And here it is, the final major call I can make:

The Republican Party will hold a trifecta for the first two years of Donald Trump’s second term as President.

This comes with the projection of Colorado’s eighth congressional district for Republican Gabe Evans, and places the GOP at 218 seats by my count. The party is likely to get to 219 seats with a probable victory in Alaska’s at-large congressional district, and maybe 1-2 more if they can hold on in some tight races in California. Democrats are currently at 213, and we’re waiting on:

• Alaska At-Large
• California’s 13th, 41st and 45th Districts

It might be some time before any major networks project the House for the GOP, mostly because a recount is underway in Iowa’s razor-thin first district (I can’t see how it would overturn an 800-vote lead for Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks) and AZ, AK, and CA will all take a long time to count, thus delaying projections in their 6th, only, and eight outstanding Congressional district(s), respectively.

With this call, I’m going to officially bring my live coverage of the election to an end after five days. Donald Trump won the presidency comfortably and the GOP flipped four Senate seats to retake the chamber while holding on to the slimmest of slim majorities in the House of Representatives to take the executive and legislative branch for the Republican Party.

It’s unclear what a second Trump term will look like. It’s going to be difficult to govern with this small of a House majority, but at the very least Trump will be able to make whatever judicial and executive appointments he needs to in a very friendly Senate. There are only four Republicans in the chamber who may stand up to some of Trump’s more extreme appointments (Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Bill Cassidy, Todd Young), which would be just enough to deny them, but it’s unlikely many of his selections get denied.

I’d like to thank everyone that watched this thread on election night and kept up with it as the rest of the results came in much slower over the past few days; I know that the outcome wasn’t what a lot of people were hoping for but I appreciate the outpour of support even in spite of this. There will be a full article in the next edition of The Spectator about the results of the election and how they came to be. Take care, everyone.

With recent returns in Colorado’s eighth district favoring Republicans, it now seems like the GOP has all but secured a very narrow House majority. Closing in on a range of 219 to 221 seats with how things stand, realistically.

Ballots have continued to trickle in in Arizona, and at this point I can say with confidence that Kari Lake (R) hasn’t been getting anywhere near the margins she needs. This locks the Senate at 53R-47D, with the GOP flipping West Virginia, Ohio, Montana, and Pennsylvania.

It seems that Democratic hopes in AZ-2 have run out, which gets the GOP to 217 seats by my count. Democrats will need to hope that they win every single outstanding race in California, CO-8, and AK-AL (which looks unlikely at this rate) to hold on. A very narrow GOP majority remains overwhelmingly likely, but we may not know for sure for a few weeks if Alaska (which uses ranked choice voting) is the deciding race. California might also take another week or so to have all of its votes tallied.

Just the AZ Senate race and control of the House to be determined.

Lake (R) has made some gains in the former, but with the margins being small and future returns looking to be much more Democratic, her path to victory is narrowing. Tough to see how Gallego (D) doesn’t pull this one out.

Not many updates on the House (which I have at GOP 216-208 Dem with 11 races left); Dems seem likely to lose in CO-8 but returns in California’s five or so close races seem pretty favorable to them. Anything in the range of 219-224 seats for the GOP seems probable at this point.

Only a few races remain to be determined: Arizona Senate and about 22 House seats. Nevada and Pennsylvania Senate are both decided at this point for Jacky Rosen and Dave McCormick, respectively.

We got some drops for AZ last night, and they were mixed for Lake and Gallego. Maricopa County (Phoenix and the surrounding area) reported a batch that was good for the former, while a few rural counties reported votes that were good for the latter. We’ll have to wait on the next Maricopa County batch, which should be more favorable for Gallego. Still think he’s the favorite at this point.

The GOP’s projected House majority continues to shrink. I still don’t think Democrats are going to win – they’d probably have to sweep the outstanding races in California – but it’s going to be a smaller Republican majority than in 2022. Maybe 219-216 or 220-215. That is not going to be easy to govern with if the last two years are anything to go by. GOP still with an 80% chance to take the chamber as of now; if Democrats can make comebacks in Alaska’s at-large district and Arizona’s 6th, their path becomes a lot more plausible. Some solid work by House Democrats to stay this competitive in a year where the top of the ticket got handled pretty badly, especially in safe states.

Dave McCormick will be the fourth Republican to flip a Senate seat in 2024.

