Trump wins presidential race after projected Wisconsin victory: Takeaways and analysis

Democrat Mazie Hirono has won re-election to the U.S. Senate in Hawaii, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Harris has won New Hampshire's presidential contest, NBC News. And though she secures the state's four electoral votes, there is not a path for her to win the presidency after Trump's projected win in Wisconsin.

See the latest results here.

Donald Trump has won the U.S. presidential contest, securing at least 276 electoral votes and defeating Kamala Harris, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Donald Trump has won Wisconsin’s presidential contest, securing the state’s 10 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Chris Hayes speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

We’ve spent many years talking about democracy and its vibrancy, and the importance of the peaceful transfer of power. We had a violent insurrection staged against the constitutional order by someone who urged his supporters to march on the Capitol, where they assaulted police officers and attempted to essentially steal power away from the majority of the country that had voted for Joe Biden.

It’s really important to note that while I believe that institutions have failed dramatically in putting us in the position we are — including the Supreme Court and other institutions, the Republican Party — that if he won, then he won. That’s what the Constitution says.

It’s what the current constitutional order says, it’s what democratic majorities at least in the swing states and the Electoral College have said, and that means we’re in a new world for this country. But the sort of preservation of American democracy and the constitutional order begins as an ongoing process anew.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

As a rhetoric major, I learned that there are certain rules for specific kinds of speeches. There are — or were — rules for an acceptance speech, too. But as he has done with everything else in his political career, Trump threw most of them out.

Trump’s speech tonight included almost nothing about what he would do as president, other than tightening up the border with Mexico, cutting taxes and making vague promises to restore America’s greatness. Another typical moment would be to briefly acknowledge your opponent and note that they fought hard. Didn’t do that either.

Politicians also like to bring up some small moment from the campaign trail when they met a person in a swing state who inspired them in some way. Trump talked about Elon Musk instead.

Trump did acknowledge the work that his campaign did, but he focused more on the campaign managers than the rank-and-file volunteers who are typically highlighted.

This was not a normal acceptance speech. But then again, none of his speeches are.

Joy Reid speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

To elect is to choose; to vote is to choose. You were never given, I think in the modern era, a clearer choice than voters were given in this election. ...

This was not a ground game situation. This had nothing to do with Kamala Harris’ campaign, which was flawlessly run in 100 days. That wasn’t the reason for the choice.

So whatever the reason for the choice was, a choice is made — and then you get what you chose. So if Donald Trump then does what he has promised to do, people need to understand that he didn’t pull one over on the American people when he does it. If he does the things he said he was going to do, it was chosen by this country, at least by a majority of voters.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

Trump also invited Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White to speak onstage in Florida.

White told the crowd that Trump was the “most resilient, hardworking man I’ve ever met in my life” and said he had earned his re-election.

“Nobody deserves this more than him, and nobody deserves this more than his family does,” he said. “This is what happens when the machine comes after you.”

Alluding to Trump’s criminal convictions and other tribulations since leaving office in 2021, White said: “This is karma.” 

White also praised podcast host Joe Rogan, a UFC color commentator who endorsed Trump just before Election Day.

If you thought Trump’s GOP nomination speech this summer went places, his election night address to his supporters was in many ways worse.

He spent a long tangent praising Elon Musk’s rockets. He brought up random supporters like Dana White, the CEO of UFC, to speak at the mic. He promised to have Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “make America healthy again.” He continued to make absurd economic promises about tariffs and drilling for oil. He estimated that he had done 900 rallies, a number that can’t possibly be verified.

It was unclear whether at any point he was speaking from prepared remarks. And in that half-hour of rambling, we have a vision for what the next several years will likely entail.

Kamala Harris has won New Jersey’s presidential contest, securing the state’s 14 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Kamala Harris has won Minnesota’s presidential contest, securing the state’s 10 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Trump praised billionaire Elon Musk, who handled his get-out-the-vote effort.

“A star is born,” he said.

Trump then went on a long aside about Musk bringing his Starlink satellite internet service to North Carolina after Hurricane Helene, calling him a “super genius.”

“We have to protect our geniuses — we don’t have that many of them,” Trump said.

Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, briefly spoke onstage just now.

“After the greatest political comeback in American history, we’re going to have the greatest economic comeback in American history under President Trump’s leadership,” he said.

Trump then praised Vance, saying he turned out to be a “great choice” even though he had taken “a little heat” for picking him.

Trump told supporters gathered at the Palm Beach Convention Center that he would “help our country heal” in a second term.

“This will truly be the golden age of America,” he said, speaking at about 2:30 a.m. ET.

He vowed to address the border with Mexico and give the country the help it needs “very badly.” Trump spent the first few minutes of the speech talking about the success of his campaign but not mentioning much about what he would do as president.

Trump just told the crowd in Florida that he had won a major victory thanks to the American people, telling the crowd that he had been elected as “your 47th president — and 45th president.” NBC News has not called the race for him, but he is ahead in the Electoral College count.

