Read our dispatch from inside Harris’s election night party

Rory Stewart, one of the few British pundits who predicted that the polls were wrong and Harris was on course for victory, has admitted he was wrong and called a Trump presidency “heartbreaking”.

Keiran Southern reporting

As the dust settles on what is quickly emerging as a comprehensive victory for Donald Trump, early indications suggest he made significant inroads with minority voters.

Hispanic men supported Trump over Harris by a ten-point margin on election day, according to an NBC News exit poll.

He received 54 per cent of votes from Hispanic men, it is estimated. Joe Biden won the same demographic by 23 points in 2020.

An Associated Press exit poll found that Harris suffered a drop in black support, with eight in ten black voters backing the vice-president — down from the roughly nine in ten who went for Biden four years ago.

Trump fared better with young voters than he did in 2020. The AP found that more than four in ten voters under 30 backed Trump, up from about a third in the last election.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri has said Trump will be tested on his statements that he can stop the war in the Middle East within hours as US president. “We urge Trump to learn from (President Joe) Biden’s mistakes,” Abu Zuhri told Reuters.

Marc Bennetts reporting

Russia’s former president, Dmitry Medvedev, said that Trump’s return to the White House would probably be bad news for Ukraine’s bid to hold back Russia’s invading army. “Trump has one useful quality for us: as a businessman to the core, he mortally dislikes spending money on various hangers-on and stupid hanger-on allies, on bad charity projects and on voracious international organisations,” he wrote on Telegram.

Trump has pledged to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours by forcing President Putin and President Zelensky to “make a deal”. The Kremlin is yet to comment.

David Lammy, Britain’s foreign secretary, who once called Trump a “liar and a coward”, has congratulated the president-elect for his election.

President Zelensky of Ukraine, who will be looking at Trump’s election with alarm following his comments on the country’s war with Russia during the campaign, also congratulated the new president.

“I appreciate President Trump’s commitment to the “peace through strength” approach in global affairs. This is exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer. I am hopeful that we will put it into action together.

“We look forward to an era of a strong United States of America under President Trump’s decisive leadership. We rely on continued strong bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States.”

Trump has promised to “end the war in 24 hours” without giving many details of how this might be achieved. He has regularly blasted the Democrats for funding a conflict with Russia which does not benefits American voters.

JD Vance has said that Trump’s plan includes making the current demarcation line between the two countries a “demilitarised zone”.

• Ukraine watches nervously as race for White House reaches climax

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, congratulated Trump calling it “history’s greatest comeback” and “a powerful recommitment” to their countries’ alliance.

“Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback! Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America. This is a huge victory!” said Netanyahu in a statement issued by his office.

Sir Keir Starmer has congratulated Trump, acknowledging his victory and reaffirming Britain’s commitment to the “special relationship”. The prime minister said: “Congratulations president-elect Trump on your historic election victory. I look forward to working with you in the years ahead. As the closest of allies, we stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of our shared values of freedom, democracy and enterprise.

“From growth and security to innovation and tech, I know that the UK-US special relationship will continue to prosper on both sides of the Atlantic for years to come.”

Trump could soon add another six electoral college votes to his pile. Nevada, one of the seven swing states, is leaning towards Trump with 74 per cent of votes counted. Trump is leading Harris by 568,000 to 514,000.

Trump issued a plea for unity and said, “we have to put our country first”.

“Success will bring us together,” he added.

Trump finished his speech and basked in the adoration of his audience while YMCA by the Village People played. The song has become a hallmark of Trump’s rallies.

Trump touted the diverse coalition that put him back in the White House, noting the support of black, Muslim and Hispanic Americans. He said his victory was a “historic realignment uniting citizens of all backgrounds around a common core of common sense”.

“This campaign has been so historic in so many ways, we have built the biggest, the most broadest, the most unified coalition,” he added.

After Trump thanked Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, the advisers who masterminded his campaign, the crowd began to chant Musk’s name. Trump responded by saying “We have a new star”, before repeating a story about being impressed by watching one of Musk’s rocket launches.

The Tesla billionaire has become a prominent supporter of Trump’s and has thrown his financial support behind his presidential campaign.

Trump turned to JD Vance, his running-mate, and praised his “feisty” attitude. Throughout the campaign Vance has sparred with cable news journalists.

He is happy to “go into the enemy camp”, Trump said, explaining he meant “certain networks” including CNN and MSNBC. Vance “obliterates them”, he said.

Vance then delivered remarks to the audience, thanking Trump for choosing him as his running mate and telling the crowd: “We just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America”.

• JD Vance: Trump’s running-mate who once called him ‘America’s Hitler’

Melania and Barron Trump

CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

Trump watched by JD Vance, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump

CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

Trump praised Melania, the former and future first lady, who was beaming alongside him.

He planted a kiss on his wife’s cheek and said she “worked very hard to help people”.

Trump thanked his “amazing children” who were also on stage.

• Read more: Who’s who in the Trump family tree

Donald Trump hailed his “incredible movement” after sealing a return to the White House. To chants of “USA, USA, USA”, Trump took to the stage surrounded by his friends, family and political allies.

He said his movement was going to “reach a new level of importance” and promised to heal the country. Trump said he will fix the border, an issue that more than any other has propelled his rise.
“This will be the golden age of America,” he said, hailing a “magnificent victory for the American people”.