Despite it now being confirmed that 100k outstanding, likely Democrat-leaning ballots remain to be counted, the latest batch of Philadelphia votes to drop came in at a margin that was nowhere near enough for Bob Casey. Casey was seen as a fairly safe incumbent here- it looks like Trump’s campaign in Pennsylvania really helped pull McCormick over the line.

Just Nevada and Arizona to go. The former seems all but certain to go for Democrats, and the latter is likely to do so as well.

It will, barring any surprises, be a 53-47 Senate. That probably wont be enough to bypass  the filibuster, but it’s a governable majority. Democrats will be looking at pickup opportunities in Maine and North Carolina in 2026.

The House continues to show signs of a very slim GOP majority. It’s likely that the chaos of the party’s house caucus will continue into the second Trump administration.

Probably the biggest silver lining in a very disappointing election for Dems is that they’re set to gain in a handful of competitive state legislatures in a year where the presidential candidate lost resoundingly across the country.

There were definitely some bad losses – Democratic majorities in the Michigan, Minnesota, and Maine state legislatures all fell – but generally the damage was minimized.

Most surprising is that the party even held the Pennsylvania State House, in which they gained a one-seat majority in 2022.

It’s another bit of consolation for the party which implies that the issue may not have been the Democratic Party as a whole, but rather Harris’ and the Biden administration’s unpopularity.

Welcome to day 3 of the 2024 elections.

The Clark County mail-in dump happened overnight, and it looks like we got about 45k votes. Rosen won the batch by 27%, above where she needed to be. Hard to see how Brown can come back at this point.

In Pennsylvania, I feel fairly confident saying that there are not 100k votes outstanding in Philadelphia; maybe closer to 10k. Maybe 25-30k mail-ins are left in blue counties, which wouldn’t be nearly enough for him to lead. The provisional ballots would have to come in at huge numbers and margins for Casey, which I don’t see happening. Will give it some more time before definitively saying he’s done, though.

No new updates from Arizona.

Here’s another post I didn’t think I’d have to make:

Kari Lake (R) is slowly cutting into Ruben Gallego (D)’s lead in Arizona. He’s still the favorite, but it’s not clear that he’s going to win. Lake is currently winning the election-day vote by 11%, and if that margin holds and all remaining votes are election-day, she wins easily. I don’t think that’s the case, but this would be a stunning loss for Senate Democrats. Lake was considered to be a terrible candidate – she lost the Arizona Governor’s race in 2022, which she was favored in – and was polling well behind Gallego.

I’m going to start to keep a closer eye on this one.

55k mail-in, Election Day drop-off, and cured ballots are expected to be reported out of Clark County any minute now. Reminder that Jacky Rosen (D) is looking for anywhere greater than a 25% margin on these; she won the last batch that came in by 34%.

If you’re wondering why Nye County is taking so long to count their votes while the rest of rural NV has already finished, it’s because they’re hand-counting all of their ballots, as opposed to using tabulation machines, which are both faster and more accurate.

It looks like Democrats are in a position where they might be able to make the GOP House majority uncomfortably small once again.

House Democrats in New York performed well enough to flip four (!!!) seats in the state, and California will likely see a few flips as well, which alongside the Louisiana and Alabama majority-Black seats that were won after courts ruled Congressional maps violated the Voting Rights Act are probably enough to cancel out most of the minor GOP wins elsewhere. The North Carolina map being re-gerrymandered for Republicans and netting them 3-4 seats might legitimately have saved their majority.

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who upset Joe Kent in 2022 to win a seat in Washington that most thought was safely Republican, appears to have defeated Kent again in a rematch. The unlikely Democratic path to a majority probably looks like this:

• Hold on in all races where Democrats are favored to win
• Hope the remaining vote in Alaska is enough to save Mary Peltola (D) – Alaska has Ranked Choice Voting, and most of the third party vote is going to a candidate aligned with Republican Nick Begich, so he seems to be likely to hold on.
• Have a trio of Republican-leaning California races (CA-22, CA-41, CA-45) go for Democrats

At this point, we’re mostly waiting on Nevada and Pennsylvania to finish counting in their Senate races. Arizona has a lot outstanding, but it looks likely that Gallego will win at this point. The House will take a bit longer.