“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” he said.

The ground game has almost mythical status in Washington. In the nation’s capital, it’s not uncommon in election season to overhear some young staffer or volunteer boasting about their superior door-knocking effort. But, look, this is shaping up to be the third straight election where the candidate with what was a clearly and objectively worse ground game won anyway.

The Trump campaign in 2016 was massively disorganized even as Hillary Clinton was running a standard Democratic turnout machine. Didn’t matter.

The Biden campaign in 2020 chose not to knock on doors in person due to the coronavirus pandemic, while Republicans pressed ahead. Didn’t matter.

The Trump campaign in 2024 outsourced get-out-the-vote efforts to Elon Musk, who built what appears to be the Cybertruck of door-knocking efforts. Doesn’t appear that is going to matter.

Now, it’s possible the margins might have been bigger had the winners done a better job, but clearly having a better ground game is just not enough.

It’s weird to say at 2 a.m., but the results that we’re seeing are something of a vindication for pollsters. Even as they wavered on who was winning the swing states, the various polls were clear that their results were within the margin of error.

Well, looking at the results in Georgia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, that has panned out — Trump is projected to win each of those states by 3 or 4 points. He’s looking like he might win the popular vote as well for the first time, or at least keep it close, which is also in line with previous surveys.

Trump is about to speak to supporters at the Palm Beach Convention Center.

He had been spending the evening at his Mar-a-Lago property for a gathering that included former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and billionaire Elon Musk.

It was in looking at the vote margins in Pennsylvania in 2016 that it became clear to news organizations that Trump would beat Hillary Clinton. Eight years later, the Keystone State was again key to his victory. This time it’s less of a surprise (but just as much of a gut punch) that the ultimate swing state would once again likely toss the election to a man who should be nowhere near the White House.

Both Trump and Harris knew that the path to victory most likely went through Pennsylvania, with their campaigns racking up visits to the state and each side pouring in millions of dollars’ worth of resources. It seems, though, that it just wasn’t enough to stop Harris’ margins from slipping in rural counties enough to overcome her advantage in cities and suburbs.

Now Trump is just four electoral votes away from officially winning a second term, with Harris likely blocked from a win.

Donald Trump has won Pennsylvania’s presidential contest, securing the state’s 19 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Once again, we could be looking at a situation where the winner of the presidency does so without winning the national popular vote. As of 1:30 a.m. ET, there are still about half the votes left to be tallied in California alone, along with hundreds of thousands of votes in places like Detroit and Philadelphia that could run up her total. But even with that being the case, it’s looking like the polls might have been right and the country is close to evenly split between the two candidates.

With Republicans having just won control of the U.S. Senate, they might have also scored a win regarding the Supreme Court.

If there’s a Trump presidency, a GOP-led Senate would likely approve any Supreme Court nominee that he puts forward, which could solidify or even expand the current 6-3 majority of Republican appointees.

And if Harris were to win, they can also block any nominee of hers. After all, that’s what they did when then-President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland, holding the seat open until Trump won the election and nominated Neil Gorsuch.

My colleague Jordan Rubin wrote that the court was on the ballot a few days ago, noting that the ages of the justices reflect how long-term that effect could be:

Chris Hayes speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

We have called the Senate for the Republican Party. They were always favored to take the Senate, given the map, so it’s not hugely surprising.

There is a weird wrinkle here, which is the House of Representatives. In 2016, of course, when Donald Trump won that race despite losing the national popular vote, he won the White House, the Senate and a House majority. He had a trifecta. When Joe Biden won in 2020, he had the Senate and the House — a trifecta thanks to those two Senate runoffs in Georgia. It is a genuine possibility that should Trump win the presidency — which is not yet called — that the Senate is called for Republicans and the Democrats take back the House from Republicans. This is not crazy talk. This is not “It’s 1 in the morning and I’m punchy.” Mathematically, based on what we know so far, based on the votes we have, that is genuinely an outstanding possibility that could be massively consequential in ways that I cannot overemphasize.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

I’ll be real: There’s something particularly brutal about Harris losing Georgia to Trump this time around.

Granted, it was a narrow win in 2020 for Biden, taking the state by roughly 12,000 votes. We’re still waiting on the final tally, but the margin this time around is likely much greater, close to 125,000 votes in Trump’s favor.

That still keeps the state in “purple” territory, but I think it was the fact that it wasn’t just Biden who won in 2020 but two Democratic Senate candidates — Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock — that made it feel like there was a more permanent change afoot. The amount of time and energy from volunteers and activists to put part of the Deep South into play can’t be diminished, nor the hustle to keep it that way. It still can’t help but sting though that those efforts fell short this time around.

Kamala Harris has won New Mexico’s presidential contest, securing the state’s five electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Amid disappointing results in the early returns, Harris will not speak at Howard University tonight.

She had planned for a big speech at the historically black university she attended in the nation’s capital, with several streets closed off and a crowd gathered at the Yard, a large open space on campus. 