Pennsylvania, for so long the state that many felt could determine the outcome of the 2024 election, has backed Donald Trump to be the next president.

The Associated Press has called the state’s 19 electoral college votes for the former president.

Pennsylvania was always considered to be the key to the White House for both candidates and now that it has been flipped red by Trump, his path back to office is all but guaranteed.

Kamala Harris needed to generate big wins in the state’s two big cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but failed to secure enough support.

It appears that Latino voters have been key to Trump’s win. According to a NBC News exit poll, 41 per cent of Latinos backed Trump last night, a huge jump on the 27 per cent he won four years ago.

From secret voters who helped Trump in Georgia to the importance of abortion rights in Florida, here are our writers’ main takeaways.

Louise Callaghan in Florida

The shouts of joy rise in a wave at the convention centre in West Palm Beach as Fox News calls the race. They predict that Donald Trump will be the 47th president of the United States. The Associated Press has not yet called the remaining swing states for Trump yet.

A woman in her twenties in a Maga hat next to me is sobbing with joy.

For once, maybe the polls got it right: this was, as many predicted, one of the closest US presidential election races in years.

Yet with more than half of votes counted, Kamala Harris’s path to election victory has narrowed considerably. With Donald Trump winning North Carolina and Georgia, Harris must win the three northern rust belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to stand any chance of the presidency.

• Read in full: The results in maps and charts

Aubrey Allegretti in Arizona

Donald Trump has taken the lead in Arizona, as more early and postal votes tallies are released by counties across the state.

It remains a tight race, but Trump has taken significant vote shares in areas with high Hispanic populations. Counting is still underway and officials say it could take several days to complete.

The Republicans have officially seized control of the Senate for the first time since 2020.

The party flipped West Virginia early in the night, when Jim Justice won the seat previously held by the retiring Joe Manchin. Bernie Moreno then defeated Sherrod Brown, the three-term incumbent, in Ohio. Ted Cruz, in Texas, and Rick Scott, in Florida, easily saw off challenges from Democratic challengers.

In Nebraska, Deb Fischer beat Dan Osborn, an independent, to give Republicans their 51st and deciding seat. There could be more, with Republican candidates leading in Pennsylvania and Michigan as votes are still being counted.

Louise Callaghan in Florida

The Palm Beach convention centre just erupted in cheers as Fox News called Pennsylvania for Donald Trump. The crowd is chanting “USA, USA”.

Trump has a healthy lead in the state, but the Associated Press has not yet called it for the Republican candidate. Pennsylvania is likely to be the state that will push Trump over the 270 electoral votes required to claim the White House.

The crucial state of Pennsylvania has not yet been declared but Trump looks likely to win it now, which would put him on the cusp of national victory.

With more than 90 per cent of the votes counted, he has a lead of more than 200,000 votes over Kamala Harris in the state. In Wisconsin and Michigan too, Trump has a sizeable lead, though more of those states’ votes are left to count.

• Follow all the results with our live tracker

Members of a sorority at Harris’s event at Howard University, Washington, which has mostly wound down, below

BRANDON BELL/GETTY IMAGES

Trump supporters in Long Island, meanwhile, may stay for a long night

JAMES GALLAGHER FOR THE TIMES

JAMES GALLAGHER FOR THE TIMES

Alistair Dawber in Pennsylvania

The Democrats’ watch party in Allentown has ended, with local officials increasingly pessimistic about Kamala Harris’s chances of becoming president.

By contrast the mood among Republicans is buoyant. “It’s becoming very good, here in Pennsylvania, but also elsewhere in the country. It looks like President Trump is back,” said Mike Millo, who was enjoying the late bar. “There are two things: he’s going to make the economy stronger and the country safer.”

One local Republican official, Joel Jukes, agreed and said that the Democrats had underestimated Trump’s popularity. “She wasn’t even picked by her own party,” he said. “He’s been impeached twice, convicted of crimes and charged with many others, and still he wins this election. Nobody can argue that he hasn’t been thoroughly vetted by the American people.”

Tom Newton Dunn in North Carolina

Three hours ago they were celebrating a new blue governor. Utter despondency now among Democrats at their state watch party in Raleigh, and the knives are coming out.

“We were let down by some really poor organising in the big cities — I mean Raleigh, Durham and Charlotte,” said Mary, a Harris campaigner. “We just didn’t get out the female black vote there, and that’s inexcusable.” Another activist, Ashley Anderson, blames the president. “Why didn’t Biden stand down earlier?” Anderson asked. “What was he thinking? Kamala didn’t stand a chance in such a short time.”

The loud music is pumping in the Marriott’s ballroom, but nobody is dancing. People are just sitting around dazed and glum-faced, staring at their phones for any sign of hope.

The motorcade of Trump, who has spent the night in Mar-a-Lago, was seen travelling in Palm Beach, where there is a separate watch party for Republican supporters

MARCO BELLO/REUTERS

Hugh Tomlinson in Michigan

With thousands of votes still to be counted in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit, Harris supporters are still clinging to faint hope here. But the Democratic Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin has effectively called it a night, making an appearance onstage to appeal for patience as the ballots come in and unity whatever the result.