In Nevada, there is a handful of outstanding votes in rural counties that might net Sam Brown (R) a few thousand over Jacky Rosen (D) in a race that he leads by 2.2k. Nye County also has about 6k net waiting in the wings for Brown, but that’ll probably all of his gains. According to the Nevada Independent, there’s about 55k mail-in votes in Clark County, as well as 32k in Washoe. The latest Washoe batch broke D+16, and the latest Clark batch broke D+34, both of which would be more than enough for Rosen to win. Will those margins hold? We’ll probably find out tonight, as those 55k mail-ins are expected to be reported soon. Rosen getting those by at least 25 points should be enough as long as the Washoe numbers continue to come out positive, but it’s going to be tight. Assuming that the margins narrow, the race will be closer than it was in 2022 for Catherine Cortez-Masto (who won by 8k). There’s also an undetermined amount of vote left in Clark that remains to be counted. Unsure where this is coming from. The 13k ballots that need signature cures could make all the difference here.

In Pennsylvania, not much has changed. We’re still waiting to figure out how much vote is outstanding in Philadelphia, and what type of vote it is. McCormick leads by 31k votes right now, and will probably end up netting around 18k from Cambria County and 3k elsewhere in the state. Philadelphia would need to net ~50-55k votes left for McCormick. There, it depends on the margins:

• If Philadelphia would vote at its current margins (D+60), Casey would need there to be 90k votes outstanding.
• If the remaining vote is vote-by-mail, where the margins were closer to D+70, Casey would need there to be 80k votes outstanding.
• If the remaining vote is all election-day (around D+50), Casey would need there to be around 100k votes outstanding.

How much is actually left? It remains hard to say. If Reuters and CNN are accurate, 16% of Philadelphia County is unreported; that would be 104k votes outstanding, probably enough for Casey to win in any case. If NYT and the AP are accurate, and Philadelphia County is almost done counting, it’s probably over. No reasonable amount of VBM that’s received late could get Casey over the finish line. The Philadelphia City Commissioners Office reported that 1699/1703 city divisions are “reporting;” whether this means that there are only four divisions that have votes left to count or four that have counted no votes with plenty doing partial counts, I also don’t know.

My gut says that Philadelphia is mostly done and that Reuters and CNN are using a turnout estimate that’s based on population rather than precincts reporting, in which case McCormick wins. The race is close enough that an automatic recount would be triggered, but it won’t change the result unless things narrow significantly. Feels like we’re either going to be in the dark for a while or going to know very quickly.

House Democrats have been running enough ahead of Harris that they still have an outside shot at the chamber- somewhere around a 15% chance to win. It might come down to California, which will take a long time to count its votes. Still would bet on a GOP majority of around 225-230 seats as of now.

Just crunched the numbers for the Nevada Senate race, and things are at an interesting point.

Brown will likely net 15-20k more votes outside of Clark County, extending his leak to 18-23k. The incumbent Democrat Jacky Rosen is running 6% ahead of Brown in Clark, but the county’s almost entirely done reporting. There are about 55,000 mail-in votes remaining in Clark, and somewhere in the ballpark of 43,000 left in Washoe. The former need to come in around 2-to-1 for Rosen for her to have a good shot to win. The first batch did reach that mark. Rosen is probably a slight favorite right now.

There’s also a wildcard: 12,700 ballots needing signature cures. If Rosen gains ground to a point, it could come down to which candidate can rally their voters to cure their ballots by November 12th.

If Brown does hold on, it would perhaps be the biggest upset of the election in any statewide race: 538 gave Rosen a 85% chance of holding her seat.

Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has held on in the Michigan Senate race, most networks project. Democrats will likely take 46-48 Senate seats, depending on the results in Nevada and Pennsylvania.

Dan Osborn, an Independent candidate for Nebraska Senate, managed to keep the race in the ruby-red state within 8%. The race was polling closer than this, and his opponent, incumbent Republican Senator Deb Fischer, ran a weak campaign, but his socially neutral, working class brand of populism might be an electoral strategy Democrats turn to as they try to figure out what path to take after a humbling defeat in 2024.

Closing in on the final results in Pennsylvania.

Centre County, home of Penn State, flipped to Casey. This bodes well for him, and implies that he might be improving on his margins as the final ballots come in statewide.

