US election 2024 live: Donald Trump closes in on victory with two crucial swing-state wins

A prolonged, almighty roar went up at Trump’s election watch party when Fox News called Pennsylvania for him at 1.20am.

“It’s over!” screamed one man amid the noise at what felt like the point of no return. A young man in a black Maga hat shouted: “Fuck Joe Biden! Fuck her!”

The euphoric crowd chanted: “USA! USA!” They are now gathered near the stage waiting for Trump to enter and deliver a speech. Near the front is Blake Marnell, who wears a suit styled after Trump’s wall.

US senator Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania incumbent Democrat in a close race with Republican Dave McCormick, isn’t conceding his race.

“We have confidence in our path to victory and we are going to make sure we count every vote,” said Maddy McDaniel, a campaign spokesperson.

Democratic officials at the party’s Arizona election watch party kept telling supporters to wait for more results.

The ballot so far held mixed signals for the party: Kamala Harris was trailing Donald Trump narrowly, while US Senate candidate Ruben Gallego was up by several points over Republican Kari Lake, and an abortion access measure held a strong lead.

Gallego grew emotional as he thanked his family and recounted his upbringing as a poor kid whose single mom raised him and his sisters. He gave a shoutout to his old boss, who was in attendance, from when he used to sell hot dogs. He mentioned his fellow Marines, some of whom were there to cheer him on.

“Growing up the way I did, the son of immigrants, I would have never thought I’d make it this far,” he said. When every vote in counted, he believed, “a poor Latino boy who slept on the floor will be headed to the floor of the United States Senate, the first Latino senator in Arizona history.”

The crowd was on edge as they refreshed electoral maps and saw results come in on the big screen from around the country, but they hoped Harris could still pull off a win.

Denise Dewberry, a 55-year-old Phoenix resident, said she was “nauseously optimistic”.

She voted for the first time in 2020 and has dedicated herself to Democratic causes, doing all she could to turn out voters this year: “I can’t not feel optimistic. I feel so invested in what is right that I don’t know how to not be optimistic right now. At the same time, I know what I’m up against.”

And no matter the outcome, she would get to work to keep pushing for the Democrats. “This is how it starts, not how it ends.”

Billionaire Mark Cuban, who acted as a surrogate for Kamala Harris in the final weeks of her campaign, has tweeted congratulations at Donald Trump and Elon Musk, a fellow billionaire who backed his bid to return to the White House:

The Associated Press has not yet called the election for Trump, but the former president has won two of the seven crucial swing states expected to determine the winner.

Nebraska has voted to uphold its abortion ban, which outlaws the procedure after 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Voters in Nebraska chose between two competing measures – one enshrining the existing 12-week ban, and another that would have amended the state constitution to protect the right to abortion up until viability, or about 24 weeks.

The more restrictive measure appears to have won with just over 50% of the vote. It was only the second loss of the night for abortion rights supporters. An initiative to restore abortion rights fell short in Florida, but measures succeeded in four other states. Four others have yet to be called.

California voters voted passed Proposition 36, a tough-on-crime ballot initiative that will enact harsher penalties for retail theft, property crimes and drug offenses.

The new measure will undo parts of a landmark 2014 law that downgraded several non-violent felonies to misdemeanors as a way to reduce the state’s prison population and redirect money to drug treatment and resources for crime victims.

While some considered the original law, known as Proposition 47, a breakthrough in criminal justice reform, for others, it was viewed as a major driver of property crime, homelessness and substance abuse.

Nevada senator Catherine Cortez Masto took the stage at the Democratic watch party in Las Vegas and reminded voters that she won her re-election by 7,928 votes in 2022.

“And 4,000 of those votes were ones we cured,” she said. “Listen, we feel confident that when all the votes are counted tonight and this week, however long it takes to cure and count every single vote, we will win the Silver State for Democrats up and down the ballot.”

Republicans have already flipped enough seats to control the US Senate, though in Nevada, Democrat Jacky Rosen is fighting to keep her seat and facing Republican challenger Sam Brown. Even if Kamala Harris narrowly wins here, it’s unclear whether Nevada’s six electoral votes would give her enough of a boost as the vice-president’s path to victory narrows.

Kamala Harris has won New Hampshire, the Associated Press reports.

She picks up four electoral votes in the state that’s known for holding the first primaries in the presidential nomination process – which Donald Trump swept earlier this year, paving the way for him to challenge the vice-president in the presidential election.