Harris’ five-point deficit to Trump in Michigan is not irretrievable, with so many votes yet to be counted. But Harris campaign staff, who were chirpy and confident a couple of hours ago, have slipped away. “Not good,” was all one would say as he made a bolt for the door.

Cedric Richmond

SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Cedric Richmond, the Harris campaign chairman, has just addressed supporters at a watch party in Howard University that the vice-president will not be speaking to supporters tonight.

Richmond said the votes were still being tallied, and they still held out hope of victory. He said Harris would address supporters, and the nation, in the morning.

Samuel Lovett in Wisconsin

After he was projected to win North Carolina and Georgia, Trump also holds a lead in the five remaining battleground states.

With about 70 per cent of the vote tallied in Wisconsin, Trump has 50.6 per cent of the vote, with Harris on 47.7 per cent. “I’m starting to get nervous. It’s not looking good,” said Liz Lamack, a 21-year-old student at the Democrats’ watching party at the Orpheum Theatre in the centre of the state capital of Madison.

Lamack is one of the roughly 100 people still in attendance. Many more have already decided to call it a night. “I’m not sure how much longer I’ll stay,” Lamack said.

Georgia has been called for Trump, as the Republican candidate continues to bulldoze a path through the southern states.

The state has long been a Republican stronghold, but Democratic fortunes have been improving in recent years with President Biden narrowly winning the state in 2020 and its two Senate seats.

The battleground’s state’s 16 electoral college votes mean Trump now holds a commanding lead over Harris. Just Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada remain for the Democrat to make up ground.

Hugh Tomlinson in Michigan

The Democratic watch party in Detroit is emptying in frustration, with just over half of Michigan’s vote counted. The mood is increasingly grim as the latest count shows Harris — and the Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin — falling further behind.

With the final result here apparently still some way off, Harris supporters have spent hours scrolling through their phones looking at results from other states and are now giving up. Michigan took steps to speed up its vote count after a string of delays in 2020 but still only 25 per cent of ballots in Wayne County, which takes in most of Detroit, have been called so far.

Jen O’Malley Dillon, co-chairwoman of the Harris campaign, told staff they still believe the vice-president has a viable path through the so-called blue wall states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

In an email late on Tuesday night, she encouraged the campaign team to try to get some sleep as it will be hours before a final result is known. “The closeness of the race is exactly what we prepared for,” Dillon wrote. “While we continue to see data trickle in from the sun belt states (Arizona, Nevada), we have known all along that our clearest path to 270 electoral votes lies through the blue wall states. And we feel good about what we’re seeing.”

Keiran Southern in Nevada

The news that Republicans are projected to take control of the Senate flashed on the big screen showing Fox News, prompting wild celebrations at a Las Vegas watch party. Trump supporters embraced, raised their drinks and waved their Maga caps at the latest flash of good news in an evening that may yet get even better for them.

However, haunted by memories of what they deem a stolen election in 2020, Trump fans say they are not getting carried away. Anna Gabour, a 42-year-old personal stylist originally from Dublin but now living in Las Vegas, said her business was badly damaged by the Biden-Harris administration. “I don’t feel 100 per cent confident because of what happened in the last election,” she said.

Megan Agnew in New York

Whoops go up around the warehouse and enormous flags are paraded through the crowds as the Republicans are projected to win Nassau and Suffolk Counties here in Long Island, counties that sit within a sea of liberal blue.

Everywhere I look here there is either an enormous poster of Trump’s face or an even bigger American flag. “I’m voting for the outlaw and the hillbilly,” reads one person’s T-shirt.

Chris Imperial, 41, a pilot, said Trump had successfully appealed to the local Long Island middle classes on the economy and rising household prices. Chanel, 39, a virtual executive assistant, and her partner, Winston, 42, a car dealer, have suffered abuse for having a Trump flag in their front yard.

“Me being a black person, they call me a racist for not voting for her,” Chanel said.

Bernie Moreno, a Republican, has defeated Sherrod Brown, the Democratic incumbent, in the crucial Senate race in Ohio that all but confirms Republicans will take control of the upper chamber of Congress.

Moreno, 57, is a Colombian-born immigrant who made millions selling cars before winning a hotly-contested Republican primary with Trump’s endorsement earlier this year. Brown, 71, had held the Senate seat since 2007, spanning a period in which Ohio has transformed from a bellwether state to reliably Republican.

Brown’s credentials as a champion of the working class had led to him being viewed as having a decent chance to retain the seat. But with 92 per cent of the votes tallied, Moreno has a 200,000-plus vote margin of victory.

Samuel Lovett in Wisconsin

There is a strong student presence at the Democrats’ official watch party in Madison, one of Wisconsin’s bluest and most-educated cities. Despite Trump taking an early lead, many in attendance at the Orpheum Theatre are staying optimistic.

“The polls only closed at 8pm and Wisconsin law means mail ballots can’t start being counted until after then,” said Kate Streuly, 19, a student at Edgewood College. “So there’s no point getting too worried just yet. The votes are still being processed. We know that.”

Her friend Jasmine Shoates, 19, who is on a gap year, said her main concern was that Trump would attempt to call the election early. “He’s going to do everything in his power to stall,” she said.

Early estimates from Dane County, home to Madison, give Kamala Harris 70.3 per cent of the vote, with Donald Trump on 28.5 per cent. Nothing but a blue victory is expected for this part of Wisconsin.

TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL

Louise Callaghan in Florida

There was a huge cheer at the Trump watch party in Palm Beach as Fox News called North Carolina, a key swing state, for Trump. Even last week Democratic activists in the state had told me they thought Trump was on track to win there.

Campaign officials here say they are feeling very good about Trump’s chances. Earlier the jubilant crowd was singing and dancing to YMCA, which was adopted as Trump’s campaign rally anthem.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who threw his enormous resources behind Trump, appears to be claiming victory.

“Game, set and match,” the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive posted on his social media platform X a short time ago. Musk spent in excess of $118 million since June on the pro-Trump America Pac organisation. He cast a Trump victory in existential terms, saying that Democrats would “destroy” him if they were elected.

Alistair Dawber in Allentown, Pennsylvania

A Democratic official in one of the most important battleground areas of Pennsylvania has admitted that it does not look good for Kamala Harris at this stage in the evening.

Speaking anonymously, the party worker conceded that Donald Trump was outperforming their expectations in Lehigh and Northampton counties, two areas that are crucial to securing Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral college votes.

The numbers at the Democratic watch party in Allentown have dramatically thinned out in the last 30 minutes. The Republican watch party is just a quarter of a mile down the road, but it is the other end of the world as far as American politics is concerned.

There is no jubilation there yet, but a quiet confidence among partygoers that Trump is doing well. There is still a long way to go, however, and it could be many hours before Pennsylvania declares a winner.

The key battleground state of North Carolina has been called for Donald Trump. The Associated Press called the first battleground state at 11.18pm.

With its 16 electoral college votes going in the Republican column, Trump’s path to the 270 votes required to reclaim the White House has significantly widened. Trump also won the state in 2016 and 2020.

Democrats had tried to link Trump to Mark Robinson, the embattled Republican gubernatorial candidate. But Trump and his running-mate, JD Vance, visited North Carolina repeatedly during the campaign, pushing a protectionist economic agenda and promising to crack down on illegal immigration and the southern border.

The election is still too early to call but you would certainly rather be Donald Trump than Kamala Harris at this point. Georgia and North Carolina are now mostly counted and look likely to go in Donald Trump’s column.

It leaves Harris with a narrow path to victory running through the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Winning all three looks a big ask right now, though it is not completely out of the question with plenty of votes left to count.

• Read more: What will Trump do if he wins?

Keiran Southern in Nevada

Here in Las Vegas, where bookmakers carry significant influence, the emcee of the evening keeps returning to the stage to inform the crowd of the quickly changing odds. Trump, he shouts to wild cheers, is now the 1-8 favourite to become the next president of the United States.

Minutes later, as the attendees are still discussing the implications of those odds, the emcee returns to the stage. Now Trump is 1-10 favourite with Las Vegas bookmakers, he says. It is not clear where he is getting the information but the audience at the watch party does not care, cheering each pronouncement.

A man wearing a Trump mask with a USA flag fashioned as a cape imitates the billionaire’s dance.
One Trump fan describes the mood as “cautiously optimistic”.

Fiona Hamilton in Georgia

At Manuel’s, a popular bar in the Democratic stronghold of central Atlanta, I have been chatting to Emory Morsberger, who is pretty much the only Republican here. He is a real estate developer and a former state representative, but he voted for Kamala Harris because he disagrees with Donald Trump’s stance on Ukraine and his refusal to concede the 2020 election.

The atmosphere is a little more downbeat here with the Republicans taking the lead in Georgia, but Morsberger has a message for fellow partygoers if Trump wins a second term: “If he wins he’s my president and I’ll support him. I’m not going to spend four years whining. Our goal is to move the country forward and it’s up to all of us to do that.”

Bitcoin reached a record high of more than $75,000 as traders bet on Donald Trump winning. The price of bitcoin rose 7 per cent to $75,060 on the prospect of lighter regulation for cryptocurrencies. Trump has promised to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet”.

The so-called Trump trade also pushed the dollar to its highest level since July, drove up US ten-year Treasury yields and lifted US stock futures.

Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management, said the market moves were a “classic Trump trade”, adding: “Treasury yields because of a market belief that Trump might be worse for deficit, the dollar’s move because of expectations of new tariffs, and bitcoin, well, Trump is a crypto ‘bro’.”

Tom Newton Dunn in North Carolina

Is this the bellwether moment in North Carolina? Nash County, just east of Raleigh, is the swingiest county of all in this swing state, and has been won by the eventual president in all four of the past elections.

It has just gone to Trump, 50.4 per cent to 48.5 per cent — he has taken Nash County by 983 votes. In 2020, Biden won it by 120 votes.

At the moment, North Carolina is looking like it is Trump’s.

• Follow North Carolina’s results with our live tracker

A surprisingly tight race in the midwestern state of Iowa, with its six electoral votes, has been called for Trump.

On Saturday, the respected state pollster Ann Selzer released a survey showing Harris with a shock three-point lead in the reliably Republican state.

Selzer had accurately predicted Trump’s margin of victory in 2016, and in 2020 signalled that the polls were much tighter than the five-point national advantage many pollsters had given Biden. Saturday’s Iowa poll gave Democrats hope that Harris would, if not win Iowa, then perform well in the neighbouring swing state of Wisconsin.