The race will come down to Philadelphia. The New York Times is saying that it’s >95% reported, while most other sources have it at 83%. If the former is true, McCormick has won. If the latter is true, Casey is the favorite. More waiting to do.

A silver lining for Democrats here- Tammy Baldwin has almost certainly won in Wisconsin, and Elissa Slotkin has about an 80% chance in Michigan, given what vote has come in and where the vote remains. Milwaukee in particular came in with a batch of votes that was larger than I expected, and it even cut the margin in the presidential election down to a lead for Trump that’s under a point. In retrospect, given that Wisconsin has the highest share of the White population out of all of the core swing states, it’s not surprising that Harris’ losses were the smallest out of any of them.

I’m going back and forth on whether or not Bob Casey has a shot in Pennsylvania. I peg his odds at 25-30%; most of the outstanding vote is in Philadelphia, and if margins hold it’s probably enough, but the margin will likely be a little lower thanks to all of the remaining vote being from Election Day. I’ll keep you updated as more results come in.

If Democrats can hold these three seats, as well as Nevada (which I give a 60% chance of happening) and Arizona (which I give an 80% chance of happening), they’ll get to 48 seats. This is the number they need to be competitive in the Senate in 2026, given the two vulnerable Republican seats in Maine and North Carolina.

Another batch of votes just came in from Pennsylvania, and incumbent Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) has narrowed his deficit to 53k votes. I have Casey netting around 90k from Philadelphia County, but there are plenty of votes from rural areas left. It’s going to be a nail-biter.

By this point, all major news sources have called the race for Trump via him winning the states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Most haven’t called Michigan yet, but it will likely follow soon.

The overnight came with some good news and some bad news for Democrats. In the Michigan and Wisconsin Senate races, Democratic candidates have taken the lead; it’s hard to say if they will hold, but both states are almost done counting the vote. Pennsylvania remains at the spot it was last night, but I’d definitely rather be Republican Dave McCormick than Democrat Bob Casey right now.

Nevada and Arizona have gotten 88% and 62% of the vote in, respectively, and they’re showing the same trends as the rest of the country.

Trump may end up sweeping all of Nevada’s counties, including Clark County, home of Las Vegas, for the first time for a GOP candidate in decades. Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen is also at risk, though given that Washoe County is a wash the slow drip of mail-in ballots in Clark will probably allow her to pull ahead.

In Arizona, Trump has flipped populous Maricopa County, in which Phoenix resides; it looks like the state will be his best swing state, as the polls predicted. Democratic candidate Ruben Gallego seems to be fairly likely to defeat Republican Kari Lake, but there’s still plenty of the vote left outstanding.

The House continues to have a trickle of results as the GOP inches towards a majority- I’d place them at around 230 seats as of now.

That’s where things stand as of this morning. Democrats can only hope that they can get to 47 or so Senate seats and try to salvage and hopes of taking back the chamber in the near future. Otherwise, this has been a red wave year.

Well, it’s 12:50am, which is about an hour and a half earlier than when I thought I’d be able to stop doing coverage.

Donald Trump is going to be the next President of the United States. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are all going to go into his column, and he’ll likely drag 2-3 of the Republican Senate candidates there to victories as well. Arizona, Nevada, and Alaska remain too early to call, so the race stands at Trump 292-226 Harris.

Republicans easily took back the Senate off of Trump’s strong performance, and they’re going to have a strong majority. 54-55 seats is my best guess.

The House of Representatives will probably take a bit longer to call, but will end up going Republican. It’ll be a GOP Trifecta for the first two years of Trump’s second term.

This is a sobering defeat for the Democrats – similar to what the Republican Party endured when Mitt Romney lost in 2012. There’ll be a lot of soul searching before 2026 and 2028, that’s for sure. I can’t say which direction Democrats will go in, but the GOP probably already has their 2028 candidate in JD Vance.

The election reflects trends among Black and Latino voters especially shifting towards Trump- he gained everywhere, but his ability to keep Harris’ margins in urban counties down was largely thanks to the Black vote shifting to the right/having its turnout reduced. We’re going to have to see how much- the CNN exit polls showed that Harris put up a performance similar to Biden among Black voters, and even gained among White voters, but was down from D+33 in 2020 to only D+8 in 2024 among Latinos. The share of Black turnout was forecasted to be 11% compared to 13%, as well. Harris not only didn’t improve on Biden’s margins in suburbs, but actually was worse, going from D+2 to R+2. This, combined with Trump increasing his advantage in rural areas from R+15 to R+27, shifted things in his favor. I have an inkling that urban areas might’ve also shifted right, too, or at least had dampened turnout compared to rural areas.

