President Joe Biden carried the state and won the general election.
CNN Projection: Harris wins Rhode Island
Vice President Kamala Harris will win Rhode Island, CNN projects.
There are four electoral votes at stake in Rhode Island. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: President Joe Biden carried the state and won the general election.
Initial CNN Exit Poll: Harris currently carrying Latino voters by narrower margin than Biden
Latino voters are breaking for Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump, but it’s by a narrower margin than for past Democratic candidates, according to the latest results from CNN’s national exit poll of voters in this year’s election.
Those results currently show Harris taking slightly more than half of support among Latino voters nationally. In 2020, Biden won about 65% of support among Latino voters.
The shift appears particularly stark among Latino men. The exit poll currently finds Trump taking about 54% support among that group, which Biden won in 2020. Roughly 6 in 10 Latinas say they voted for Harris, which would be a downtick from the close to 7 in 10 who backed Biden four years ago.
CNN’s exit polls for the 2024 general election include interviews with thousands of voters, both those who cast a ballot on Election Day and those who voted early or absentee. That scope makes them a powerful tool for understanding the demographic profile and political views of voters in this year’s election. And their findings will eventually be weighted against the ultimate benchmark: the results of the elections themselves. Even so, exit polls are still polls, with margins for error — which means they’re most useful when treated as estimates, rather than precise measurements. That’s particularly true when the exit poll numbers haven’t yet been adjusted to match final election results.
CNN Exit Polls are a combination of in-person interviews with Election Day voters and in-person interviews, telephone and online polls measuring the views of early and absentee by-mail voters. They were conducted by Edison Research on behalf of the National Election Pool. In-person interviews on Election Day were conducted at a random sample of 279 polling locations. The results also include interviews with early and absentee voters conducted between October 24 and November 2, in person at 27 early voting locations, by phone or online. Results for the full sample of 20,934 respondents have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.
It’s just after 9 p.m. ET. This is where the race to 270 stands
Former President Donald Trump has so far swept reliable states and Vice President Kamala Harris has picked up blue strongholds, based on CNN’s current projections. Battleground states remain too early to call.
Harris has 30 electoral votes while Trump has 154 electoral votes.
Here’s the latest look at where things stand:
CNN Projection: Harris wins Delaware
Vice President Kamala Harris will win Delaware, CNN projects.
There are three electoral votes at stake in Delaware. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: President Joe Biden carried the state and won the general election.
Here’s a look inside Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago watch party
Donald Trump briefly spoke to supporters who are watching the election results roll in from his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, people familiar told CNN. Wearing his signature red tie and dark suit, Trump spoke to people gathered in one of the rooms at the beachside club while standing underneath a glittering chandelier and giant television screen.
He’s surrounded by donors, family and friends — but also asking for constant updates from his campaign team. Trump’s team is also carefully watching the reporting on exit polls for data on how Latino voters are breaking.
Senior advisers are touting the number of Latino voters breaking for Trump, particularly Latino men. One of their major efforts this cycle was chipping away at the traditionally democratic voting bloc, with a focus on men.
While Republicans don’t think they will win over Latinos as a whole, they believe that in a race where every vote counts, if they are outperforming Trump in 2020 and 2016 with Latino men, it could give him a very important edge. In one example, Trump’s team believes Latino voters could help him win the critical state of Nevada this cycle.
Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, is at the watch party, as well as those responsible for the transition if he wins: Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon. David Sacks, Vivek Ramaswamy and Steve Wynn were also spotted.
Tucker Carlson is broadcasting a live streaming show from the one of the club’s wood-paneled rooms, interviewing a slew of Trump allies and surrogates.
Harris is watching returns as she braces for a tough fight for the “blue wall” states, aides say
Vice President Kamala Harris is watching the returns at the Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, and having a family dinner, aides said, even as she works the phones and is in constant contact with her campaign’s war room in Wilmington.
Harris remains upbeat and optimistic, particularly in the turnout reports across the “blue wall,” but the campaign is also bracing for a long night ahead.
As Nebraska polls close, the Harris campaign is confident of the blue dot in the state’s second congressional district. “Now, we just need the blue wall to go with it,” a top Democratic adviser to the campaign tells CNN.
