AMERICANS are waiting with bated breath as the first polling locations have closed in the neck-and-neck presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
After months of a tight race, it’s now time to see how close the results really are. Follow along with The U.S. Sun’s 2024 election results trackers below.
Polling stations began to close at 6 pm Eastern and continue to stay open on the West Coast through 11 pm Eastern.
Alaska polls close at midnight Eastern while Hawaii polls close an hour later.
Exit polls led by NBC News revealed Harris voters chose democracy as the most important issue while voting – while Trump voters said the economy was on their minds.
Plus, the exit polls revealed voters giving President Joe Biden a job approval rating of 41%, meaning it was critical for Harris to distinguish herself from Biden to voters ahead of Election Day.
Right now, all that’s left to do is sit back and watch the returns in the seven key swing states to determine the next president of the United States and which party will control the upper and lower chambers.
Our charts show real time data when every state presidential race is called and for who.
Below, see the current state calls, plus historical data for the 2020 and 2016 elections.
See how your state voted or how a swing state shifted.
It takes 270 electoral college votes to win the presidency.
As illustrated in the tracker below, Trump held a commanding lead for most of the year over Biden.
But when he dropped out on July 21 and Harris became the nominee, she tore ahead, with at least one expert telling The U.S. Sun it was bad news for Republicans.
Yet, as election day approached, the race narrowed considerably.
And according to The U.S. Sun’s recent poll, 40% of Americans say no one can defeat Donald Trump.
Still, all eyes are on the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The outcomes of the other 43 states are all but predetermined.
Polls have shown the candidates neck and neck for months in the battlegrounds, with Trump making slight gains in The U.S. Sun’s latest figures.
Below, see the live results for each swing state’s vote tally.
But it could take over a week to count all the ballots in such a close race.
Indeed, the winner may not be known for days after the election.
The results of the election will have far-ranging consequences depending on the ultimate makeup of the elected branches.
Polls in every state are aggregated below. Click through to see the last data before the election.
If Democrats end up with a trifecta of the presidency, House, and Senate, Harris has promised sweeping reforms of the courts, personal income tax, and housing policy.
If Republicans gain power over all three bodies, Trump has promised to rewrite the rules of executive power, immigration, and corporate taxes.
However, should either party win the White House but lose the House or Senate, it could stymie the next president’s agenda.
Track the Senate and House victories below.
Only 34 Senate seats are up for voting this year, following the six-year rotation of senatorial elections laid out by the constitution.
But the map is bad for Democrats, who are defending 23 seats, including three in the reliably red states of Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia, to Republicans’ 11.
Among the 34 seats up for election, Democrats have at least 18 likely safe seats and Republicans have at least 13, per FiveThirtyEight’s most recent figures.
With each party’s existing seats, that gives Republicans the 51-seat majority they need, so while the Democrats currently hold the Senate, it is the Republicans’ to lose.
There is only one real toss-up in the race, and only a handful of Senate races in any kind of real contention to determine the ultimate makeup of the upper chamber.
These are the races to watch.
First, there’s the Ohio race between incumbent Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown and businessman Bernie Moreno.
The latest polling from FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate has Brown up by less than one percentage point, but even if he wins, it won’t be enough to keep the Senate.
To retake the Senate, Republicans have to win in red Montana, where Democratic incumbent Senator Jon Tester is facing Republican Tim Sheehy, who’s leading by about 7.6 points per FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate.
And to counter that result, Democrats could have inroads in Nebraska, Texas, or Florida, where a surprise win may tip the scales.
But in Florida and Texas, the Republican candidates Rick Scott and Ted Cruz lead by at least four points, outside the margin of error.
And in Nebraska, the Republican Senator Deb Fischer leads Independent Dan Osborn by nearly 10 points.
Still, stranger things have happened.
In contrast to the Senate, all 435 House seats are up for reelection this year, as they are every two years.
While the GOP currently holds a slim four-seat majority, redistricting after the 2020 census and some competitive challengers have thrown the race for party control into a blender.
Republicans are all but guaranteed to win 191 seats while Democrats can expect to hold on to at least 175, per the Cook Political Report, the most trusted source for House ratings, on Monday.
Then, Democrats have an additional 30 seats that they will likely win to Republicans’ 17 likely wins.
It’s the remaining 22 truly competitive races that make the House elections exciting to pay attention to.
These are the races to watch.
One of the more interesting races will be Alaska’s at-large district.
The state implemented ranked-choice voting in 2022, allowing Democrat Mary Peltola to defeat Sarah Palin in the House race two years ago.
This year, Peltola is running against more conventional Republican Nick Begich III, but with the quirks of ranked-choice, it’s unclear exactly how the race could play out.
Next up is Michigan’s 10th district, where Republican incumbent John James is being challenged by Democrat Carl Marling, who is currently polling about 3.4 points behind, per FiveThirtyEight.
It is among the top districts Democrats hope to flip and could prove to be a bellwether of who could ultimately prevail in the House overall.
In Nebraska’s 2nd district, which includes the state’s largest city, Omaha, and the surrounding region, Democratic challenger Tony Vargas is running narrowly ahead of Republican incumbent Don Bacon, per FiveThirtyEight.
The district is also crucial to the presidential race because it could give either Harris or Trump a single extra Electoral College vote depending on who wins. Expect a very high turnout.
On the East Coast, New York’s 4th Congressional District is among one of the wealthiest districts in the country.
Located on the eastern end of Long Island and won by Biden four years ago, incumbent Republican Anthony D’Esposito is losing to Democrat Laura Gillen by about 5 points, slightly less than half Biden’s 2020 margin.
Finally, in blue Washington state, the rural southeast 3rd district is proving a true toss-up.
The district has flipped several times over the past 40 years, most recently in 2022 when voters elected Marie Glusenkamp Perez, the first Democrat to win since 2011.
Republican Joe Kent is running about a point ahead of Glusenkamp Perez, however, and the district voted for Donald Trump in the past two elections, as well as Mitt Romney in 2012.
If Republicans win, Mike Johnson will remain speaker and could help Donald Trump implement many of his policy goals, including suggesting he would repeal Obamacare, something Trump was unable to accomplish during his first term.
If Democrats win, Hakeem Jeffries is all but certain to become speaker after taking leadership of the Democratic minority from Nancy Pelosi in 2022.
He has promised to fight tooth and nail any Republican agenda. And should Harris take the White House, he has given vague pledges, including to reform housing policy.
The largest factor looming over control of the house is the certification of the Electoral College vote on January 6, 2025.
The speaker would have significant control over whether and which objections to hear or entertain.
If any state’s electors can’t be agreed upon, or if there is a tie, the House would select the next president, voting as a state block with one vote per state, in a process known as a contingent election.
Because 26 states’ delegations are likely to be controlled by Republicans after new members are sworn in on January 3 (though it could be more), it’s more likely than not that the final vote would be at least 26-24 for Trump, securing him the presidency.
It would be the third time the House elected the president since the nation’s founding, and the first in 200 years.