Harris losing margins in safely Democratic states supports the idea that she’s losing support from Latino and Black voters- Illinois will likely shift at least 6 points to the right, and likely more. New Jersey will do so by 10 points. Rhode Island did shift by 10, as did Maryland. Across the board, every state in the nation shifted from to Trump by 5-10%. That’s a good bit more than the 2016 -> 2020 shift to Biden was (which fell closer to a 2-4% shift to the left). Whether Kamala Harris wasn’t the right candidate, or Democrats as a whole were broadly unpopular, it’s hard to say. The fact that Senate Democrats are running so close to Harris implies the latter more than the former, but the Presidential Candidate always has a substantial impact down-ballot.

I’ll join you again in the morning with an update on how major networks have called the states. I expect Trump to be declared the victor before noon.

I’m going to say it: I don’t see a path to victory for Harris.

Nevada and Arizona she has maybe a 30% chance of winning, each, but her deficits in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are too great to overcome given Harris’ lackluster margins in urban areas and the few remaining votes there. Trump will be the President-Elect by Wednesday morning. Interestingly, Trump hasn’t claimed victory yet.

Harris’ numbers were extremely low across the country; the Northeast, the South, everywhere, she under-performed Biden’s numbers. Black and Latino voters shifted to Trump, as did rural counties, while suburban and urban areas either stayed stagnant or moved to the right.

The election ended up being a referendum on the Biden/Harris Administration, rather than on Donald Trump. We can see the impact that had on the electorate.

I see the GOP gaining a 54- or 55-seat Senate majority, flipping West Virginia, Ohio, Montana, Wisconsin, Michigan, and potentially Pennsylvania. That leaves Democrats in a nightmarish position electorally.

The House will also go to the GOP at the end of the day, though it’ll take a few days before we have enough of the vote in across the country to make a definitive call.

This result is further to the right than it was in 2016, and Harris will likely lose the popular vote. The Democratic Party is going to be in for its own party audit – probably similar to what Republicans did after 2012 – and it remains to be seen how they will respond.

In Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, where three Senate Democrats are trying to salvage their re-election campaigns, the candidates are only running 1-2 points ahead of Kamala Harris. That might only be enough for 1 of them to come out on top.

Bob Casey (D-PA) has about even odds to win. Can’t say for Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) for now.

A vote dump from New Hampshire just came in that seems to have locked in a Harris win in New Hampshire by around 3%. Biden won the state by 7.5%.

Just got a big vote drop out of Wayne County, Michigan, home to Detroit. The county voted for Biden by 38 points. With 24% reporting, Harris leads Trump by 19 points. Seems like Trump’s overperformance with Black voters and big numbers for Trump among Muslim American voters are helping him out big-time. Harris’ path in Michigan is narrowing.

The Senate map in general is unfavorable to Democrats – who tend to win more high-population states, meaning that they need to win the majority of swing state Senate seats to hold the chamber.

With losses in Ohio and Montana, as well as potential ones brewing in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania (keep an eye on Nevada and Arizona as well), the path to a Democratic majority might get very narrow in 2026, 2028, and even 2030. We’ll be seeing a very different Democratic party coming out of this election, that’s for sure.

Cook County is currently reporting as D+24- it was D+50 (!!!) in 2020. This should show you how much Black voters shifted to Trump.

North Carolina has been called for Trump by most major networks, and I anticipate that Georgia will be soon to follow.

Michigan and Wisconsin will take some more time to get clearer, but they are firmly favoring Trump. Pennsylvania has most of its remaining vote in the Philadelphia metro area, but the margins for Harris likely won’t be enough for her to pull ahead. Arizona and Nevada are unclear at this time.

We might get a projection by tomorrow morning.

Democrats are poised to have a very disappointing night in the House of Representatives- and that’s an understatement. The GOP is picking up winds downballot from Trump’s big wins, and they will likely hold the chamber.

Harris is nearing a <5% margin in New Jersey, a state that went to Biden by 16% in 2020. She remains overwhelmingly likely to win, but it exemplifies the dismal state of her campaign at this point.

