US election 2024 live: Donald Trump to address supporters as he closes in on victory with reported win in Pennsylvania | US elections 2024

It appears that Donald Trump has won the bellwether Erie county in Pennsylvania as results indicate the GOP candidate is on track to win the crucial state, and with it, the election.

Pundits have previously said: “No county in Pennsylvania – and possibly in the country – is as consistently swingy as Erie county.”

With more than 95% of votes counted, Trump appeared to have 50.3% of the votes in the county, compared with Kamala Harris’s 48.8%.

Trump previously won the working-class county in 2016, followed by a slim Joe Biden win there in 2020.

In Las Vegas, Nevada, the crowd at a GOP watch party roared as Fox News projected Donald Trump as the winner of the election. They burst into a chant of: “Trump! Trump! Trump!”

Several states, including this swing state, remain too close to call – but Fox recently projected Pennsylvania for Trump, a key state for winning the White House. The Associated Press, which the Guardian relies on for projections, has not yet called Pennsylvania or the election overall.

Several key swing states – including Nevada – remain in play, according to the AP.

“I feel fantastic,” said Yolanda Wright, 47, a former Democrat who backed Donald Trump and other Republican candidates for the first time this year. Trump offers more to the African American community, she said: “I’ve been a Democrat my whole life, and I haven’t seen any benefit from that.”

Joe Biden and the Democrats have been sending funds to wars and resources to migrants coming in through the southern border, rather than to Americans who are struggling, added Ronda Kennedy, 51, who had run in the Republican primaries for the US Senate. “I trust Trump to put us first,” she said.

Donald Trump has won one of Maine’s electoral votes, the Associated Press reports.

He picked up the vote in the state’s right-leaning second congressional district, while Kamala Harris earlier won the vote in Maine’s more liberal first district. The two other electoral votes in the state, given to the winner statewide, have not been called by the AP.

The presidential election has not yet been called, but some Republican lawmakers are already acting as if Donald Trump has won.

Oklahoma Republican congressman Kevin Hern just issued a statement congratulating Trump for winning:

This campaign felt different from the start – Americans were sick and tired of the status quo under Biden-Harris and wanted the prosperity they felt under Donald Trump. I am thrilled to see President Trump win the electoral votes to send him back to the White House and cannot wait to work alongside him to Make America Great Again. Americans fought to win back their nation and we did it!

A dispatch from the Guardian’s Helen Davidson and Chi-hui Lin in Taipei:

The US election is being closely watched in China as well.

The country’s relationship with the US has been swinging between competitive and hostile in recent years. China and the US were locked in a trade war during the last Trump administration, and Joe Biden maintained many of the policies and sanctions put in place during that time. The continued support of Taiwan – which China’s ruling Communist party has vowed to annex – is the primary point of friction, at least from Beijing’s perspective.

On social media platform, Weibo, the US election is at least three of the top 10 trending topics. State media coverage of the election has so far been largely informational, with no push for one candidate over another. The Global Times, an English-language nationalistic tabloid, has a prominently placed article about fears of election-related violence.

Xinhua, the official state media outlet, has gone through eight election issues that “reveal the truth about American democracy”, including inflation, healthcare, crime, abortion rights, and housing affordability. It also listed immigration, which it said had become a heated issue because of “a shifting economic landscape that has scapegoated newcomers”.

The US representatives in China also welcomed Chinese people to look to their election as an example of a different governance system. The embassy in Beijing has invited people to join them at a viewing event for “an exciting Wednesday morning as we watch the election unfold live and witness democracy in action”.

Across the Taiwan strait, the US representatives at the American Institute of Taiwan (a de facto embassy) did not hold any watch events this year. Local polling taken just a few days ago revealed overwhelming support for Kamala Harris among Taiwanese people. Taiwan – along with Hong Kong – had previously been one of Asia’s biggest pockets of Trump supporters, but it seems the tide has turned. Comments from Trump in recent months that falsely accused Taiwan of stealing US semiconductors, and separately, that Taiwan should pay protection money to the US, didn’t go down well.

David Smith

A prolonged, almighty roar went up at Trump’s election watch party when Fox News called Pennsylvania for him at 1.20am.

“It’s over!” screamed one man amid the noise at what felt like the point of no return. A young man in a black Maga hat shouted: “Fuck Joe Biden! Fuck her!”

The euphoric crowd chanted: “USA! USA!” They are now gathered near the stage waiting for Trump to enter and deliver a speech. Near the front is Blake Marnell, who wears a suit styled after Trump’s wall.

Sam Levine

US senator Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania incumbent Democrat in a close race with Republican Dave McCormick, isn’t conceding his race.

“We have confidence in our path to victory and we are going to make sure we count every vote,” said Maddy McDaniel, a campaign spokesperson.

Rachel Leingang

Democratic officials at the party’s Arizona election watch party kept telling supporters to wait for more results.