But with NBC News calling North Carolina and Georgia for Trump while results in other states indicate Trump is doing well with key demographics, Harris is calling off the speech and the crowds are being sent home.

“We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not been called yet,” Harris campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond told the crowd. “We will continue overnight to fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken.”

He added that Harris will instead speak at Howard on Wednesday.

Rachel Maddow speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

We have the best job market in the history of the United States. Inflation is back to where it was, not only just before Covid but before Trump left office. The inflation numbers, the economic growth numbers and the fiscal numbers are all off the charts positive. Even the freakin’ stock market is off the charts positive. 

And yet, the pain, the old pain from having gone through the rise in prices — which is over and which we weathered better than every other advanced economy in the world — still remains.

To me, these concerns over the economy can’t be prescriptive. If we were a country where all the economic indicators were going down, you would expect it to be a big economically driven change election. But all of our economic indicators are three feet high and rising.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

As I explain in this piece, Republicans have managed to flip enough seats to erase the Democrats’ one-seat lead in the Senate. What we don’t know, though, is who will be Senate majority leader when Congress convenes next year. This will be the first time in over a decade that Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will not be heading the caucus, opening the door to a new GOP leader. What that means for whoever wins the White House, though, remains to be seen.

Republican Deb Fischer has won re-election to the U.S. Senate in Nebraska, defeating independent Dan Osborn, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Donald Trump has won Georgia’s presidential contest, securing the state’s 16 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Joy Reid just made a great point about Democrats’ shattered hopes of wooing white women at the ballot box in this presidential race. Particularly after Republicans’ overturning of Roe v. Wade, and in part due to Trump’s grotesque treatment of women, some Democrats were optimistic about the potential for a majority of white women backing Harris this year.

But NBC News’ exit polls tell a different story. In swing states, white women were the only women who favored Trump over Harris. In spite of Democrats’ framing Trump as an existential crisis for women’s health and well-being, 53% of white women chose to align themselves with him anyway, continuing an eyebrow-raising trend.

I’m watching the vote tallies in the battleground states and something jumping out at me is how many votes remain to be counted in Michigan. That’s especially the case in Wayne County, home to Detroit, with only about 16% of the vote tallied as of midnight ET. That means that there are an estimated 750,000 ballots to be processed in a state that’s a must-win for Harris in a county that’s deeply Democratic.

One very, very important caveat though: Wayne County is also home to Dearborn, a majority Arab American community. The city has been a focal point for organizing against the Biden-Harris policy toward arming Israel in its war in Gaza, leaving open the question of whether Dearborn’s voters in particular would turn out to support the Democrat. If lower turnout suppresses Harris’ margins in the state, that could wind up being the difference between victory and defeat.

Kamala Harris has won Hawaii’s presidential contest, securing the state’s four electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

North Carolina has a lot of statewide races, which gives you a lot more data on what the state’s voters are thinking.

And it’s still not easy to understand.

NBC News has projected that Trump won the Tar Heel State, so far by the same narrow margins that he won in 2016 and 2020. 

But on the rest of the ballot, Democrats are ahead in statewide races for positions like governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, superintendent of public instruction and Supreme Court justice. (So far, NBC News has only called the governor’s race for Attorney General Josh Stein.)

North Carolina’s state Democratic Party chair, Anderson Clayton, who is just 26, has gotten a lot of notice for helping Democrats reach out to rural voters. 

State Republicans did their part, too, by nominating controversy-plagued Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson for governor and a woman who once called for the public execution of Barack Obama for schools chief. 

But whatever magic Trump has in North Carolina, it’s not extending to other Republicans. He has no coattails there, and as Democrats sift through the results in the coming days, it’s worth asking why.

Democrat Bob Ferguson has won Washington's governor race, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

In one of the key state Supreme Court contests, Ohio Republicans have expanded their control over the court from a 4-3 majority to 6-1, after the GOP won all three races, according to NBC News projections. Another high court on the ballot was in Michigan, where Democrats held a 4-3 advantage heading into Election Day. NBC News has not called the two races there yet, but Democrats have a chance to expand their majority there to 5-2.

Lawrence O’Donnell speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

Sen. Jon Tester was in even more trouble than Sen. Sherrod Brown. Most senators believed that Brown had a better chance of getting reelected than Tester. So if Tester goes the way of Brown, that would absolutely guarantee Democrats lose control of the Senate.

The remaining hope is that Nebraska sends an Independent to the Senate who would then vote for the Democrats in organizing the Senate, which would get them to 50. But this does now look like the Senate is probably going to be in Republican control.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

Kamala Harris has won Virginia’s presidential contest, securing the state’s 13 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Trump has won North Carolina's presidential contest, securing the state's 16 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Democrat Amy Klobuchar has won re-election to the U.S. Senate in Minnesota, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Democrat Maria Cantwell has won re-election to the U.S. Senate in Washington state, defeating Republican Raul Garcia, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Harris has won Connecticut's presidential contest, securing the state's seven electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Harris has won Washington's presidential contest, securing the state's 12 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

The story many in media seemed to obsess over all election season — the mythical surge of Black men drifting to Donald Trump — doesn’t seem to have materialized, at all. 