FBI, state officials investigating multiple bomb threats to polling places as voting wraps up in Pennsylvania
Multiple bomb threats have been made to polling locations and municipal buildings across Pennsylvania in the last hour, but so far there is no credible threat to the public, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Tuesday night.
Pennsylvania state officials are investigating with the FBI, Shapiro said at a news conference.
After one bomb threat prompted the evacuation of a building in West Chester, where voting services are located, voters are being redirected to nearby locations, according to Josh Maxwell, chair of the Chester County Board of Elections.
It’s just one of a string of reported bomb threats in multiple swing states on Election Day. Georgia and Arizona have also reported non-credible bomb threats, with officials there saying they suspect the threats originated from Russia.
The building was being searched by dogs and will be back in service shortly if nothing is found, Maxwell said in another post.
West Chester resident Matt Smitreski, 33, told CNN he arrived at the voter services building late in the day to avoid lines but was temporarily turned away.
“There were a lot of groups of people standing outside. I didn’t think anything of it, so I just walked to the front of the building,” Smitreski said. “The security told me I was unable to enter due to a bomb threat and to stay posted for additional times to come back and vote.”
This post has been updated with details from Gov. Shapiro’s news conference.
Vote totals in Nevada are higher than 2020, secretary of state says
The ballots cast so far in Nevada are higher than the total vote in the 2020 election, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco V. Aguilar told CNN.
The total of early voting and mail-in votes will be the first to be made public when polls close, which is scheduled to be at 7 p.m. local time, but will continue until everyone in line votes, he said.
CNN Projection: Trump wins Wyoming
Former President Donald Trump will win Wyoming, CNN projects.
There are three electoral votes at stake in Wyoming. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
CNN Projection: Trump wins South Dakota
Former President Donald Trump will win South Dakota, CNN projects.
There are three electoral votes at stake in South Dakota. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
CNN Projection: Trump wins North Dakota
Former President Donald Trump will win North Dakota, CNN projects.
There are three electoral votes at stake in North Dakota. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Former President Donald Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
CNN Projection: Trump wins Texas
Former President Donald Trump will win Texas, CNN projects.
There are 40 electoral votes at stake in Texas. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
Republicans have carried Texas in each of the last 11 presidential elections. Trump won Texas by 5.6 percentage points in 2020, the smallest margin of victory for a Republican since 1996.
Judge extends voting in a Pennsylvania county following bomb threat
A Pennsylvania judge extended voting in Clearfield County until 9 p.m. ET following a bomb threat at the Clearfield County Administrative Building where votes were being cast.
Clearfield County is northeast of Pittsburgh.
Polls are closing in 15 states, including the battleground states of Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin
It is 9 p.m. ET, and polls are closing in several states, including in the key battleground states of Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Polls are also closing in Texas and New York, where a large number of electoral votes are up for grabs.
Here is where polls are closing, and the electoral votes at stake in each state:
- Arizona: 11
- Colorado: 10
- Iowa: 6
- Kansas: 6
- Louisiana: 8
- Michigan: 15
- Minnesota: 10
- Nebraska: 5
- New Mexico: 5
- New York: 28
- North Dakota: 3
- South Dakota: 3
- Texas: 40
- Wisconsin: 10
- Wyoming: 3
The presidential candidates need at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
More on the political landscape up of Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin: Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona four years ago was the closest vote margin in the country – 10,457 votes. Four years later, the Grand Canyon State remains a key battleground up and down the ballot.
Biden flipped Michigan after Donald Trump won the state in 2016 as the first Republican to do since 1988. Of the most competitive states, Michigan was the one Biden won most comfortably – by more than 150,000 votes and nearly three percentage points.
In four of the last six presidential elections, Wisconsin has been decided by less than a percentage point on the presidential level. In 2016, Trump won Wisconsin by 0.7 percentage points. In 2020, Joe Biden flipped the state, winning by 0.6 percentage points. Four years later, Kamala Harris and Trump are poised for a photo-finish once again.
Hundreds still in line to vote at Arizona State University minutes before polls close
With minutes left until polls close across the state, hundreds of college students are still waiting in line to vote at Arizona State University’s Tempe campus fitness center, according to Alysa Horton, an ASU student and digital editor in chief at the university’s State Press newspaper.