The ballot so far held mixed signals for the party: Kamala Harris was trailing Donald Trump narrowly, while US Senate candidate Ruben Gallego was up by several points over Republican Kari Lake, and an abortion access measure held a strong lead.

Gallego grew emotional as he thanked his family and recounted his upbringing as a poor kid whose single mom raised him and his sisters. He gave a shoutout to his old boss, who was in attendance, from when he used to sell hot dogs. He mentioned his fellow Marines, some of whom were there to cheer him on.

“Growing up the way I did, the son of immigrants, I would have never thought I’d make it this far,” he said. When every vote in counted, he believed, “a poor Latino boy who slept on the floor will be headed to the floor of the United States Senate, the first Latino senator in Arizona history.”

The crowd was on edge as they refreshed electoral maps and saw results come in on the big screen from around the country, but they hoped Harris could still pull off a win.

Denise Dewberry, a 55-year-old Phoenix resident, said she was “nauseously optimistic”.

She voted for the first time in 2020 and has dedicated herself to Democratic causes, doing all she could to turn out voters this year: “I can’t not feel optimistic. I feel so invested in what is right that I don’t know how to not be optimistic right now. At the same time, I know what I’m up against.”

And no matter the outcome, she would get to work to keep pushing for the Democrats. “This is how it starts, not how it ends.”

Billionaire Mark Cuban, who acted as a surrogate for Kamala Harris in the final weeks of her campaign, has tweeted congratulations at Donald Trump and Elon Musk, a fellow billionaire who backed his bid to return to the White House:

The Associated Press has not yet called the election for Trump, but the former president has won two of the seven crucial swing states expected to determine the winner.

Nebraska upholds its abortion ban

Noa Yachot

Nebraska has voted to uphold its abortion ban, which outlaws the procedure after 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Voters in Nebraska chose between two competing measures – one enshrining the existing 12-week ban, and another that would have amended the state constitution to protect the right to abortion up until viability, or about 24 weeks.

The more restrictive measure appears to have won with just over 50% of the vote. It was only the second loss of the night for abortion rights supporters. An initiative to restore abortion rights fell short in Florida, but measures succeeded in four other states. Four others have yet to be called.

California passes tough-on-crime ballot measure

Abené Clayton

California voters voted passed Proposition 36, a tough-on-crime ballot initiative that will enact harsher penalties for retail theft, property crimes and drug offenses.

The new measure will undo parts of a landmark 2014 law that downgraded several non-violent felonies to misdemeanors as a way to reduce the state’s prison population and redirect money to drug treatment and resources for crime victims.

While some considered the original law, known as Proposition 47, a breakthrough in criminal justice reform, for others, it was viewed as a major driver of property crime, homelessness and substance abuse.

Nevada senator Catherine Cortez Masto took the stage at the Democratic watch party in Las Vegas and reminded voters that she won her re-election by 7,928 votes in 2022.

“And 4,000 of those votes were ones we cured,” she said. “Listen, we feel confident that when all the votes are counted tonight and this week, however long it takes to cure and count every single vote, we will win the Silver State for Democrats up and down the ballot.”

Republicans have already flipped enough seats to control the US Senate, though in Nevada, Democrat Jacky Rosen is fighting to keep her seat and facing Republican challenger Sam Brown. Even if Kamala Harris narrowly wins here, it’s unclear whether Nevada’s six electoral votes would give her enough of a boost as the vice-president’s path to victory narrows.

Kamala Harris has won New Hampshire, the Associated Press reports.

She picks up four electoral votes in the state that’s known for holding the first primaries in the presidential nomination process – which Donald Trump swept earlier this year, paving the way for him to challenge the vice-president in the presidential election.

In Las Vegas, Leo Murrieta, director of Make the Road Nevada, a progressive group that has focused on turning out Latino voters and voters of color, said he was feeling “a little anxious”.

“We did everything we could this election,” he said. “We talked to over 770,000 plus voters. We launched 475 canvassers just today. We really did everything that we possibly could to make an impact in this election, and now we just have to wait and see.”

Latinos in Nevada, who make up one in five voters here, will likely play a decisive role. Polling from Make the Road suggests that economic issues and abortion rights were the top issues for the Latino community. Murrieta said he was also closely watching Latino turnout in Arizona’s Maricopa county and other key swing districts in the west.

Polls have closed in Nevada, but snaking lines of voters were still waiting to cast their ballots at several locations across the state. Results here will only be reported once every polling place has confirmed that every voter in line has had a chance to vote. It could be days before the results are clear.

“I know we left no stone unturned. We persuaded hundreds and hundreds of non-partisan Brown folks to vote, and to vote for Kamala Harris, to vote for reproductive health,” Murrieta said. His plan for the rest of the night was to be with Make the Road members and celebrate their hard work.

“Because regardless of the outcomes, the only thing that we can rely on is each other,” he said. “We can’t rely on political parties to save us. Politicians won’t save us. But our community is going to have our back.”