In Las Vegas, Leo Murrieta, director of Make the Road Nevada, a progressive group that has focused on turning out Latino voters and voters of color, said he was feeling “a little anxious”.

“We did everything we could this election,” he said. “We talked to over 770,000 plus voters. We launched 475 canvassers just today. We really did everything that we possibly could to make an impact in this election, and now we just have to wait and see.”

Latinos in Nevada, who make up one in five voters here, will likely play a decisive role. Polling from Make the Road suggests that economic issues and abortion rights were the top issues for the Latino community. Murrieta said he was also closely watching Latino turnout in Arizona’s Maricopa county and other key swing districts in the west.

Polls have closed in Nevada, but snaking lines of voters were still waiting to cast their ballots at several locations across the state. Results here will only be reported once every polling place has confirmed that every voter in line has had a chance to vote. It could be days before the results are clear.

“I know we left no stone unturned. We persuaded hundreds and hundreds of non-partisan Brown folks to vote, and to vote for Kamala Harris, to vote for reproductive health,” Murrieta said. His plan for the rest of the night was to be with Make the Road members and celebrate their hard work.

“Because regardless of the outcomes, the only thing that we can rely on is each other,” he said. “We can’t rely on political parties to save us. Politicians won’t save us. But our community is going to have our back.”

Donald Trump’s victory in Georgia further expands his options for winning the White House – and narrows Harris’s.

Trump just needs to win Pennsylvania or Michigan – two states where he is currently leading in the vote count – to win the 270 electoral votes needed to become president.

Harris can still win, but will need to sweep the three “blue wall” states (which aren’t looking so blue tonight) of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. She could stand to lose in Wisconsin, but only if she wins Arizona.

As the clock ticks past 1am Eastern Time in the US on the day after the 2024 presidential election, here is where things stand:

• Donald Trump has won the swing states of Georgia and North Carolina, the only two of the seven swing state called in the race so far. Trump has 246 of 270 electoral college votes needed to win, and Kamala Harris has 210 electoral college votes. The vice-president now cannot win the election without winning the state of Pennsylvania, in which Trump holds a lead, with 90% of the vote counted.

• Alaska closed its polls, ending most voting in the US presidential election. The red state was the last where voting was ongoing statewide, and Donald Trump is expected to claim its three electoral votes. Voters may still be casting ballots in some counties elsewhere that saw long lines, or where courts ordered polls to be open later.

• Harris’s campaign announced that she would not be speaking on Tuesday night. Her campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond addressed the crowd assembled for the vice-president’s election night party, and said, “We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not been called yet. We will continue, overnight, to fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken. So you won’t hear from the vice-president tonight, but you will hear from her tomorrow.”

• The vice-president has won the following states so far: Virginia, Hawaii, New Mexico, California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington DC and Maine’s first congressional district.

• Trump has won the following states so far: North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming, Kansas, Idaho, Iowa and the third congressional district in Nebraska.

• Trump won in Iowa despite the state’s foremost pollster Ann Selzer on Saturday finding Harris leading by a small amount that was nonetheless within the survey’s margin of error. The finding was viewed as a potential sign of strength for Harris in nearby Wisconsin and Michigan, two swing states that are demographically similar to Iowa. The Trump campaign decried Selzer’s poll as an outlier, which turned out to be the case.

• Republicans have retaken the majority in the Senate, the Associated Press reported, after picking up seats in Ohio and West Virginia, and fending off challenges to their candidates in Texas and Nebraska. Republicans will control Congress’s upper chamber for the first time in four years.

• Should Donald Trump win, they will be in a position to confirm his supreme court justices, federal judges and appointees to cabinet posts. If Harris wins the White House, they can force hold up her appointees, or block them outright.

• Missouri voters approved a ballot measure enshrining abortion rights into the state constitution, setting the state up to overturn its near-total abortion ban – a first in the US post-Roe v Wade.

• Colorado, New York and Maryland also passed measures to protect abortion rights, while in Florida, an effort to roll back a six-week ban fell short.

• The US will have two Black women serving as senators for the first time in American history, with the election of Lisa Blunt Rochester from Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland.

• Sarah McBride, a Delaware state senator, has made history as the first out transgender person elected to the US House of Representatives. McBride, 34, won Delaware’s at-large House seat in Tuesday’s general election against the Republican candidate John Whalen III, a former Delaware state police officer and businessman. The House seat, Delaware’s only one, has been Democratic since 2010.