The line continued to grow in the final hour of voting.
“The line looks like students are determined to get their vote in and they’ll go to any extreme to stay in line,” Horton said. “I saw no one leave the line because of the wait.”
With many students opting to vote on Election Day in person, the line – which at one point consisted of roughly 300 people – extended for less than a quarter of a mile, Horton said.
Nearby, Horton heard a group of “Sun Devils for Harris” campaigners chanting, “If you’re in line, stay in line.”
Meanwhile, supporters and opponents of the Arizona Abortion Access Act displayed signs indicating how they think students should vote on the hot button proposition, Horton said. The act would enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution up to fetal viability, around 22 to 24 weeks into pregnancy.
Official in Detroit suburb picking up memory cards at precincts to try to speed up vote count after long lines
An official in Macomb County, Michigan – a suburb of Detroit and a historic swing county — said he is going with a police escort to pick up memory cards from voting precincts in an effort to speed up vote counting after long lines kept polls open later than expected.
Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini said because lines were very long, they weren’t able to shut down polls at 8 p.m. ET as expected and won’t be able to have results at 9 p.m. ET as they had hoped. Officials in the county are tabulating votes now.
Forlini said there were over 122,000 early votes cast in-person and 182,000 mail-in ballots as of Wednesday.
As Harris aides wait for more returns, focus centers on Pennsylvania
As returns continue to roll in, the picture in battleground states remains opaque even among Harris insiders. But their attention remains focused on positive signs they’re seeing in Pennsylvania, a state that would make their path to 270 electoral votes much easier.
Philadelphia’s Mayor Cherelle Parker told local outlets today that she predicts the city’s turnout for Harris to be between 650,000 and 750,000, which would significantly exceed turnout for Biden in 2020, which was around 600,000 votes. A Parker aide confirmed that prediction to CNN.
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, according to the campaign, the three wards that have the highest concentration of Puerto Rican voters nearly reached their 2020 turnout levels by mid-day today. The campaign is convinced that Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally comments last week, where a comedian described Puerto Rico as a floating pile of garbage, hurt the Trump campaign in this final week. They hope those comments move Puerto Rican voters, who are nearly 400,000 strong in Pennsylvania, toward Harris.
CNN Projection: Trump wins Arkansas
Former President Donald Trump will win Arkansas, CNN projects.
There are six electoral votes at stake in Arkansas. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
CNN Projection: Trump wins South Carolina
Former President Donald Trump will win South Carolina, CNN projects.
There are nine electoral votes at stake in South Carolina. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
Polls are closing across Arkansas
It is 8:30 p.m. ET, and polls are closing in Arkansas, where six electoral votes are at stake.
The presidential candidates need at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
In the 30 years since Bill Clinton’s last term as governor, Arkansas has become a thoroughly Republican state.
Republicans have complete control of state government and make up the entirety of the state’s congressional delegation.
Judge rejects effort to extend voting near Pennsylvania university where lines have been hours long
A judge rejected Democrats’ effort to extend voting near Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, where wait times were hours long.
Democrats asked the judge to extend voting at the Bethlehem Ward 3 polling place until 10 p.m. ET to accommodate for lines they said stretched as long as four hours. They alleged the board of elections didn’t provide enough voting machines or staff at the location.
A judge denied the request and said registered voters in line at 8 p.m. ET will be able to vote.
Lehigh University is in eastern Pennsylvania. Two students told CNN earlier that they waited six hours to vote.
Walz called students in line at Pennsylvania polling location
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called into a polling station in Pennsylvania to speak to students waiting in line to vote this evening, a Harris campaign official told CNN.
Walz spoke via speakerphone to students at the polling location in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, encouraging them to stay in line and thanking them for exercising their right to vote, the official said.
The students, who had been waiting in line for several hours, told Walz they were determined to make their voices heard. They expressed their excitement about participating in this election and encouraged their friends and peers to stay in line and cast their vote, the official said.
Trump supporters at Florida watch party cheer as Sunshine State called for former president
Donald Trump supporters slowly trickling into his West Palm Beach election night watch party seem steeled for a long night and have hardly reacted to the live broadcast of returns displayed on large screens inside the convention center.
