Trump claims White House victory

Former President Donald Trump has won Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina, and is on the verge of recapturing the White House. 

Editor’s note: This story will be updated throughout the night as results come in.

Former President Donald Trump has been projected as the winner in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina, and is ahead in a number of other crucial swing states as votes continue to roll in, making him the favorite to win the White House.

Fox News called Pennsylvania for Mr. Trump shortly after 1 a.m., followed by other news outlets. Georgia and North Carolina were called earlier in the night. The former president holds leads in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona.

The counting isn’t over – but it appears increasingly inevitable that Mr. Trump will win this race.

“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Mr. Trump said in a speech to supporters.

At the macro level, this is looking much like 2016, with Mr. Trump leading in the same states he won then. But there are notable shifts in voter preferences from then as well as from his narrow 2020 loss.

Across the country, Mr. Trump performed even better overall in rural counties than his impressive showing in recent years, while holding his own or even gaining ground in the suburbs that had moved against him and the GOP in 2020 and recent midterm elections. And he also saw significant improvements in some urban areas.

Exit polls showed Mr. Trump winning 45% of the Hispanic vote, a result that would be the highest for a Republican candidate in decades and a 13-point jump from his 2020 performance. They also show him winning an outright majority of the Hispanic male vote nationwide, and 12% of the Black vote, a similar mark to his 2020 performance.

This election seems to have continued the growing education gap in voting. Mr. Trump reportedly won voters without a college degree by a 10-point margin, taking 54% of those voters, up four points from four years ago. Ms. Harris won voters with a college degree by 57%-40%, with Mr. Trump’s share of those voters dropping three points from exit polls four years ago. More than 60% of U.S. adults do not have a college degree.

Polls had long predicted a coin-flip race. And while the results that have rolled in so far indicate that they weren’t as far off as in previous elections, it appears that for the third election cycle in a row, Mr. Trump might have outperformed them.

Ms. Harris’ campaign was still holding out hope. Harris Campaign Chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon sent out a memo to staff around 11 p.m. declaring that “we have known all along this is a razor-thin race” and arguing that Ms. Harris could still win Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan and thus the presidency. But as more votes rolled in, that looked less and less likely.

Mr. Trump will have some help in Congress as well. Republicans have flipped at least two Senate seats as of midnight EST, giving them enough for a majority in the upper chamber.