Melania Trump posted an image of Barron, her 18-year-old son with Donald Trump, at a polling station, writing: “Voted for the first time — for his dad!”

Mark Robinson refused to pull out of the race despite weathering a scandal

SAM WOLFE/REUTERS

Tom Newton Dunn in North Carolina

It’s official now: the Democrat Josh Stein has defeated Mark Robinson to become North Carolina’s new governor, in a landslide.

The state’s attorney-general has won 54.7 per cent of the vote, to the scandal-hit Republican candidate’s 40.5 per cent. Stein just told a large crowd of cheering supporters at the party here: “We embraced hope not hate. Thank you, North Carolina.”

Robinson refused significant pressure from Trump aides to stand down after his “black Nazi” comments surfaced. Seeing him as an embarrassment, they feared the scandal could depress votes for Trump himself in the margins among unsure voters. Whatever happens in the presidential result later — and we’re not close to that yet — the Democrats here have something to celebrate tonight.

Larry Hogan, the Republican former governor of Maryland, has been defeated in his Senate race by the Democrat Angela Alsobrooks.

Hogan, with 45 per cent of the vote, ran well ahead of Trump’s 37 per cent vote share in the presidential race, but was still easily defeated in the heavily Democratic state. Democrats spent $30 million on the race, according to AdImpact, as they were forced to divert resources from competitive elections to defeat the popular two-term governor.

The polls have closed in the swing state of Nevada, along with the Republican strongholds Montana and Utah. In the past few minutes, Missouri has been called for Trump, bringing his total electoral college tally to 188.

In the race to 270, Harris remains on 99. The five other battleground states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia remain too close to call.

• Follow the Nevada results with our live tracker

Keiran Southern in Nevada

At an election watch party in Las Vegas, Republicans are buoyant as early results trickle in from across the country. After Fox News projected that Ted Cruz would hold onto his Senate seat in Texas, cheers erupted inside the Ahern Luxury Boutique Hotel, near the Strip.

However, Trump supporters seated beneath a sprawling US flag are not counting their chickens.

Judy Thorburn, a journalist from Las Vegas, wore a USA hat and described herself as “Donald Trump all the way”. She said: “I’m hopeful but still worried. Because I don’t trust the other side. And I’m afraid they might pull something.”

Cruz had been in a competitive Senate race against the Democrat Colin Allred.

JUSTIN L STEWART FOR THE TIMES

Aubrey Allegretti in Arizona

Postal votes are being kept in cages and live-streamed 24/7 for the world to see in Phoenix, Arizona, to ward off claims of election fraud.

We have just been given behind the scenes access to the ballot processing centre in Maricopa county. Officials wearing plastic gloves are sorting incoming postal ballots before they are counted. Behind them is a giant cage containing previously checked votes sent in days earlier. These are locked up and can be seen on a live-stream to show voters there is no tampering or interference.

Voters in Florida rejected a constitutional amendment that would have guaranteed the right to abortion, a victory for Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor.

The result means that Florida’s ban on most abortions after the first six weeks of pregnancy, which took effect in May, will remain in place. The measure failed to clear the required 60 per cent voter threshold to pass amendments to the state’s constitution. Many states require a simple majority.

Florida is one of nine states where abortion was on the ballot for this election.

Paul Mahoe, a musician, at the America First Warehouse tonight

JAMES GALLAGHER FOR THE TIMES

Megan Agnew in New York

This is a crowd of Trump loyalists on Long Island — many of whom say they have lost friends and family members because of it. This is where they come to be together and talk about the terrors of the outside world.

Paul Mahoe, 58, is in a patriotic rock band. He has not voted for more than a decade but decided to turn out for Trump today. “I’m one of the guys they like to call a conspiracy theorist and I love RFK Jr,” he said. After Robert F Kennedy Jr dropped out and backed Trump, it was an easy decision. “Now I love Trump for all the reasons people hate him — he speaks his own mind and if you’re from New York, that is how people speak.”

Joey D’Urso, Senior Data Journalist

Opinion polls can get a bad rep but they have done a good job on this election. The results we have so far suggest it will be extremely close, just as the polls indicated.

It is highly unusual for an election to be on a knife edge like this and things could go right down to the wire. Georgia and North Carolina are looking good for Donald Trump, meaning if Kamala Harris is to be elected president she almost certainly has to win all three of Michigan, Wisconsin, and that crucial state of Pennsylvania.

We could be waiting far longer than tonight.

Alistair Dawber in Pennsylvania

Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, said multiple bomb threats had been made across the swing state, but no credible devices had been found.

A judge in Clearfield county, which voted heavily for Donald Trump in 2020, ordered that at least one polling station needed to stay open an extra hour after it was closed after such a threat was reported.

In neighbouring Centre county, election staff were evacuated after another warning that a bomb had been planted at a polling venue in the town of Bellefonte.

It has just gone 9pm on the east coast, and Trump has been projected to win South Dakota, North Dakota, Louisiana, Wyoming and the 40 electoral college votes from the state of Texas.

Harris has claimed New York and Delaware. The key battleground states that will determine the election winner remain too close to call.

