US presidential election 2024: Harris pins hopes on ‘blue wall’ states as Democrats fret

Donald Trump has won North Carolina and Georgia and taken a lead over Kamala Harris in most of the other five battleground states that will decide the winner of the US election, BBC’s US partner CBS projects.

CBS says Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are leaning towards Trump and he is ahead in the other so-called Rust Belt state of Michigan. The results are not final.

Incomplete returns also suggest Trump has a lead in Nevada, while the race remains tight in the other sun belt battleground of Arizona.

In more good news for Trump’s fellow Republicans, the party is projected to win majority control of the Senate.

As expected, Trump has won conservative strongholds from Florida to Idaho, while Harris swept liberal states from New York to California, CBS projects.

The Democrat was expected to spend election night at Howard University in Washington DC, where she was an undergraduate, but it emerged after midnight that she would not attend.

Following the announcement by campaign co-chairman Cedric Richmond, the crowd all but disappeared from Harris HQ at the historically black college.

The party-like atmosphere of a few hours earlier at Howard had already turned sour as two swing states were called for Trump.

From Harris HQ, Democratic fundraiser Lindy Li told the BBC that it is “pretty grim right now”.

“People are getting increasingly anxious,” she said, “but there is still a pathway. I am still holding on to that, but this is not the night we wanted.”

Trump was expected to appear shortly at his campaign watch party in West Palm Beach, Florida, where the mood was celebratory.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and Trump mega-donor, is spending election night with the Republican nominee.

Whichever way it goes the result will be historic – giving America its first woman president or marking a seismic political comeback for Trump.

Whoever takes the White House may have their hands tied by Congress, which is also up for grabs in Tuesday’s vote.

CBS projects Republicans will win control of the Senate after wresting two seats in West Virginia and Ohio from the Democrats and beating off a stiff challenge in Texas.

Neither party seemed to have an overall edge in the House, which Republicans narrowly control.

Around 86 million voters cast their ballots early amid one of the most turbulent campaigns in recent American history.

Vice-President Harris, 60, only became the Democratic Party candidate in July, after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race under pressure from within the party.

Trump, 78, was the target of two assassination plots – narrowly avoiding a sniper’s bullet in Pennsylvania.

The former president said he felt “very confident” as he voted earlier on Tuesday near his home in Palm Beach, Florida, with his wife, Melania.

“If I lose an election, if it’s a fair election, I’m going to be the first one to acknowledge it,” he said.

He posted earlier on his social media platform, Truth Social, saying “law enforcement coming” to Philadelphia because of “massive cheating”.

Philadelphia’s police department told BBC Verify they were unaware of any electoral fraud. The city’s top prosecutor said the allegation had “no factual basis whatsoever”.

Both sides have armies of lawyers on standby for legal challenges on and after election day.

If Harris won, she would become the first woman, black woman and South-Asian American to win the presidency.

Trump would become the first president to win non-consecutive terms in more than 130 years. He is also the only president to be impeached twice and the first former president to be criminally convicted.

CBS exit poll data suggests Harris may have under-performed with women.

Some 54% of female voters cast their ballots for her, the numbers indicate. But Joe Biden won the support of 57% of women in 2020.

Law enforcement agencies nationwide are on high alert for potential violence.

About 30 bomb threats hoaxes targeted election-related locations nationwide on Tuesday, more than half of them in the state of Georgia alone, reports CBS.