That changed, though, when televisions carrying Fox News announced its projection that Trump had won his home state of Florida. The crowd, which includes many locals, broke into cheers and applause.
Trump, who changed his residence from New York to his Florida estate in the closing days of his term in office, has seen the Sunshine State shift from a hard-fought battleground in 2016 and 2020 to an afterthought during his most recent campaign for the White House. In that time, the number of registered Republicans has grown by a million and the party surpassed Democrats in the state for the first time in the state’s modern history.
As it is, neither Trump nor Vice President Kamala Harris committed substantial resources to the state, even as Democrats hoped ballot referendums to expand abortion access and legalize recreational marijuana could draw more left-leaning voters to the polls. In the end, CNN projected Trump had won his adopted home state shortly after polls closed in the Panhandle.
Trump is watching election returns with RFK Jr.
Former President Donald Trump is watching election returns with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — including returns from Wisconsin, where RFK Jr. remains on the ballot, despite Kennedy’s best efforts to remove his name from the battleground state.
Trump’s team is watching Wisconsin closely tonight but not hoping for any hints soon, knowing how long it could take to count there and how close the margin could be.
Remember: The Supreme Court declined last week to let Kennedy withdraw his name from ballots in both Wisconsin and Michigan, battleground states where votes for his now suspended campaign could cut into support for Trump.
Kennedy, who left the presidential race in August and endorsed Trump, urged the Supreme Court in an emergency appeal to force the states to yank his name from the ballots. But state election officials countered that early and absentee voting in the states was already well underway. In other words, they said, it was too late.
CNN’s John Fritze contributed reporting to this post.
FBI warns of fake videos using its insignia to spread falsities about the election
The FBI warned Tuesday evening of three fake messages purporting to be from the bureau that “promote false narratives surrounding the election,” including one video about malfunctioning voting machines.
The bureau did not say who was behind the fake messages, or where they were circulated.
One of the fake videos, the FBI said, claims that the FBI received “9,000 complaints about malfunctioning voting machines” that were submitting votes for a “specific candidate.” The claim mirrors debunked claims circulating last week about machines switching votes.
A second video falsely promoted to be from the FBI and another government agency suggests that schools suspend educational activities through November 11 because “the risk of school shooting and riots has increased significantly” due to the presidential election, the bureau said.
The FBI also warned of a fabricated written statement “warning media and bloggers against publishing information about violence at polling stations” because they “may provoke a spontaneous increase in such incidents.”
Trump tells radio station if he wins Pennsylvania, “we win the whole deal”
Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday night that if he wins Pennsylvania, he wins “the whole deal,” while calling into a Philadelphia radio show and continuing to urge Republican voters to stay in voting lines.
“We win Pennsylvania, we win the whole deal,” Trump told Rich Zeoli Show on Philadelphia’s Talk Radio 1210 WPHT.
From his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, he also called into “The Mark Belling show,” a Wisconsin radio program, earlier on Tuesday, a person familiar said.
He said “the big question” is if he can garner more support in Philadelphia, which has been a Democratic stronghold.
The former president continued urging people to go out and vote during a call to Fox News host Sean Hannity’s radio show Tuesday evening. He told people listening to “immediately hang up the phone and run out and vote. Like, immediately.”
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and Kate Sullivan contributed reporting. This post has been updated with details about Sean Hannity’s show.
It’s past 8 p.m. ET. Catch up on the latest voting updates from all across America
Extensions of voting hours were granted in some communities Tuesday where issues arose that caused some polling stations to close down briefly. Some of those were due to machine malfunctions and others were blamed on non-credible bomb threats from Russian domains.
Georgia: 12 voting locations had their hours extended due to bomb threats, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, as well as three additional polling locations due to “normal causes.”
Arizona: In Apache County, the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission filed a complaint in state court to keep polls there open two more hours, the commission’s executive director Leonard Gorman told CNN. This comes after multiple polling locations reported voting machines and printers failing earlier Tuesday. In Maricopa County, the tabulation of early ballots was slowed due to the fact that the ballots were two pages long, one county official said.
Nevada: Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar created a website for voters to cure their ballots by verifying their signatures before the ballots can be counted, saying the number of outstanding ballots is a concern. Aguilar told CNN his office is seeing a trend of younger voters needing to cure their mail ballots. They are texting the younger voters in part because, he says, young people tend to not answer their phones, making it harder for them to be contacted.