According to NBC News’ exit polls, Trump’s support among Black men appears relatively unchanged compared to the support he received in 2020. 

Over on The ReidOut Blog, I’ve been sounding the alarm on this narrative for months. It never made much sense, it often felt like a symptom of a press corps that spent too much time on social media, and seemed to distract from more pressing conversations the media ought to have been having much more often about the Black vote — about voter suppression efforts, for example. That this ended up largely being a media contrivance ought to prompt some soul-searching among some in the industry

Nicolle Wallace speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

Blue wall, baby — this was always going to be a blue wall night. I’ve tried to speak a little bit to some of the fantasies of a landslide victory for Harris, a victory that would erase any doubt and eradicate the threat of something drawn out. 

To play off a famous Donald Rumsfeld quote, “You go to the polls with the country that you have.” And the country we have lives in two totally separated information ecosystems. Whatever happens, we’ll have to really try to understand the information consumption that young men have and why they think that the economy will be better under Trump when it never was. 

But before jumping to any conclusions, we need to wait for these blue wall states to come in because they’re so close and households are divided. There could be a yard sign in a house that doesn’t represent how everyone inside will vote, in either direction. 

I think it’s going to be a late night.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

Republican Bernie Moreno has won Ohio’s U.S. Senate race, defeating the incumbent, Sherrod Brown, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Democrat Adam Schiff has won the U.S. Senate race in California, NBC News projects. Schiff became a household name for many Americans while serving as the lead impeachment manager in Trump's first impeachment and during his tenure on the House Jan. 6 committee.

See the latest results here.

Democrat Martin Heinrich has won re-election to the U.S. Senate in New Mexico, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Harris has won Oregon's presidential contest, securing the state's eight electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Harris is in Washington, D.C., attending a watch party at her alma mater, Howard University, alongside her running mate, Tim Walz. “We are ... honored that she has chosen Howard as the place to potentially make history again,” Howard President Ben Vinson told BBC.

Meanwhile, Trump is hosting a watch party at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. In addition to Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, Elon Musk is attending the event. Brazilian federal police officer Eduardo Bolsonaro — son of Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing, former president of Brazil — posted a photo on X from Mar-a-Lago alongside Donald Trump Jr., Trump's eldest son.

NBC News has projected that Andy Kim has won his U.S. Senate race in New Jersey and will taking over the seat formerly occupied by Bob Menendez, a fellow Democrat who resigned after a scandalous corruption case. 

The son of Korean immigrants who was elected to the U.S. House in 2019, Kim will be the first Korean American to serve in the U.S. Senate. At 42, he will also be the third-youngest member of the Senate when he is sworn in in January. 

Trump has won Idaho's presidential contest, securing the state's four electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Harris has won California's presidential contest, securing the state's 54 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

OK, so the chances that this would be a quick night where Harris wins quickly in unexpected places have long since faded. But there’s always been one main bit of electoral math that would guarantee a victory for her: sweeping the swing states in the so-called blue wall. Those three states — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — on top of the other expected Democratic bastions would be enough to get her to 270 electoral votes. (With an assist from a single electoral vote from the “blue dot” in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District.)

If that’s the case, Trump can win all three Sun Belt battlegrounds — Georgia, Arizona and Nevada — and North Carolina, but still fall to Harris. There’s no telling when we’ll get a call in any of those races, so … I guess the moral of the story is to just hold tight for now, folks.

Many in the Harris camp are reportedly expressing surprise over high voter turnout on college campuses. The question is whether they should be pleasantly surprised. 

The Trump team openly and loudly courted younger, terminally online men in the closing weeks of the campaign, often with misogynistic messaging. Part of that message: Young men have a chance to cancel out the votes of women. “Early vote has been disproportionately female,” conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, who holds a key role in the Trump campaign’s get-out-the-vote and youth outreach efforts, posted last week on X. “If men stay at home, Kamala is president. It’s that simple,” he added. “Men need to GO VOTE NOW.”

It’s unclear yet what effect all the pro-Trump “bro whispering” may have on college turnout, but given that the overall presidential contest is as tight as polls anticipated, the youth vote may still hold further surprises for both candidates.

I first heard the whisper of a “blue Texas” more than a decade ago from a nervous Republican.

If the GOP kept bleeding support among Hispanic voters, he worried, they could eventually lose the Lone Star State and be locked out of the Electoral College forever.

It took a few more years before Democrats started to wonder if it might be a real possibility, breaking through into the mainstream with former Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s dramatic run against Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018.

That didn’t pan out, of course, as Cruz went on to win a second term by 2.5 percentage points. Democrats didn’t do any better in Texas in 2020 or 2022, either. 

