US Republican candidate Donald Trump has emerged victorious on the 2024 US presidential election.

Trump is leading with 277 electoral votes, while Kamala Harris trails behind with 226 votes.

According to the results so far, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have gained a clear lead in several states. However, in key states that could influence the outcome, such as North Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, Trump has secured a decisive advantage.

Additionally, Trump has won the state of Texas, which has 40 electoral votes, while Harris has claimed victory in Oregon, which has 8 electoral votes.

Republican Donald Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris in the battleground state of North Carolina in Tuesday’s US presidential election, Edison Research projected, moving him one step closer to completing an improbable political comeback.

The outcome remained uncertain in six other states expected to determine the winner. But Trump was showing strength across broad swaths of the country. He had won 227 Electoral College votes to Harris’ 165 as of 11:30 pm ET (0430 GMT on Wednesday).

A candidate needs a total of at least 270 votes in the state-by-state Electoral College to claim the presidency.

Decision Desk HQ projected Trump would also win Georgia, narrowing her path to victory through the Rust Belt trio of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, though she was behind in all three states.

Trump picked up more support from Hispanics, traditionally Democratic voters, and among lower-income households that have keenly felt the sting of price rises since the last presidential election in 2020, according to exit polls from Edison.

Trump won 45% of Hispanic voters nationwide, trailing Harris with 53% but up 13 percentage points from 2020.

Voters whose top issue was the economy voted overwhelmingly for Trump, especially if they felt they were worse off financially than they were four years ago.

About 31% of voters said the economy was their top issue, and they voted for Trump by a 79%-to-20% margin, according to exit polls. Some 45% of voters across the country said their family’s financial situation was worse off today than four years ago, and they favored Trump 80% to 17% for Harris.

US stock futures and the dollar pushed higher while Treasury yields climbed and bitcoin rose, a sign that investors were reading early results as favoring Trump. Still, investors said it was too early and the trades lacked conviction.

“Everyone’s trying to take the few inches of data we’ve got right now and turn it into a mile,” said Alex Morris, president and CIO of F/M Investments in Washington.

TRUMP OUTPERFORMS 2020

Trump was earning a bigger share of the vote than he did four years ago in nearly every corner of the country, from suburban Georgia to rural Pennsylvania.

By 11 p.m. ET, officials had nearly completed their count of ballots in more than 1,200 counties – about a third of the country – and Trump’s share was up about 2 percentage points compared to 2020, reflecting a broad if not especially deep shift in Americans’ support for the president they ousted four years ago. He had improved his numbers in suburban counties, rural regions and even some large cities that are historically bastions of Democratic support.

Control of both chambers of Congress is also up for grabs. Democrats had only a narrow path to defend their Senate majority after Republican Jim Justice flipped a West Virginia seat on Tuesday. The House of Representatives looked like a toss-up.

In Florida, a ballot measure that would have guaranteed abortion rights failed to reach the 60% threshold needed to pass, according to Edison, leaving a six-week ban in place. Nine other states have abortion-related measures on the ballot.

Nearly three-quarters of voters say American democracy is under threat, according to the exit polls, underscoring the depth of polarization in a nation where divisions have only grown starker during a fiercely competitive race.

Trump employed increasingly apocalyptic rhetoric while stoking unfounded fears that the election system cannot be trusted. Harris warned that a second Trump term would threaten the underpinnings of American democracy.

Hours before polls closed, Trump claimed on his Truth Social site without evidence that there was “a lot of talk about massive CHEATING” in Philadelphia, echoing his false claims in 2020 that fraud had occurred in large, Democratic-dominated cities. In a subsequent post, he also asserted there was fraud in Detroit.

“I don’t respond to nonsense,” Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey told Reuters. A Philadelphia city commissioner, Seth Bluestein, replied on X, “There is absolutely no truth to this allegation.”