Polls have closed in California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, leaving only Hawaii and Alaska left.

California and Washington for Harris, Idaho for Trump. Oregon is too early to call as things stand.

Harris is unlikely to gain in a single state, besides for maybe Nebraska.

It’s all but official- Republicans will retake the Senate. By holding all of their seats up for election and picking up Ohio (calls will come soon) and West Virginia, Republicans have reached the magic number of 51 seats. The first of the major houses of government to fall for the GOP.

Oregon, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Illinois. These four states all went for Joe Biden by >15%; they are projected to go for Harris by 12%, 12%, 7.9%, and 11% points, respectively, according to the NYT Needle.

She is likely to lose the popular vote at this rate. This is a 2020-esque polling error with tied polls.

Donald Trump is the odds-on favorite to win in North Carolina and Georgia; be prepared for these states to be called for Trump soon.

Polls have closed in Nevada, Utah, Montana, and parts of Idaho and Oregon. Utah and Montana net Trump 10 more electoral votes.

I don’t really know how else to title this.

Even with Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016, she made gains among urban voters and Latinos especially. Harris is down across essentially every single demographic; she might be up a tick with white women, but it’s nowhere near enough as things stand. She’s got even odds to lose the popular vote, a possibility that most didn’t find realistic unless she had as bad of a performance as she’s having tonight.

In safe and likely Republican states, Trump is putting up massive margins. He’s up 13% in Florida (89% in, won by 3.4% in 2020).

Even in Democratic states, Harris is struggling. She’s putting up numbers in the Bronx that sit far behind what Biden got, and in Rhode Island, it took nearly an extra two hours to get a call there. These are numbers worse than what Clinton got in 2016.

Republicans will certainly win the Senate at this rate. The House is probably 85%, the Presidency at 80%.

Barring an unlikely comeback in North Carolina and Georgia, Harris’ path to victory probably has to run through the rust belt. If those Eaton county numbers hold in Michigan, her only path is Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Arizona. Arizona was Trump’s best swing state in pre-election polling.

Trump has won Ohio, most major news networks are projecting. Democrats are hoping that Sherrod Brown can run ahead of Kamala Harris’ margin by 7-9 points, but at this point I’m not sure if that might be enough.

Republican trifecta the most likely outcome by far, at this point.

We only have 64% of the vote in, but in Eaton County, Michigan, home of Lansing, Trump has gained 16% from his margin in 2020. This will likely go down slightly, but if this is true, Harris has no path to victory through Michigan. Still early.

Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania still are yet to provide meaningful insight, but as things stand, Trump is the clear favorite. WI and AZ would be shockers if they went for Harris at this point.

Polls have now closed in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Louisiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and New York.

As things stand at this point in the race, you’d much rather be Trump. Even if Harris could somehow pull this race out, she might have a Republican House of Representatives to deal with.

Sorry for the sporadic updates; it’s a lot going down at around the same time.

For those of you look at the numbers in Pennsylvania showing her way up, be wary that these are purely vote-by-mail results. This is the “firewall” that you may have heard some people talk about; Democrats built up around a 420,000 vote lead in PA in registration. 75% of the PA vote is on election day, as PA has no traditional early voting. Stay tuned to see how things settle down once the election day votes come in.

Given Trump’s improvement on his 2020 margins in rural areas, Harris needed to make big improvements in suburbs- which she was predicted to do. In Georgia, and other areas in the south, Harris is largely stagnant in the suburbs, as well as in urban areas. It’s a big underperformance which shifts most of the hope of her campaign to the Midwest.

This also implies that Harris is underperforming with Black voters compared to Biden by a non-insignificant margin, a big fear for Democrats this election that appears to be partially materializing.

Polls have closed in Arkansas, another state that will go right into the Trump column.

Florida Amendment 3, which legalizes recreational marijuana, is likely to fail, sitting at 55% of the vote and needing 60% to pass.

Florida Amendment 4, which guarantees a constitutional right to abortion until viability, sits at 57% of the vote, needing 60% to pass.

These motions were both tossups to pass. 85% of the vote is in.

Trump is starting to stretch his advantage in rural counties in Georgia. At this point, he’s the clear favorite in the state.