Wisconsin: Milwaukee elections officials decided to re-run about 30,000 absentee ballots through tabulator machines “to ensure the American public that this election is going to be run safe, secure and transparent,” Paulina Gutierrez, the executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, told reporters Tuesday night.
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social page about supposed law enforcement activity in Philadelphia and Detroit. “Philadelphia and Detroit! Heavy Law Enforcement is there!!!” he wrote. Detroit officials said they’re unaware of any new police activity in the city, and the mayor’s office said they don’t know what Trump was referring to. This came after a previous post where he falsely claimed there was “massive cheating” happening in Philadelphia. A bipartisan array of Philadelphia officials has already said Trump’s claims are baseless.
Initial CNN Exit Poll: Large majority of Pennsylvania voters say abortion should be legal in most or all cases
Roughly two-thirds of voters in Pennsylvania say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to the initial results of CNN’s exit poll of voters in the state.
The exit poll also finds that voters in the Keystone State largely support fracking, with about 55% saying they favor its use in the state and fewer than 4 in 10 opposed.
Overall, Pennsylvania voters are split between the economy and the state of democracy as their top issue, with about 3 in 10 choosing each as their top issue, followed by about 15% saying abortion, 12% immigration and fewer than 5% foreign policy.
President Joe Biden’s approval rating in the state stands at about 43%, fairly similar to his overall national numbers with this year’s electorate.
CNN’s exit polls for the 2024 general election include interviews with thousands of voters, both those who cast a ballot on Election Day and those who voted early or absentee. That scope makes them a powerful tool for understanding the demographic profile and political views of voters in this year’s election. And their findings will eventually be weighted against the ultimate benchmark: the results of the elections themselves. Even so, exit polls are still polls, with margins for error — which means they’re most useful when treated as estimates, rather than precise measurements. That’s particularly true for the earliest exit poll numbers, which haven’t yet been adjusted to match final election results.
CNN Exit Polls are a combination of in-person interviews with Election Day voters and in-person interviews, telephone and online polls measuring the views of early and absentee by-mail voters. They were conducted by Edison Research on behalf of the National Election Pool. The Pennsylvania exit poll includes in-person interviews on Election Day conducted at a random sample of 40 polling locations. The results also include interviews with absentee voters conducted between October 24 and October 31 by phone or online. Results for the full sample of 2,793 respondents have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.
North Carolina voters expected to cast more provisional ballots than in 2020 election, election official says
Voters are expected to cast more provisional ballots in the battleground state of North Carolina than in the 2020 election, a state election official told CNN.
Nearly half of the 5,770 voters who used a provisional ballot during early voting did it because of the state’s photo ID requirement, the official said.
The law, which went into effect last year, requires voters in the Tar Heel state to present a photo ID in order to fill out a ballot. Those who do not bring ID are able to vote with a provisional ballot, then either fill out an exception form or return to their local election office with ID for ballot to be approved.
In 2020, 40,767 total voters cast provisional ballots in the state, which delivered former President Donald Trump his narrowest victory of the election cycle.
Harris campaign bracing for weekslong election litigation
Harris campaign officials have suggested that it could take days to declare a winner in the presidential race, but they’re bracing for legal fallout to extend for weeks, regardless of the outcome.
With a margin-of-error race expected to raise the possibility of legal challenges — on top of the groundwork Republicans have been preparing — Harris’ team has told donors to expect “four to six weeks where everyone is suing everybody,” according to a senior financier involved in the conversations.
A second major donor told CNN the campaign suggested it would need to conserve capital — or raise more — to cover hefty legal bills accompanying those defenses.
The Harris campaign’s outside counsel, Dana Remus, said the campaign has attorneys stationed around the country to field challenges for counts, recounts, and audits, all of which she described as “legitimate.”
“The election is decided by the American people, and there is no way to overturn those results,” Remus said this week. “Our institutions won’t allow it, including the Supreme Court.”
CNN Projection: Trump wins Florida
Former President Donald Trump will win Florida, CNN projects.