Alaska just closed its polls, ending most voting in the US presidential election.

The red state was the last where voting was ongoing statewide, and Donald Trump is expected to claim its three electoral votes.

Voters may still be casting ballots in some counties elsewhere that saw long lines, or where courts ordered polls to be open later.

Donald Trump has won Georgia, the Associated Press reports, with the Republican reclaiming a state he lost to Joe Biden four years ago.

With polls closed, campaign surrogates, union leaders and progressive campaigners are trickling into the Democratic watch party at the Aria hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

The mood inside is uneasy, so far. Crystal and Kiersten Madrid, twins who are 30 years old, had accompanied their friend Fabian Doñate, a Nevada state senator. “I’ve just been drinking a lot of water, trying to stay hydrated,” said Kiersten.

“And it’s good to be with loved ones and like-minded people tonight,” Crystal added.

Aneri Shah, 22, had canvassed in Nevada with Emily’s List, a political group focused on electing women who support reproductive rights: “I’m a little nervous,” said Shah who had come to the event with her father, Gunjan Shah, who was wearing a “Reproductive Rights ’24” t-shirt.

Both eyed the presidential results rolling in on the big screens. “I don’t know. Things do seem to have shifted since 2020,” said Aneri. “But I do feel positive about Nevada.”

With its six electoral votes, the state could be a decider in the election – especially as Harris’s path to victory narrows.

A massive billboard just outside is showing live updates from the betting market Kalshi, where the presidential race is trading 83% for Trump.

Donald Trump is expected to speak shortly at the campaign watch party in West Palm Beach, Florida, per a person familiar, as his “YMCA” walkout song comes on and Secret Service clears the lobby area.

Trump’s aides suggest tonight ahead of his appearance that they think they could sweep all the battleground states.

Kamala Harris’s campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond just addressed the crowd assembled for the vice-president’s election night party, and said that she will not be speaking tonight.

“We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not been called yet. We will continue, overnight, to fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken. So you won’t hear from the vice president tonight, but you will hear from her tomorrow,” Richmond said.

At Kamala Harris’s election-watch party at Howard University, aides are yelling at camera crews to cut their lights and flip their monitors. Law enforcement officers are assembling.

It’s unclear what is happening but it appears someone will address the crowd, many of whom are leaving.

Beyoncé’s Freedom just started up, but was cut after a few chords.

Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling has told CNN that there are not enough uncounted ballots left in the state for Kamala Harris to overtake Donald Trump:

Both CNN and NBC have projected that Trump has won the state, which Joe Biden carried four years ago, but the Associated Press has yet to report the winner.

The Guardian relies on the Associated Press to determine the outcomes of elections across the United States. The New York-based global news agency has a presence in every US state and a long and authoritative history of determining the winners of elections at the presidential, congressional and state level. Here is more information about their process.

House Democrats are gaining a seat in Louisiana after Cleo Fields was projected to defeat four opponents outright to complete a congressional comeback.

Fields – who was a member of the US House from 1993 to 1997 – beat four fellow Democrats and a single Republican in a contest held under the rules of Louisiana’s open primary system by capturing 51% of the 296,011 votes cast in the race, according to election results from the state.

He ran in Louisiana’s sixth district, whose constituency changed as the state was ordered to redraw its congressional map to account for population shifts in the 2020 census. It became Louisiana’s second majority Black congressional district, encompassing parts of Shreveport, Alexandria, Lafayette and Baton Rouge.

The only other majority Black congressional district in Louisiana – largely based in New Orleans – re-elected a Democrat on Tuesday.

How pivotal Fields’s victory will be in Democrats’ efforts to retake control of the House – which Republicans have held since 2022 – remains to be seen. The redrawn sixth district had long been seen as an opportunity for Democrats to add another of its members to the House, meaning Republicans had anticipated Tuesday’s outcome as they weighed their chances of keeping the chamber.

Meanwhile, on Monday, the US supreme court indicated it would essentially review the redrawing of Louisiana’s sixth district after a lawsuit from a group of self-described non-Black Americans challenged the constitutionality of Louisiana’s congressional map. The map as it stands all but guarantees easy re-election paths for House speaker Mike Johnson and majority leader Steve Scalise, who are both Republicans, as long as they want them.

The seat clinched by the 61-year-old Fields, who is Black and a longtime Louisiana state lawmaker, had previously been occupied by Republican congressman Garret Graves. Graves decided against seeking re-election.