Still, some Democrats hoped that Rep. Colin Allred might crack the code, especially against Cruz, who is hardly a beloved figure. 

But like a road heat mirage on a hot Texas highway, that appears to have also been an illusion, as NBC News has projected Cruz will win, and the returns so far indicate it may be by an even larger margin than in 2018.

Jen Psaki speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

Texas is a state where, if Democrats continue to organize, they’re betting at some point it could come into their column. We don’t know what’s going to happen in Georgia and North Carolina this election, but those are more purple states now for Democrats than Ohio is.

So over the last 20 years, there has actually been a complete realignment of the states in the country that are leaning each way and that’s kind of interesting. Texas is the one Democrats have wanted for a long time, but it still keeps moving each cycle.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

Democrat Andy Kim has won the U.S. Senate race in New Jersey, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

NBC News just called Missouri’s Senate race for Josh Hawley, the Republican incumbent.

It’s not exactly a surprise that he won, given the state’s conservative lean, but Hawley’s victory is disturbingly revelatory in that it shows many Missouri voters see no qualms with a man who was seen egging on Jan. 6 insurrectionists before running away in an all-out sprint once they breached the U.S. Capitol.

Republican Kelly Ayotte has won New Hampshire's governor race, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Trump has won three of Nebraska's five electoral votes, winning the delegates who are awarded statewide and in one congressional district, NBC News projects. Electoral votes from two other districts in the state have not yet been projected.

See the latest results here.

Iowa’s six electoral votes aren’t usually one of the major question marks in an election. But a surprising poll from The Des Moines Register released over the weekend showed Harris taking the lead over Trump. Pollster Ann Selzer attributed this shift mostly to women breaking for Harris in response to the GOP’s anti-abortion stance.

Now that NBC News is projecting that Trump will capture the state again, it seems that the poll was an outlier. And while that doesn’t change Harris’ most likely path to victory, it does sting as yet another brief bit of hope for Democrats snuffed out.

Alex Wagner speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

Some 57% of the state of Florida voted to try to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution (though the ballot measure didn't pass because there's a 60% threshold). But Trump and Sen. Rick Scott also won their races in the state.

So that’s telling me that there’s a fair number of people out there that are saying, “Yes, we want to protect abortion. We want to bring it back to the state. But also, we’re voting for Donald Trump and Rick Scott.”

Republican Mike Kehoe has won Missouri’s gubernatorial race, defeating Democrat Crystal Quade, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Democrat Tim Kaine has won re-election to the U.S. Senate in Virginia, defeating Republican Hung Cao, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley has won re-election in Missouri, defeating Democrat Lucas Kunce, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

One thing Harris has done poorly in her campaign is her handling of climate change. She has not centered it in her rhetoric, nor has she offered a clear or detailed climate plan. This, I would argue, is the most urgent part of this election. The damage that the world will incur by not taking climate change seriously at this particular moment — as Trump, who describes it as a “scam,” does not — is completely irreparable, unlike many of the other types of havoc Trump would wreak. 

“The window is closing for nations to reduce enough of the pollution that is heating the planet to avoid the most dangerous levels of climate change, according to scientists across the world,” as climate reporter Lisa Friedman noted in The New York Times last week. “And the outcome of next week’s presidential election could determine whether the United States and other countries meet that challenge.”

Well, Lucy yanked that football away at the last second once again in Texas. And in the process, Democratic Rep. Colin Allred is left just short of the goal line after making a solid play at unseating Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. But NBC News’ projection means that Cruz has survived yet another well-funded attempt to boot him from the Senate. It’s going to be worth unpacking later whether this can be attributed more to Texas’ electorate broadly speaking or if Cruz’s attempt to pivot to a more moderate persona paid off for him. But his win means that it all comes down to Ohio and Montana to determine which party holds the Senate majority next year.

I am just barely old enough to remember when Ohio was seen as the bellwether state, a purple barometer for the mood of the country. In the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections George W. Bush won the state by a hair; Barack Obama took them by a whisker in 2008 and 2012.

But those days are seemingly long gone as the margin for victory for Trump has only grown over the last several races. He’s on track to win the state by a similar, if not higher, share of the vote as in 2020. That shift is why it’s impressive that Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown has made the race for his seat a competitive one, but that’s also why it’s such an uphill climb for even a popular incumbent like him.

NBC News projects Democrat Angela Alsobrooks has won her Senate race, making her Maryland’s first Black senator. Together, she and Lisa Blunt Rochester, who won her Senate race to become Delaware’s first Black senator, will make history as the first pair of Black women to serve in the Senate at once.

Donald Trump has won Iowa’s presidential contest, securing the state’s six electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Republican Pete Ricketts has won Nebraska's special election for U.S. Senate.

See the latest results here.

Democrat Angela Alsobrooks has won the U.S. Senate race in Maryland, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Republican Ted Cruz has won re-election to the U.S. Senate in Texas, NBC News projects, defeating Democratic Rep. Colin Allred.