There are 30 electoral votes at stake in Florida. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
While once a key presidential battleground state with record-close elections, Florida has become a more consistently Republican state in both state and federal elections.
CNN Projection: Trump wins Oklahoma
Former President Donald Trump will win Oklahoma, CNN projects.
There are seven electoral votes at stake in Oklahoma. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election. In 2020, the state gave Trump his fourth-largest margin of victory (behind Wyoming, West Virginia and North Dakota).
CNN Projection: Trump wins Missouri
Former President Donald Trump will win Missouri, CNN projects.
There are 10 electoral votes at stake in Missouri. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
CNN Projection: Trump wins Tennessee
Former President Donald Trump will win Tennessee, CNN projects.
There are 11 electoral votes at stake in Tennessee. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
CNN Projection: Harris wins the District of Columbia
Vice President Kamala Harris will win the District of Columbia, CNN projects.
There are three electoral votes at stake in the District of Columbia. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: The District of Columbia provided Joe Biden with his largest general election margin of victory. He received 92.1% of the vote to former President Donald Trump’s 5.4%.
The 23rd Amendment to the US Constitution, ratified in 1961, gave DC residents the right to vote in presidential elections.
CNN Projection: Harris wins Maryland
Vice President Kamala Harris will win Maryland, CNN projects.
There are 10 electoral votes at stake in Maryland. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: President Joe Biden carried the state and won the general election.
CNN Projection: Trump wins Alabama
Former President Donald Trump will win Alabama, CNN projects.
There are nine electoral votes at stake in Alabama. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
CNN Projection: Harris wins Massachusetts
Vice President Kamala Harris will win Massachusetts, CNN projects.
There are 11 electoral votes at stake in Massachusetts. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: President Joe Biden carried the state and won the general election.
Polls are closing in 16 states, including in battleground Pennsylvania and Florida
It is 8 p.m. ET, and polls are closing in several states, including in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, as well as in Florida, where a large number of electoral votes are at stake.
Here is where polls are closing, and the electoral votes at stake in each state:
- Alabama: 9
- Connecticut: 7
- Delaware: 3
- District of Columbia: 3
- Florida: 30
- Illinois: 19
- Maine: 4
- Maryland: 10
- Massachusetts: 11
- Mississippi: 6
- Missouri: 10
- New Hampshire: 4
- New Jersey: 14
- Oklahoma: 7
- Pennsylvania: 19
- Rhode Island: 4
- Tennessee: 11
The presidential candidates need at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
Why Pennsylvania is key: Pennsylvania is the most important battleground state of the 2024 election. Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have made the commonwealth’s 19 electoral votes central to their respective paths to victory.
In 2016, Trump became the first Republican to win Pennsylvania since George H.W. Bush in 1988, carrying the state by just over 44,000 votes. In 2020, Joe Biden, a Pennsylvania native, flipped the state, winning by just over 80,000 votes.
2 poll workers killed in flooding on Election Day
Two Missouri poll workers were killed Tuesday after severe flooding hit the state overnight, according to a statement from the Wright County Clerk’s Office.
The office is “saddened by the loss of life” that occurred “as a result of swift, high water from the storms that came through the area the night before,” the statement said.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol recovered two drowning victims in Beaver Creek flooding after their vehicles were swept off the road, the agency said in a statement. The victims were identified as a 70-year-old man and a 73-year-old woman.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol confirmed to CNN the victims were the Wright County poll workers.
“They were dedicated citizens who valued fair and honest elections. They will be missed,” the Wright County Clerk’s Office statement said.
“This couple were wonderful people who donated their time to serve their community,” it added.
Harris campaign pointing to high turnout in Philadelphia as it fights for biggest prize on the map
Polls will be closing soon in Pennsylvania, and Kamala Harris’ campaign is pointing to high turnout in Philadelphia. Advisers believe turnout in the city could exceed Joe Biden’s 2020 levels.
Bob Brady, the chair of the Philadelphia Democratic Party, said their projections indicate a turnout of 75% in the city. That compares to a 66% turnout in 2020, Brady said, and could mean 50,000 to 10,000 more votes than in 2020.
To win the state’s 19 electoral votes, Harris needs to drive up turnout in Philadelphia and the collar counties — as well as holding steady across the rest of the state. Pennsylvania is the biggest prize on the map, and the Harris war room is diving into how many voters cast ballots. Advisers are also seeing strength in Pittsburgh.
