US election 2024 live: Trump and Harris pick up early wins as polls closed in swing states including Georgia and Pennsylvania

Democrat Lisa Blunt Rochester has won the race for Delaware’s Senate seat, the Associated Press said, becoming both the first woman and first African American to represent the state in Congress’s upper chamber.

Rochester is currently the state’s at-large congresswoman, and broke the same barriers when first elected in 2016.

Republican Rick Scott has won re-election as Florida’s senator, the Associated Press said, blocking Democrats from an upset victory in the increasingly Republican state that could have helped them preserve their majority in Congress’s upper chamber.

Democrats have a 51-seat majority in the chamber, but earlier lost the West Virginia seat held by retiring independent senator Joe Manchin. The party had hoped their candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell could oust Scott in the Sunshine State and give them another seat, but those hopes have been dashed.

They still have a chance to keep the majority, but it requires the re-election of Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Jon Tester in Montana, or a surprise victory by Colin Allred in Texas. All of those are red states.

The Associated Press has called Oklahoma, South Carolina, Florida and Tennessee for Donald Trump, and Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut for Kamala Harris.

None of these results are surprising, with the two candidates winning states that have supported their respective parties for years. If there is anything to note, it’s that Florida was called so quickly – when Trump first won in 2016, it was viewed as a swing state, but has since become reliably Republican.

Kamala Harris has won Maryland, a Democratic stronghold, the Associated Press reports, while Donald Trump has won the very red states of Mississippi and Alabama.

Expect more race calls from the AP imminently.

Voting just finished in more than a dozen states, including Pennsylvania, which is regarded as perhaps the most vital swing state for determining the outcome of the presidential election.

In addition to the Keystone state, polls closed at 8pm in Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee and the District of Columbia. Voting also finished in counties in Florida and New Hampshire that had stayed open beyond 7pm.

Beyond the presidential race, we’ll be looking for the outcome of the Senate race in Pennsylvania, where Democratic incumbent Bob Casey is up for re-election against Republican David McCormick. Maryland is also worth watching – it’s a blue state, but Democrat Angela Alsobrooks may face trouble beating Republican former governor Larry Hogan to win its Senate seat. And Democrats are hoping for a surprise in Florida, where they believe Republican senator Rick Scott could be beaten by their candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.

Many of these states are otherwise solidly red or blue, and no surprises are expected at the presidential or congressional level.

It’s starting to pick up at Kamala HQ. The DJ has started playing music on the Yard at Howard University, Harris’s alma mater, is beginning to fill up.

There is a whole section awash in pink and green, the colors of AKA, the sorority Harris joined at Howard. Students are dancing. The mood at this early stage in the night is joyful.

“If you’re ready to make Black history, talk to me,” the DJ shouted, getting cheers from the crowd.

For more on Harris and AKA:

Sister Barbara Pfarr, a member of the faith group Milwaukee Inner-City Congregations Allied for Hope (MICAH), prayed with a small group in front of the Baird Center where Milwaukee’s central count is taking place.

“We’re here to support the folks inside because of all of the threats and harassment,” said Pfarr, nodding to the increase in violent threats that election workers have faced since the 2020 election, when Donald Trump and his allies falsely claimed election workers had participated in a plot to rig the election for Joe Biden.

“We’re here to support the democratic process and we believe in whatever is going to come out of here,” said Pfarr, who said she had been stationed in front of the building since the early morning. “I have every confidence in [the process] and I’m just so grateful for these folks, for what they’re doing.”

Poll workers and election experts have been on high alert for security threats and voters have been telling me all day about their fears of violence no matter the outcome.

“The vote is sacred, but it’s not just the vote, it’s what comes after,” said Pfarr. And then she said something that – following all my conversations with voters today – genuinely took me off guard: “I feel optimistic about the country and our democracy.”

Donald Trump has won West Virginia, the Associated Press reports, while Republican governor Jim Justice has won its Senate seat.

Justice will replace Joe Manchin, an independent who recently left the Democratic party after acting as a spoiler to many of Joe Biden’s economic proposals.

Manchin continues to caucus with the Democrats, and the loss of his seat brings Democrats closer to losing their control of Congress’s upper chamber. Their hopes now hinge on victories by their candidates in Ohio, Montana and potentially Texas and Florida – all red states.

Voting has finished in another three states, one of which is a swing state.

At 7.30pm, polls closed in North Carolina, which has not backed a Democratic candidate since 2008, but which Kamala Harris’s team believes she may have a chance of winning this year.

Balloting also wrapped up in deep-red West Virginia, where Democrats are expected to lose a Senate seat. But they are hopeful about Ohio, where Democratic senator Sherrod Brown is standing for re-election in a state that has grown increasingly Republican in recent years. Voting just finished there, too.

Sam Levine

The Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is seeking legal action to have voting extended past 8pm in precincts where students have been waiting hours to cast a vote.

That includes in Bethlehem, where students have been waiting as many as six-and-a-half hours to cast a ballot.

“The counties know from history that students come out for presidential elections, and they should have been better prepared,” said Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania.

“Still, it’s a good problem to have. Students are participating in this election, and we’ll take court action necessary to ensure that they get to cast their ballots.”

Here’s a post on X from earlier with a clip of a voting line near the university.

A CNN exit poll in Georgia had a potentially concerning finding for Kamala Harris: independents who backed Joe Biden in 2020 now have swung to Donald Trump, albeit by a small margin.

However, the vice-president continues to be strong among Black voters, as well as young people. Here’s more, from CNN:

Roughly 86% of Black Georgia voters say they cast their ballot for Harris, as do about 6 in 10 voters younger than 30 — in both cases, generally similar to Biden’s numbers in 2020.

As was the case in 2020, suburban voters are closely split. But where Biden won slightly over half of political independents in 2020, now a slim majority say they’re backing Trump.

White voters without a college degree, who went overwhelmingly for Trump in 2020, are still predominantly in his camp, with roughly 8 in 10 picking him over Harris.