A tight horserace of an election came to an end in the morning on Nov. 6 as former Trump prevailed over Vice President Kamala Harris.
The race was called at roughly 5:30 a.m. Eastern, with Trump clinching 277 electoral votes to Harris’s 224. The former president won four battleground states—Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The remaining three, Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada are too close to call.
“I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president,” Trump said in the early hours of Wednesday at his campaign watch party in South Florida.
Trump called it a “magnificent victory” as it appeared he may have secured enough votes to win the popular vote, the first time a Republican has done so in 20 years.
Trump is the first president since Grover Cleveland to win two nonconsecutive White House terms.
Polls showed a neck-and-neck race leading into late October, with some surveys throughout the battlegrounds tipping in Trump’s favor. The Harris campaign saw promise in the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, spending much of their resources in those states throughout the final weeks. All three were called for Trump by early Wednesday morning.
Earlier in the night, as Trump supporters gathered at his watch party in Florida, Cedric Richmond, co-chair of the Harris–Walz campaign, took the stage in Washington, D.C., to inform the crowd that the vice president won’t be speaking that night.
“We still have votes to count. We still have states that haven’t been called yet,” Richmond said. “We want 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.”
Here are other takeaways from the big night:
In Ohio, three-term incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) lost his race to Republican businessman Bernie Moreno by four percentage points. Brown was the last Democrat to hold statewide office in Ohio, which has been highly receptive to former President Donald Trump’s manufacturing-focused political message. Trump has won Ohio in the last three presidential elections (including 2024), which is also the home state of his Vice Presidential running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio).
In West Virginia, Gov. Jim Justice (R-W.V.) won the open race to succeed retiring Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.V.). The state, despite being a historically Democratic stronghold, had rapidly become Republican since 2015, when Trump emerged as a force in national politics. Justice had been widely expected to win the race.
The victory comes amid a moment of flux for the Senate GOP leadership. Longtime Senate Republican Conference Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has held the office for 17 years since 2007, will depart his role in November. The conference will, thus, be led by a new Senate Republican Leader, who will quickly become the Senate Majority Leader — one of the highest-ranking offices in the United States government.
Based on some early estimates, particularly in Michigan and Georgia, turnout this year may exceed what the nation saw in 2020.
While official turnout data will not be available until individual counties in all states finalize their election results, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said early on election day that based on the Peach State’s early voting numbers, they would likely surpass 2020 turnout by the time polls closed later that evening.
Raffensperger expected more than 5 million votes in total, outpacing the state’s numbers four years prior when just under 5 million voted in the presidential election.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson had a similar message while addressing reporters on election night.
When asked if she thought turnout would exceed 2020, she said, “That’s my hope.”
Nearly 7 million ballots were cast in Pennsylvania in 2020. By Wednesday morning, when 96 percent of ballots were tallied in the state, the Keystone State had nearly reached the same threshold.
National and swing state exit polling results on Election Day showed Trump made substantial gains among Latino voters both nationally and in swing states.
In the National Election Pool exit poll conducted by Edison Research on Nov. 5, Trump made key gains with the minority group that makes up at least 13 percent of the American electorate.
Among respondents who identified themselves as Latinos, 53 percent of respondents said they voted for Harris, and 45 percent said they voted for Trump. That is a 13 percentage point improvement over Trump’s performance with the racial group in 2020 when he ran against President Joe Biden.
Trump also saw significant improvements with Latino voters in the battleground states. In Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Nevada, he improved his performance with Latino voters by at least ten percentage points over 2020.
In Nevada, a state where one-third of the population identifies as Latino, Trump tied with Harris among Latino voters. According to the responses given to exit pollsters, both candidates received 47 percent of the Latino vote.
At the time of publication, the Associated Press projected that Republicans would take at least 197 seats and Democrats would take at least 180. But many races have yet to be called that will ultimately decide which party controls the lower chamber in the 119th Congress. 218 seats or more are needed to take the majority.
For Trump, control of the House will be essential to carrying out his legislative agenda, particularly on issues like tax policy.
In his remarks, after many news outlets declared him the victor, Trump expressed confidence about his party’s prospects in the House.
Early returns paint a conflicting picture of the race so far.
In New York, home to several crucial House races, some Republican incumbents seem on track to retain their seats, including Reps. Mike Lawler and Nick LaLota.
However, Democrats also unseated two incumbents in the state: Josh Riley unseated Rep. Marc Molinaro, while Democrat John Mannion won over Rep. Brandon Williams.
In nearby Pennsylvania, Republicans also seemed poised to unseat two Democratic incumbents, Reps. Susan Wild and Matt Cartwright, with 99 percent of the vote reported. In Michigan, Republicans are projected to gain at least one formerly Democrat seat.
But in neighboring Ohio, two Democratic incumbents, Reps. Emilia Sykes and Marcy Kaptur—key GOP targets in the right-trending state—were positioned to retain their seats.
Several California races crucial to both parties remain too close to call.
The final results likely will not be known for days.