“This is where the ground game matters,” a senior Democratic adviser in the state said. “There is no biggest test than Pennsylvania.”
By 5:30 p.m., the Harris campaign said it exceeded its 2016 raw turnout — of course that year, Hillary Clinton lost.
But, Brady and other Democratic officials were careful to not project optimism.
“I don’t know until the night’s over,” Brady said. “I don’t want to be surprised.”
Navajo Nation president says he is “very disappointed” after Apache County had technical issues
Buu Nygren, the president of Navajo Nation, said Tuesday he’s “very disappointed” after Apache County experienced technical issues at several of its voting locations.
Apache County was one of the five counties in Arizona that voted for President Joe Biden in 2020, when Biden narrowly won the state by fewer than 11,000 votes. Apache County’s overall turnout in 2020 roughly doubled the turnout compared from 2016.
“We know that in the last election, Navajo really had a say in President Biden’s victory. So it’s kind of ironic to know that technical issues happened in the most Navajo county in the state,” Nygren said.
Nygren expressed concerns about the long commutes over vast and sometimes rough terrain that Navajo voters made this morning to vote, only to be told to come back later. As CNN has reported, Navajo Nation is requesting the county extend its voting hours on Tuesday night to allow people more time to return to voting locations.
“A lot of our elders and our main voters up here travel many distances. Some of them travel on washboard roads where they gotta travel 10 to 15 miles an hour. Some of the roads are muddy. Some have to borrow some gas money or catch a ride with a friend just to make it to the polls,” he said.
Nygren said it’s unclear how many voters were impacted.
“One vote is one vote,” he said. “It’s very important to get people to come out, and it must not have been a good experience for them, for that to happen to them. So it’s just again, overall, they’re disappointed.”
Meanwhile in the Congressional races, Republicans pick up West Virginia’s Senate seat, CNN projects
Republican Jim Justice will win West Virginia’s Senate seat, according to a projection from the CNN Decision Desk.
This is a pickup for Republicans.
Michigan secretary of state is investigating incorrect voting text message from state representative
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is investigating a text message from a local Republican representative that was sent on Tuesday urging voters to incorrectly vote on Wednesday, the day after Election Day.
The text in support of Michigan Republican House Rep. Kathy Schmaltz told voters in Jackson, Michigan, on Tuesday that “polls will open tomorrow at 7:00am,” according to a copy of the message shared with CNN.
Shortly after the message circulated, Michigan Democratic State Sen. Sue Shink filed a complaint with the Secretary of State’s office.
The secretary of state office’s spokesperson Angela Benander told CNN “we have received the complaint and we are investigating.”
Mail-in votes in Washington County, Pennsylvania, expected to be posted shortly after polls close
Mail-in votes for Washington County, Pennsylvania, are expected to be posted shortly after polls close at 8:00 p.m. ET, Washington County Commissioner Nick Sherman told CNN.
More than 33,000 mail-in ballots were sent out in Washington County, and almost 29,000 of those have been received back, which officials have been scanning for the last few hours, he said.
There are a total of 148,820 registered voters in Washington County, which is south of Pittsburgh.
At the two precincts where CNN’s team is located, more than 1,670 voters have cast ballots so far, according to Sherman. There are more than 3,000 voters registered at this location, and officials expect a late surge before polls close.
Some voters who spoke with CNN said they were casting ballots for the first time, and some said it’s likely they would not have voted at all if Pennsylvania wasn’t considered such a tightly contested battleground state.
Detroit officials say they’re unaware of any additional law enforcement activity after Trump post
Officials in Detroit, Michigan, said they’re unaware of any new police activity in the city, after former President Donald Trump posted online about “law enforcement” supposedly heading to the Democratic stronghold.
“We are unaware of any police presence in the city for elections beyond what was outlined in a press conference last Thursday and widely reported nationally,” Matt Friedman, a spokesperson for the Detroit Department of Elections, told CNN.
A spokesman for the Detroit mayor’s office also said they don’t know what Trump was referring to.
Earlier, Trump posted on Truth Social: “Philadelphia and Detroit! Heavy Law Enforcement is there!!!”