See the latest results here.

Kamala Harris has won Colorado’s presidential contest, securing the state’s 10 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Republican Sen. John Barrasso has won re-election in Wyoming, defeating Democrat Scott Morrow, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Trump has won Montana's presidential contest, securing the state's four electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Trump has won Utah's presidential contest, securing the state's six electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Rachel Maddow speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

Ohio, like Florida — neither of them are considered to be a swing state anymore. It looks like again we are in a realm of no surprises here.

Let’s just be blunt about this: These are not calls, but let’s say Trump wins Georgia and North Carolina. Let’s say he also wins Nevada and Arizona. If Harris wins Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, she gets to 270 electoral votes and she wins the presidency.

And so we are talking about this being a tight race. It isn’t just a tight race in some of these individual swing states; it’s a tight race.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

Trump has won Kansas' presidential contest, securing the state's six electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Voters in New York and Maryland overwhelmingly passed abortion rights ballot measures on Tuesday, NBC News projects, drawing a stark contrast with Florida’s failed proposal.

Abortion is already legal in New York up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, or later if the pregnant person’s health is at risk. Maryland imposes no restrictions on abortion throughout the duration of a pregnancy. But voters in both states resoundingly approved enshrining protections for abortion into their state constitutions.

Trump has won Ohio's presidential contest, securing the state's 17 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

I understand that we are in a weird, tense spot in the evening. Polls have closed in a majority of states, the vote tallies are rolling in, and the electoral map is looking pretty red at the moment. But please take a deep breath and remember that absolutely nothing we’re seeing is a surprise or variation from the norm, one way or the other.

Trump is racking up electoral wins in states that are either low-population or extremely in the tank for Republicans. Votes are still being counted in many of the swing state counties that are going to determine whether Harris pulls enough support from Trump to eke out a win. And while the Senate is looking dire, there’s still a chance that Democrats retake the House.

I get that there was a hope that the polls were wrong and we’d have an early night. Instead, we get to watch Steve Kornacki crunch numbers and keep sweating — but there’s no reason yet to think that this thing is over.

While the rest of the national media was poll watching and covering Trump and Harris rallies, one student journalist from upstate New York broke a significant congressional story.

Syracuse University student journalist Luke Radel chased down a stray comment from Trump, eventually reaching House Speaker Mike Johnson with a question about whether the GOP planned to repeal the CHIPS and Science Act. Johnson said his party would try to repeal the law, which is kind of a big deal since the legislation was responsible for bringing a $100 million Micron facility to Syracuse. Radel’s reporting forced an immediate distancing from Republican Rep. Brandon Williams, who represents the area. Johnson’s office later walked back the remark, claiming the speaker didn’t hear the question correctly.

As the country heads to the voting booth today, it’s yet another stark reminder that down-ballot elections matter.

Harris has won Illinois' presidential contest, securing the state's 19 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Noncredible bomb threats have now disrupted polling places on Election Day in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. 

The pattern so far appears to be threats coming in via email with Russian email domains, authorities said, although, again, that does not mean they were necessarily coming from Russia. 

The threats have led to polling places being temporarily closed as police check the area, although judges have approved extending voting in several of those sites.

Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has won re-election in New York, defeating Republican Mike Sapraicone, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Kamala Harris has won New York’s presidential contest, securing the state’s 28 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Republican Kelly Armstrong has won North Dakota’s gubernatorial race, defeating Democrat Merrill Piepkorn, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Democrat Sarah McBride has won a U.S. House seat in Delaware's 1st Congressional District, becoming the first openly trans person elected to Congress, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Kamala Harris has won Rhode Island’s presidential contest, securing the state’s four electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Donald Trump has won Louisiana’s presidential contest, securing the state’s eight electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Symone Sanders-Townsend speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

All my Democratic friends in Michigan are saying the race is very tight. They don’t want to make predictions but they are encouraged. They’re encouraged by what they’re seeing in Detroit, even though there were some gaps in the operation from the Harris-Walz campaign there.

And they’re very encouraged, like in all of the other battleground states, about what they’re seeing on the college campuses and cities with large student populations.

The college students are in formation and that’s going to matter.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

There are lots of places to watch in Pennsylvania now that polls are closed there.

We’ll start with the two counties that swung from Obama to Trump to Biden: Erie and Northampton. Elsewhere, Harris will hope to build on Biden’s performance in the suburbs. In the west, Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, went 59.6% for Biden four years ago. At the other end of the state, we have three counties outside Philadelphia: Bucks, Montgomery and Chester to watch closely. The latter have more residents with college degrees and gave Biden around 60% of their votes, while Bucks, with fewer college graduates, split roughly equal. In Philadelphia proper, Harris would like to boost turnout and reverse Trump’s small gains there four years ago, mostly in Latino-heavy precincts. 