We have some preliminary numbers in Texas around the Dallas-Forth Worth metro area – Harris isn’t gaining much in the suburbs, and actually is trailing Biden’s 2020 number in Tarrant County, home of Fort Worth.

Harris continues to put up worse numbers in the suburbs than she needs to, at least in the South.

Polls have just closed in a whole host of states:

Harris and Trump both picking up plenty of electoral votes; most networks are being a bit more conservative with projections for Harris, but she’s going to get to around 61 electoral votes from this batch with Trump at 105.

A note on how things are going so far: Harris is well underperforming where she needs to be in suburban counties, and Trump’s a bit ahead of where he needs to be in rurals. Harris’ path to the White House is likely entirely contingent on Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, as things stand. It’s early, but you’d rather be Trump than Harris right now.

Reports that the Loudon County dump in Virginia earlier were a data error- I’ll get back on this.

The much-maligned and scandal-ridden GOP candidate for North Carolina governor is projected to lose handily, just 30 minutes after polls close. Not much of a surprise here.

Harris is currently running well behind Biden’s margin in Loudon County, Virginia, a DC suburb that he carried by 24 points. With 92% reporting, her lead’s only 17%; not looking great for her, considering suburbs are where she was projected to make the biggest gains.

Popular Republican Former Governor Jim Justice is projected to win in West Virginia’s Senate election, picking up what was Democrat-turned-Independent Joe Manchin’s seat.

This is the first pickup of the night in the Senate- Republicans now need either the Presidency or one more Senate seat to regain control of the chamber.

Senator Sherrod Brown is only running 4-6 points ahead of Kamala Harris in Ohio- he needs to be doing so by around 7-9% to have a reasonable shot of winning. Still extremely early, though; 3% of the vote in the Buckeye State is in.

Polls have closed in all three states- North Carolina being a battleground.

West Virginia projected for Trump – add another four electoral votes to his column.

Miami-Dade has reported 70% of its vote, and it has Trump up by 11%.

This is a historically Democratic county that Hillary Clinton won by 30 points – Ron DeSantis carried it in his re-election campaign.

We are witnessing Florida’s certification as a Republican stronghold. I do think the state will go to Trump by double digits.

Something similar happened in 2022, as well- it didn’t materialize elsewhere besides New York.

Regardless, these are still historical margins.

Douglas and Rockdale Counties in Georgia are reporting 75% of the vote each- Harris is running about 6-7% ahead of Biden in each.

It seems like rurals will shift right and suburbs left- it might come down to Trump’s performance in urban counties.

We have a few counties in rural KY that have finished voting – all of them show Trump running 4-5 points ahead of where he was in 2020. This is about – or a little ahead of – where he needs to be in rural counties.

Florida has begun to report their votes, and the numbers are good for Trump.

Trump is running ahead of where he was in 2020 in a majority of the state, including in urban counties. He might crack a double digit victory here. Senator Rick Scott is actually running ahead of him right now, too.

This probably doesn’t indicate anything for the rest of the country- but we’ll have to wait and see.

Polls are now closed in Indiana, Kentucky, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Vermont, and parts of Florida.

First projections of the night: Vermont for Harris, Kentucky and Indiana for Trump. No surprises here.

Taylor County, KY is standing at Trump+58 with 88% of the vote reporting. This is well ahead of his 2020 performance, which was Trump+51. Might imply that other rurals will come back to even or slightly better for Trump as they finish reporting.

We have votes in from Hamilton, IN!

Harris leads by 1.1% with 58% of the vote reporting, about where she wants to be.

We have a handful of suburban, exurban, and rural counties reporting in both Kentucky and Indiana, with some getting to 60% reporting.

Almost all of them in Indiana show Trump running below where he was in 2020 by a few points. This could be because Indiana is counting Democrat-leaning vote first, and this might even out, but otherwise it is a small cause for concern. I’m keeping an eye on it.

Just want to note on something interesting- Mike Braun is the incumbent Republican Governor of Indiana, and is the favorite to win. His campaign struggled late in the election season, and he’s likely to underrun Trump by a healthy margin. His opponent would probably need to do 15% better than Harris to win; the margin with 6% of Indiana reporting is Trump seven points ahead of Braun.