This came after a previous post where he falsely claimed there was “massive cheating” happening in Philadelphia. A bipartisan array of Philadelphia officials has already said Trump’s claims are baseless.
Daniel Baxter, the chief operating officer for the city of Detroit’s elections, told CNN that “nothing has changed” in terms of police presence and planning at Huntington Place, the main counting center for absentee ballots downtown. “We’ve been consistent absolutely, no issues,” he said.
Baxter told reporters last week that Detroit has “established and maintained a comprehensive security plan” in partnership with local and federal law enforcement partners, as early voting counting got underway that would “continue through election night to ensure the safety of our election workers and the integrity of the election process.”
Harris campaign deploys celebrities to keep students in line to vote
The Harris campaign is mobilizing celebrities to try and keep college students in line to vote as they wait for hours to cast ballots.
The campaign dispatched actor Paul Rudd to visit students waiting in line in Philadelphia. Others beamed in on FaceTime: Jennifer Garner at Villanova and Josh Gad at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania; Mark Cuban at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, and Demi Lovato at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.
The campaign said they were seeing long lines at all of those sites, along with eight college campuses in Wisconsin that had lines lasting one or two hours.
Initial CNN Exit Poll: North Carolina voters split over whether hurricane aid is going to those who need it
North Carolina voters are close to evenly split on whether federal hurricane aid is going to the people who need it, according to the initial results of CNN’s exit poll of voters in the state.
About 7 in 10 North Carolina voters say they’re dissatisfied or angry with the way things are going in the country. Only about 6% in the Tar Heel State say they’re enthusiastic about the state of things in the country, while more than one-quarter say that they’re angry.
Voters in the state are closely split on their top issue, with about 36% picking the economy and about one-third saying the state of democracy. Fewer picked abortion or immigration, with foreign policy in last place.
President Joe Biden’s approval rating in the state stands at about 42%, similar to the nation as a whole.
CNN’s exit polls for the 2024 general election include interviews with thousands of voters, both those who cast a ballot on Election Day and those who voted early or absentee. That scope makes them a powerful tool for understanding the demographic profile and political views of voters in this year’s election. And their findings will eventually be weighted against the ultimate benchmark: the results of the elections themselves. Even so, exit polls are still polls, with margins for error — which means they’re most useful when treated as estimates, rather than precise measurements. That’s particularly true for the earliest exit poll numbers, which haven’t yet been adjusted to match final election results.
CNN Exit Polls are a combination of in-person interviews with Election Day voters and in-person interviews, telephone and online polls measuring the views of early and absentee by-mail voters. They were conducted by Edison Research on behalf of the National Election Pool. The Georgia exit poll includes in-person interviews on Election Day conducted at a random sample of 40 polling locations. The results also include interviews with early and absentee voters conducted between October 18 and November 1, in person at early voting locations, by phone or online. Results for the full sample of 3,574 respondents have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.
County encompassing Reno, Nevada, sees “very high” Election Day turnout, official says
More than 21,000 people had cast their ballots in person in Washoe County, Nevada — a swing county in a battleground state that encompasses the city of Reno — as of 5:30 p.m. ET (2:30 p.m. local time), an election official said at a news conference.
Andrew McDonald, a deputy registrar of elections, said the county was experiencing “very high turnout” and was “on track to meet the 2020 turnout,” when 83% of registered voters cast ballots.
There are “long lines because people are turning out in record numbers,” McDonald said.
McDonald said there were “very few incidents” of reported misconduct at polling places and “no major incidents, no arrests.”
McDonald did not have a breakdown of the party registration of the voters who had cast their ballots in the first hours of Election Day. But a breakdown on a county website showed that, as of 6 p.m. ET (3 p.m. local time), 7,825 registered Republicans, 5,696 registered Democrats and 11,192 voters whose registration was not identified had cast ballots, for a total of 24,713 voters.
The turnout figures will be updated later in the evening, McDonald said.
CNN Projection: Trump wins West Virginia
Former President Donald Trump will win West Virginia, CNN projects.
There are four electoral votes at stake in West Virginia. It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election.
Who won in 2020: Trump carried the state, and President Joe Biden won the general election.
Source: CNN Politics