And Biden will be watching Lackawanna County especially closely. His hometown of Scranton is in Lackwanna, and whether Harris can come close to replicating his 8% margin (up from Hillary Clinton’s 3%) will be the ultimate test of his remaining appeal.

Republican Roger Wicker has won re-election to the U.S. Senate in Mississippi, defeating Democrat Ty Pinkins, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Trump has won Mississippi's presidential contest, securing the state's six electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Jen Psaki speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

As people talk about the long lines in these college towns across the country, that is a huge deal for the Harris team. Remember, over the last couple of months, there have been understandable questions about whether or not young people and college students would turn out to vote, given the war in Gaza and the protests that occurred on campuses nationwide.

But now, I’ve heard from officials in Michigan and Pennsylvania about these big, long lines in college towns, which I don’t know if we would have predicted just a couple of months ago. 

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity

Florida is the first state where an abortion rights ballot amendment has failed since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.

Gov. Ron DeSantis had warned that passage of Amendment 4 would represent “the end of the pro-life movement.” But despite state Republicans’ relentless attacks on the proposal, Trump sought to distance himself from his fellow Florida Republicans’ extreme abortion stance; at one point, he even left open the possibility that he would support Amendment 4, though he later walked that back after intense criticism from his party.

Earlier today, when pressed by a reporter on how he voted on Amendment 4, Trump snapped and said, “Just stop talking about that.”

Read more below.

Republican Kevin Cramer has won re-election to the U.S. Senate in North Dakota, defeating Democrat Katrina Christiansen, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Donald Trump has won South Dakota’s presidential contest, securing the state’s three electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Donald Trump has won South Dakota’s presidential contest, securing the state’s three electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

There aren’t many surprises so far tonight in the presidential race, with none of the key swing states having been decided for either candidate yet. This is both a good thing and extremely stressful, much more than it should be given everything we know about Trump and the long slog that got us to this night. As I wrote in my column yesterday: 

“It isn’t the chance of delay that is the biggest contributor to the unease that millions of Americans have felt as Election Day approaches. It’s that there is any tension about the outcome at all. The 2024 election should not be anywhere near as close as it appears, not with Trump’s name on the ballot for the third straight election. It is disheartening, to say the least, that this should be where we find ourselves as a country once more, four years after Trump was expelled from the White House.”

You can read the full article here.

Trump has won Wyoming's presidential contest, securing the state's three electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Trump has won Texas' presidential contest, securing the state's 40 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Voters in Florida declined to pass the state's Amendment 4 ballot measure, which would have enshrined protections for abortion access in the state constitution, NBC News projects, essentially upholding the state’s six-week ban

See the latest results here.

Republicans controlled the House after the 2022 midterms, but by only a minuscule margin of four seats over Democrats (as of this month). Despite underperforming nationally, a big part of why they were able to wrest control of the body came down to the GOP overperforming in New York state. The freshmen Republicans in those swing districts have been doing their best to defy the odds and secure a second term, but none of them are a sure thing. If Democrats were to flip those four seats tonight, that could be enough tip the scales. 

Joy Reid speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

With Amendment 4, DeSantis has put everything into trying to ensure that Florida will buck the trend of every other state, including red states, that have passed the right to bodily autonomy. 

He’s put everything on it, doing whatever it takes to try to make sure that the amendment fails. He’s using the power of government in a way that, in my view, is openly fascist.

This is an issue that he wants to be his signature. He signed that bill thinking it would allow him to defeat Trump and move to the former president’s right. He's using this issue to make himself a national star and a potential heir to the MAGA movement. 

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

A ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana for people 21 and older in Florida failed to gain the necessary 60% of the vote to pass, NBC News projects. The state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, opposed the measure while Trump had supported it.

Cannabis is on the ballot elsewhere around the country as well on Tuesday, while Massachusetts voted on legalizing psychedelics.

With Democrat Josh Stein winning North Carolina’s gubernatorial race, it will be interesting to watch what kind of reverse coattails we see in the state. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff on the ballot helped Joe Biden in 2020, and this could be a case of Stein helping Harris.

Harris’ team is putting celebrities to work by having them call staffers who are encouraging people to stay in line. Staffers are walking up and down the lines with celebrities on the phone. Some of the celebrities include Kerry Washington, Josh Gad and Mark Cuban.

Democrat Matt Meyer has won Delaware’s gubernatorial race, defeating Republican Mike Ramone, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

In his interview last week with podcast host Joe Rogan, JD Vance claimed that John Singleton’s classic 1991 film “Boyz n The Hood,” about teens trying to survive gangs and the police in South Central Los Angeles (starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Ice Cube and Laurence Fishburne) had a big influence on him as a child. He was especially fascinated, Vance said, with Fishburne’s character, Furious Styles, who in explaining why the SAT is “culturally biased” says, “The only universal part is the math.”

Vance, who wrongly describes Styles’ philosophy — and the movie — as “old-school Black leftism,” argued that the movie “is saying something that I wish a lot of white liberals would hear today, which is, actually, math is not racist.”