A scattering of counties in rural and suburban parts of Indiana and Kentucky have reported around 40% of their vote, each; some are showing Trump ahead of his 2020 number and some are showing Trump behind of his 2020 number, so there’s not much we can draw from this yet. Trump probably needs to do a little bit better in rurals than he did in 2020 thanks to suburban counties presumably shifting left, though he can make up for it with small shifts right in urban areas.

Just a brief addendum on the democracy issue above- another exit poll showed Harris voters being highly confident of the security of the election, while Trump supporters are about 50/50. This supports the idea I mentioned earlier that Trump voters see democracy as more salient compared to immigration and the economy than expected.

Polls have just closed in most of Kentucky and Indiana.

Both states are safely red – Trump will likely win both by more than 15% – but how well he does could be an indicator of the rest of the night.

Look for a few counties in particular: Hamilton County, IN, and Fayette County, KY. If Hamilton flips to Harris, and especially if it’s by more than 5%, then it bodes well for her. If Trump can stay only 25% behind in Fayette, or even get to 20%, he will be in a very strong position to win.

As is tradition, CNN and NBC just released their exit polls on air an hour before the first polls close. The numbers seem to be aligned with what polling expected: Trump leads by 4% on “who is better with the economy,” Biden has -17% net approval rating, Trump has -10% net favorability rating, and Harris has -2% net favorability. The one thing that stands out to me is the issues- abortion (Harris’ strongest issue) is registering with more salience than immigration (Trump’s strongest issue), and democracy is actually the most important, ahead of the economy, which almost never happens. This is probably better news for Harris than Trump, but could also indicate that Trump supporters are more concerned with election integrity compared to other issues than we thought.

We’ve had a splattering of election-day voter numbers come in today – a lot of states will publish the party affiliation and demographics of their voters before they publish their votes – and it’s given some interesting conclusions.

Turnout across the country is very high, and if these trends continue we’ll likely surpass 2020, both in terms of percentage of the population voting and raw number of voters.

In Florida, the numbers look very good for Trump. The early vote was heavily Republican-favored, and the election day tally has been similarly good for him.

Elsewhere, it’s been a different story. Philadelphia (a Democratic stronghold in Pennsylvania) in particular is turning out in big numbers, and primarily Latino precincts in the city surpassed their 2020 turnout before noon. Georgia and Michigan are both experiencing record turnout as well, primarily in urban, Democrat-favoring areas. Nevada, which gave Democrats some worry with high rural turnout in early voting, has seen Republicans running well-under their 2022 turnout % in Clark County, home to Las Vegas and the majority of the state’s population. Texas has shown signs that its election-day vote might be as blue as its early vote, which could be early signs of worry for vulnerable Republican incumbent Ted Cruz- though it’s nothing too definitive yet. Iowa’s share of women (who are expected to vote Democratic by-and-large) voting is about 6% higher than it was in 2020. The state was expected to be safe for Trump, but a poll by historically accurate pollster Ann Selzer that came out on Saturday showed Harris leading.

Lastly, Arizona has been largely a wash, with its party registration heavily favoring Republicans and Independents as it did in 2020 and 2022- two years in which the state voted for Democrats. We’ll see if anything more clear comes through.

Wisconsin doesn’t publish their election day vote information ahead of time.

Here’s the current state of the electoral map in the presidential election.

Colored in deep blue are states that are almost guaranteed to go to Harris; it’s exceedingly unlikely Trump wins any of these states.

Colored in light blue are states that Trump can win in a landslide, but are otherwise likely to go to Harris.

Colored in gray are the all-important battleground states- the winner in each is up in the air, and these will likely decide the election.

Colored in light red are states that Harris can win in a landslide, but will most likely go for Trump.

Colored in deep red are states that Trump has a very high chance of winning; it would take a win of proportions we haven’t seen since 1984 to swing these to Harris.

It’s important to note that while 48 states and Washington, D.C. give all of their electoral votes to whichever candidate receives the most votes, Nebraska and Maine do things differently: they each give two electoral votes to whichever candidate wins statewide, and one electoral vote apiece for each of their congressional districts. In Nebraska, the second district is likely to go to Harris, while in Maine, the second district is likely to go to Trump.

CNN is reporting that two bomb threats were placed against polling places in Gwinnett County, Georgia (a Democratic stronghold and part of the Atlanta metro area) that originated from Russia, according to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The threats forced the voting centers to shut down temporarily; the county has filed a motion to extend voting hours as a result.