With 56 per cent of the vote counted in Georgia, Trump enjoys a healthy lead of 52.4 per cent to Harris’s 47 per cent. In Pennsylvania, with 15 per cent of the vote counted, Harris has 65 per cent to Trump’s 33.8 per cent. And in North Carolina, where 36 per cent of the vote has been counted, Trump leads with 51.7 per cent to Harris’s 47.3 per cent.

The states of New Jersey, Delaware, Illinois have just been called for Harris. Arkansas has gone to the red column for Trump. For those keeping score at home, as of 8.45pm EST (1.45am GMT) Trump has 101 electoral college votes, and Harris has 71.

Tom Newton Dunn in North Carolina

It is looking like a bad night for a Trump ally who called himself a “black Nazi”.

Two different TV networks have just projected that Mark Robinson has been trounced in his bid to become North Carolina’s new governor. NBC and Fox News both think the Democrat Josh Stein has won the contest by a landslide: in the region of 58 per cent to 37 per cent.

The news was met with huge cheers here at the Democrats’ official watch party in Raleigh.

Robinson, 56, was engulfed in scandal in September when CNN revealed a raft of posts he had made to a porn website between 2008-12 called Nude Africa. Under the username “minisoldr”, he also expressed support for slavery and used homophobic, racial and antisemitic slurs.

Stein is the key southern swing state’s current attorney general.

Samuel Lovett in Wisconsin

Four years ago, the Wisconsin state capitol in Madison was the site of protests as blue and red voters clashed in the aftermath of the election.

Tonight, however, the surrounding streets are eerily quiet. The polls remain open in Wisconsin until 9pm EST (2am GMT) — and it will be hours before results are known.

At the Old Fashioned, a popular bar opposite the Capitol, there is a creeping sense of anxiety among those preparing for the long night as results elsewhere in America start to trickle in. “It’s a nail-biter,” said Jessy Tolkan, 43, a Democratic campaigner. “I’ve worked every election since 2000 and I’ve never felt this tense. Some of the exit polls haven’t helped with my nerves. It seems a lot of independents are breaking for Trump. But I’m hopeful we’ll get enough numbers overall to edge it.”

Women with Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc at Howard University, Harris’s alma mater

BRANDON BELL/GETTY IMAGES

A swathe of states have just been called for both candidates by the Associated Press.

Trump has won South Carolina, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Florida, and now has 95 electoral college votes. Harris won the northeastern states of Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and has amassed 35 electoral college votes.

No surprises there, but the electoral college map is starting to fill out. Candidates must reach 270 to claim victory.

• Electoral college map: build a road to 270

Rick Ammirati dressed for an episode of Real America’s Voice

JAMES GALLAGHER FOR THE TIMES

Megan Agnew in New York

Enormous cheers erupted at a packed Maga watch party in Long Island, as it looked like Trump was on track to win Georgia. The crowd is watching a live panel anchored by Rick Ammirati, 60, who is dressed in a full red sequin suit with red metallic booties.

Sherrie Orestis, 61, loves Trump like a “family member” — so much, in fact, that she makes decorations and pins them up around his house. Alongside her job as a kindergarten teacher, Orestis makes patriotic ornaments to sell at rallies and fairs.

With styrofoam at the centre, she then pokes Stars and Stripes ribbons into the globe and then sticks a Trump image on the front (mugshot, having been shot, at his inauguration). They sell for $20 and she calls them “Trump balls”. “They come in pairs,” she said, winking. Orestis has also made a “patriot Barbie”.

Aubrey Allegretti in Arizona

Four “unsubstantiated” bomb threats have been made in polling locations across Navajo County in Arizona, authorities say.

The FBI confirmed similar threats were also made in Georgia, Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin. Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s secretary of state, said the threats had come “from one of our foreign enemies, namely Russia”, adding: “They’ve been busy lately, I suppose”.

Fontes said none of the threats were credible. “We have no reason to believe that our voters or any of our polling places are in any sort of jeopardy,” he said.

The four locations are all in Navajo county, whose population is approximately 50 per cent native American.

Several projections for the victors of each state have been made, with Trump building an early electoral college lead because many Republican states were called first.

A podcast episode was recorded at the party

JAMES GALLAGHER FOR THE TIMES

Megan Agnew in New York

The regulars at the America First Warehouse in Ronkonkoma, Long Island call it “Disneyland for patriots”. This is a Maga safe haven, 50 miles north of New York City, where about 150 Trump mega-fans have congregated for an election watch party.

The car park is filled with jumped-up trucks heavy with Trump flags and the queue is long for converted warehouse on an industrial estate, chock-full with people wearing red, white and blue rhinestone caps, someone dressed up as a pile of garbage and another in a T-shirt that reads “Jesus is my saviour, Trump is my president”.

Inside, visitors can buy Maga sippy-cups, Christmas baubles with Trump’s mugshot on the front and plenty of “patriotic art” by Chelsea Carol, 40. “I wanted to use my art to get some truth out there,” she said.

Sentiment here, unsurprisingly, is hugely positive about a Trump victory.

All 50 states are split into counties, and we are starting to see lots of county-level data come in. You should take this with a huge pinch of salt, though, because virtually all counties are still partially declared.

The votes missing might be from a part of the county that tends to favour one party over the other, so things could change a lot. If one candidate appears to be leading a state by a lot, that could change completely over the course of the night.

There are a few rural counties in Kentucky and Indiana that have come through, which Trump has won by the similarly huge margins he won in 2020.

