The final electoral college count is Trump: 312, Harris: 226.
Just days after former President Donald Trump was projected to have won the presidency, Trump's transition team operation has begun, with transition co-chairs confirming that he will be selecting personnel to serve under his leadership in the coming days.
Trump is also the projected winner in Arizona, a state the former president flipped after losing it to Joe Biden in 2020.
Trump's projected win in the vital swing state marks a sweep of the battleground states.
Many roads to the White House for Harris ran through Pennsylvania, but with ABC News projecting a win for Trump, Harris has run out of options. I’ll leave the more in-depth analysis of what went wrong with the campaign to the experts, but at a basic level, she fell short of her benchmarks across much of the state and suffered from deep-blue Philadelphia County making up a smaller portion of the statewide vote than in 2020.
ABC News projects that Trump will win Pennsylvania's 19 electoral votes, which puts him on course to win at least 270 electoral votes and the presidency. He now has 266 electoral votes, and while ABC News has not yet projected the three electoral votes in Alaska or one vote in Maine's 2nd Congressional District, his edge so far tonight suggests that he is more than likely to. Additionally, he leads by varying margins in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin.
Trump's impending victory is historic for a multitude of reasons. He is just the second former president to lose reelection and then return four years later to win back the White House (Democrat Grover Cleveland was the first during the period from 1884 to 1892). He also won despite various personal legal troubles that were unprecedented for a major-party presidential contender. It remains to be seen if Trump will return to office with his party in full control of government: ABC News has projected the Senate will go Republican, but the House remains up in the air at this late (or especially early) hour.
Democrats are on their way to breaking Republicans’ supermajority in the North Carolina state House, meaning that the legislature won’t be able to override the Democratic governor’s vetoes. Prior to tonight, Republicans occupied at least 60% of North Carolina’s legislative seats. This gave the party the power to override gubernatorial vetoes if they voted as a bloc, and was massively important for Republicans as the state’s outgoing governor, Roy Cooper, is a Democrat. After tonight, Republicans will still represent the majority of lawmakers in the state’s legislature — but the party is likely to lose its supermajority. That’s because, in House District 24, Democrat Dante Pittman is leading incumbent Republican Rep. Ken Fontenot. If that trend continues then, come January, Republicans will no longer have the power to override gubernatorial vetoes; this could force the party to negotiate with Governor-elect Josh Stein in order to pass their priorities.
ABC News projects that Republicans will gain control of the Senate in the 119th Congress, set to begin on Jan. 3, 2025. ABC News has projected Republican pickups in Ohio and West Virginia, which puts the GOP at 51 seats, and Republicans currently hold narrow leads in Michigan, Montana, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Nevada also looks very close, so the GOP could in theory secure as many as 56 seats based on the way results look right now.
Republicans clinch Senate control with key flips