Democrat Lisa Blunt Rochester has won the U.S. Senate race in Delaware, defeating Republican Eric Hansen, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Like Pennsylvania, Michigan has many counties that could be crucial. Unsurprisingly, several of them are in and around Detroit. As he did in Philadelphia, Trump had a marginally larger share of the vote in Wayne County, which includes Detroit itself, in 2020 than in 2016. Harris will hope to both reverse that and boost turnout as much as possible. Wayne County also has a high share of Arab and Muslim populations, many of whom have been especially concerned about Harris’ stance on the war in Gaza.

The real ballgame, though, may be in two very different Motor City suburbs. In 2012, Obama received nearly identical vote shares in Oakland County (51.5%) and Macomb County (51.5%). By 2020, Biden received 56.4% in Oakland, with its higher share of college degrees, but just 45.3% in Macomb. If Macomb’s margin nearly cancels out Oakland, as it did in 2016, Democrats could be in trouble.

Elsewhere, Trump will be looking at a good night if he flips Saginaw County (as he did in 2016, before losing it in 2020) and Muskegon (which he lost narrowly twice). His campaign also hopes to win more non-white and non-college voters in Genessee County, which includes Flint.

Harris has won Delaware's presidential contest, securing the state's three electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Trump has won Arkansas' presidential contest, securing the state's six electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

The Navajo Nation has filed a lawsuit against Apache County, Arizona, over a host of problem at polling places, including “machines malfunctioning, lack of printed ballots, lack of provisional ballots, long lines, failure to accept adequate ID, or polls not being operational or open during posted voting hours.” It has asked to keep polls open there for two additional hours, until 9 p.m. local time. 

Arizona is one of the swing states that Harris and Trump have campaigned heavily in, and polls show an incredibly tight race in the state. The Native vote in Arizona helped narrowly tip the state to Biden in 2020, and both candidates this year have similarly tried to target Native voters in swing states.

Polling data showed Democrat Josh Stein with a sizable lead for much of the race, seemingly due to Robinson’s raft of controversies. Robinson was dogged by stories of putrid social media posts and public declarations over the years, which included an attack on school shooting victims along with antisemitism, misogyny and transphobia.

In the closing weeks of the race, senior members of his staff abandoned his campaign after a CNN story linked him to a pseudonymous account on a porn site. The account allegedly declared itself a “Black Nazi,” expressed support for slavery, and shared some X-rated musings.

Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse has won re-election to the U.S. Senate in Rhode Island, defeating Republican Patricia Morgan, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Republican Patrick Morrisey has won West Virginia’s gubernatorial race, defeating Democrat Steve Williams, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Republican Mike Braun has won Indiana’s gubernatorial race, defeating Democrat Jennifer McCormick, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Democrat Josh Stein wins North Carolina's governor race, defeating Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

One lesson from the previous Trump vs. Woman Candidate for President election: Watch the 9 p.m. ET hour for some trends to break through. Polls in North Carolina, which typically counts votes quickly, will have been closed for 90 minutes, and Michigan will have reported a bulk of its votes by then. Both have been sharply contested and the target of significant late-stage spending, as both parties look to win those states. 

In 2016, it was around 9 p.m. that Michigan was called for Trump — the infamous moment that the bottom dropped out of the Clinton campaign’s victory party. If Harris wins both North Carolina and Michigan, she’s in for a very good night, even with Pennsylvania outstanding.

Donald Trump has won South Carolina's presidential contest, securing the state's nine electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Sen. Rick Scott winning re-election in Florida is a disappointment for Democrats but not an unexpected one. This is the second cycle in a row in which money has poured into the state trying to unseat an incumbent Republican senator. But just as Rep. Val Demings still fell short against Sen. Marco Rubio, former Rep. Debbie Murcasel-Powell also wasn’t able to seal the deal despite a late surge of support from the DSCC.

That means that along with winning the vice presidency, Senate Democrats keeping their majority would require either an upset in Montana, saving Sen. Jon Tester, or they would need to see Sen. Ted Cruz fall to Rep. Colin Allred in Texas.

Harris has won Massachusetts's presidential contest, securing the state's 11 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren has won re-election in Massachusetts, defeating Republican John Deaton, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Harris has won the District of Columbia's presidential contest, securing three electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Donald Trump has won Oklahoma’s presidential contest, securing the state’s seven electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Harris wins Maryland's presidential contest, securing the state's 10 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Donald Trump has won Alabama’s presidential contest, securing the state’s nine electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Donald Trump has won Missouri’s presidential contest, securing the state’s 10 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Republican Marsha Blackburn wins re-election to the U.S. Senate in Tennessee, defeating Democrat Gloria Johnson, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy has won re-election in Connecticut, defeating Republican Matthew Corey, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Donald Trump has won Tennessee’s presidential contest, securing the state’s 11 electoral votes, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.