• Follow the results live with our tracker

Louise Callaghan in Florida

A big cheer went up just now as Fox News called West Virginia for Trump — it is a red state and this is not a surprise. But the Trump fan I was talking to at the time whooped when he heard.

“It’s a good sign,” said Martin Bermudez, a businessman from Miami. “A very good sign.”

West Virginia went for Trump in 2016 and 2020 by huge margins, with the former president claiming 69 per cent of the vote tally in both elections.

In other good news for Republicans, Jim Justice, the state’s governor, has won the Senate seat previously held by a Democrat, Joe Manchin, before he retired this year. It was long expected the seat would flip, but nonetheless makes it harder for the Democrats to retain control of the chamber.

Tom Newton Dunn in North Carolina

At 7.30pm (midnight GMT) the polls closed in the key swing state of North Carolina.

Polling places have been busy across the state all day, on top of the record 4.4 million (57 per cent of registered voters) who voted early. Two precincts — Wilson and Burke counties — have been granted a half-hour extension because, embarrassingly, an official’s laptop with all the key voter information on it would not boot up.

That will not delay counting. Election board officials think they will be able to count and post 98 per cent of all votes cast by 11pm ET (4am GMT). By that stage, we should know whether Trump or Harris has won the state, unless the candidates are within 100,000 votes.

If that is the case, the wait could drag on for days until all the absentee and provisional ballots are counted.

Fiona Hamilton in Georgia

The authorities in Georgia have been hit with another series of bomb threats, this time in DeKalb County on the outskirts of Atlanta, a predominantly Democratic area.

DeKalb’s elections authority confirmed it had received bomb threats at seven locations, including five voting precincts across the county. The police department is performing bomb sweeps. The county chief executive Michael Thurmond said: “Every asset that we have will be deployed to ensure that every citizen who wants to vote will be given that opportunity and every vote cast will be counted”.

The law department is seeking an emergency order extending the voting times at the affected polling locations. Earlier bomb hoaxes, which briefly closed two polling stations in adjacent Fulton county, also a Democratic stronghold, are suspected to have come from Russia.

Louise Callaghan in Florida

A lot of discussion here at the Trump watch party in Palm Beach about whether it was a good idea for the Republicans to outsource much of their ground game in swing states to Elon Musk.

Hogan Gidley, a former Trump administration official, told me that it had been “revolutionary” to outsource that job to different groups.

For now, he said, the numbers coming in “seem positive for low propensity voters”. When asked if he thought that the strategy was a good idea, he replied, with a smirk: “Well we’ll know after, won’t we.”

• Watch: Why Musk backs Trump

David Charter in New York

In a sign that Donald Trump appears on course to win back the state of Georgia, which Joe Biden won by the narrow margin of 0.23 percentage points in 2020, a CNN exit poll showed that 54 per cent of independent voters had backed Trump, compared with 43 per cent for Kamala Harris.

This 11-point lead for Trump among a group that makes up 31 per cent of the electorate compared with a nine-point winning margin among independents for Biden last time.

Joey D’Urso, Senior Data Journalist

We’re going to be analysing the results as soon as they come in, creating charts and maps to tell the story.

We are already starting to see some results: Indiana and Kentucky have been called for Trump, and Vermont for Harris.

It is far too early to make conclusions about the nationwide race but the broad picture of the race is as we expected, with Trump running up big margins in sparsely-populated rural parts of these states, and Harris doing better in urban areas.

Something to bear in mind is that even if Harris wins comfortably, we can expect to see maps looking a lot more red than blue as the night goes on, because Republicans do better in rural areas, which are geographically larger but have fewer people.

Early exit polls have revealed widespread negativity about the state of the nation, dealing a blow to the Democratic candidate’s chances of winning the White House, David Charter writes.

• Read in full: Early data deals blow to Democrat

The Trump campaign has been making a late push to get male voters to the polls, amid a significant gender gap between the candidates’ supporters.

Several hours ago, Elon Musk wrote on X: “The cavalry has arrived. Men are voting in record numbers. They now realise everything is at stake.” Stephen Miller, a Trump campaign adviser, wrote on the platform: “If you know any men who haven’t voted, get them to the polls.”

And Charlie Kirk, an activist behind the conservative student group Turning Point USA, claimed that “the men are arriving”.

A national poll conducted days before the election showed Harris with 57 per cent support among women. Trump, meanwhile, had 58 per cent from men.

• Read more: How the election became a battle of the sexes

The election pitting Donald Trump against Kamala Harris was the costliest in American history, Josie Ensor writes.

The Democrats and Republicans spent a record-breaking $15.9 billion (£12.2 billion), according to data from OpenSecrets, a non-profit organisation that monitors campaign expenditures, surpassing the 2020 race’s $15.1 billion.

• Read in full: US election’s $15.9bn price tag makes it costliest in history

Louise Callaghan in Florida

I just arrived at the Republican watch party in West Palm Beach, Florida. Trump’s supporters have started filtering in: the dress code strongly features red, white and blue (and a lot of sequins).

Trump is at home in Mar-a-Lago nearby with his friends, family and Elon Musk, the owner of X. The former president is expected to arrive here late tonight after some of the results have been announced.

I just spoke to Allan Weistock, 54, vice president of “Born to Ride for 45”, a group of bikers who support Trump. He told me, like so many others here have, that he thinks Trump will win, and that Harris and the Democrats can succeed only by cheating. “I’m feeling good,” he said, adding that he expected that even if Harris was shown to have won, he did not expect there to be violence.

• What will happen if Trump loses? The threat of civil war examined

The first vote tallies of the night have arrived in Kentucky and Indiana, where polls closed at 6pm ET (11pm GMT). With an estimated 1.9 per cent of vote counted in Kentucky, 65.1 per cent of votes have gone for Trump, and 33.7 per cent for Harris.

In neighbouring Indiana, with 1.6 per cent of the vote counted, 71.8 per cent opted for Trump, and 27.4 per cent for Harris.

Trump is certain to win both states. In 2020 he won Kentucky by 62 per cent to President Biden’s 36 per cent, and Indiana by 57 per cent to Biden’s 41 per cent.

Clearly, it is far too early to derive any broader significance from this early vote tally.

ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Samuel Lovett in Wisconsin

Some 30,000 absentee ballots are to be recounted in Milwaukee “out of an abundance of caution” after the door of a tabulator machine was not properly shut, officials have said.

Election workers at the Baird Centre, a polling station in the largest city in Wisconsin, one of the seven likely swing states, said it was down to human error.

The counting centre’s tabulators are being set to zero and the ballots will be put through the machines again, a spokesman added. This setback is likely to further delay the time at which Wisconsin declares. Estimates suggest the outcome here will not be known until about Wednesday afternoon.

Aubrey Allegretti in Arizona

Donald Trump’s attacks on Kamala Harris as a “failed border tsar” have cut through among some voters in one of the southernmost parts of Arizona.

Roman has just voted in Tucson, and said of the crossings from Mexico: “I have seen who’s in office right now and the results, and the results speak for themselves. It’s gone in the wrong direction since Trump was in office.”

Joel, a landlord in the same area, has similar concerns. He said there was “two-tier policing” and “men like myself who are white Americans are considered to be at fault for everything”.

A third Trump voter today is Cynthia, who said: “I’m really concerned about it because I was born in the US but I’ve known so many people that had to wait 10-15 years to become citizens. So I don’t think it’s fair for people to sneak across the border.”

Fiona Hamilton in Georgia

Tensions may be bubbling under the surface in Georgia, but the story so far today is generally one of efficiency. While for the 2020 election there were hours-long queues, today voters moved steadily through polling stations in Atlanta. Even bomb hoaxes, believed to come from Russia, did little to disrupt proceedings and by late afternoon the majority of polling stations showed wait times of less than a minute.

Officials attributed this to the record four million people who cast their ballots during early voting.

Melanie Simmonds, 48, voting at a central Atlanta station, said: “I can’t believe it! I was braced for long queues but it’s all so peaceful. If the election’s close, that peace may not last.”

Large swathes of early voting results are expected after polls close at 7pm ET (12am GMT), which will give an indication of where the result is headed.

Aubrey Allegretti in Arizona

Immigration is driving some voters in Tucson, Arizona, to vote for Donald Trump — including a registered Democrat who backed Biden in 2020.

Caleb, from the town of Sonoita next to the Mexican border, said he was “pretty socially liberal”, liked some Democratic cabinet members and voted to enshrine abortion rights at state level. But he raised concerns about immigration, after voting in a library in Pima County, one of the southern-most points of the sun belt state.

“I’m all for legal immigration,” Caleb said. “But there were a lot of issues with people losing property or having their property destroyed from immigration and drug trade issues as well.”

He is a registered Democrat and “would have liked to have been able to pick a Democrat in the primary and not been forced to vote for somebody that I didn’t necessarily want to”.

If Donald Trump does win this election — and, to be clear, that is a very big if — inflation will be a massive factor.

After years of price rises remaining low, they spiked over the past couple of years and groceries have become a lot more expensive. Republicans blame the Biden administration for this, while Democrats say wider issues including the war in Ukraine are responsible.

CNN’s exit poll makes clear how widespread the effects have been. Just a quarter of Americans say they have experienced no hardship from inflation.

Democracy and the economy were the two top issues for US voters, according to preliminary exit poll data. Some 35 per cent said democracy was the key issue that would determine their vote, while 31 per cent put the economy first. Abortion, with 14 per cent, and immigration, at 11 per cent, were the next most important issues to voters. Foreign affairs was fifth with four per cent.

The results vary between Democrats and Republicans. Fifty six per cent of Democrats put democracy as their most important issue, compared to 12 per cent of Republicans. Fifty one per cent of Republicans put the economy as their top issue.

The first exit poll information has been released showing widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the country.

According to CNN, only 7 per cent of voters were enthusiastic and 19 per cent were satisfied with the state of the US. A further 43 per cent said they were dissatisfied, and 29 per cent said they were angry.

Asked about “America’s best days”, 61 per cent said they were in the future, and 34 per cent responded that they were in the past. The question remains whether voters blame Kamala Harris, the incumbent vice-president, for the current malaise, or Trump, the former president.

The preliminary figures showed President Biden’s approval rating was 41 per cent, with 58 per cent of voters disapproving of his presidency.

We have reporters in ten states to bring you the latest updates and analysis — and you can track up-to-the-minute results as they come in with our tracking page.