Updated Wed November 6, 2024: Trump wins 3 battleground states, CNN projects, shrinking Harris’ possible paths to victory; Republicans seize control of Senate

Trump’s edge grows in race to 270: Donald Trump will win the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, CNN projects, shrinking Kamala Harris’ possible paths to victory. Trump and Harris each need at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.

Counting continues: Vote counting continues in key states, including in the other battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada. Meanwhile, Republicans will win control in the Senate, a flip that shifts the balance of power in Washington.

According to CNN projections, Trump only needs four more electoral votes to win the presidency. CNN has not yet called the race for the former president and votes are still being counted in several states.

Based on CNN’s current projections, Vice President Kamala Harris’ path to victory is shrinking.

Former President Donald Trump has 266 electoral votes and Harris has 188 electoral votes, CNN projects. That means Trump only needs to win four more electoral votes to win the presidency.

CNN has projected that Trump will win several key battleground states — including North Carolina, Georgia, and more pivotally, Pennsylvania.

Former President Donald Trump told his supporters early Wednesday during an election night event at the Palm Beach Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida that this moment will “help this country heal.”

At a convention center in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump promised Americans that “every single day I will be fighting for you” and said he would usher in the “golden age of America.”

Trump was joined on stage by members of his family and his wife, Melania Trump, as well as his running mate, JD Vance, and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

CNN projected that Trump will win the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina as voting continues in several key states.

Vice President Kamala Harris will win one electoral vote in Nebraska, CNN projects, and Donald Trump won four electoral votes in Nebraska.

There are five electoral votes at stake in Nebraska. Nebraska is one of only two states (Maine is the other) to allow its electoral votes to be split.

Two of Nebraska’s five electoral votes go to the winner of the statewide vote. One electoral vote goes to the popular vote winner in each of the state’s three congressional districts.

There are 19 electoral votes at stake in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is the most important battleground state of the 2024 election. Harris and Trump have made the commonwealth’s electoral votes central to their respective paths to victory.

While Harris could put together a path to victory with a combination of the “Blue Wall” states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — and the Sun Belt states — Nevada and Arizona — “there’s no way to get there without Pennsylvania,” King said early Wednesday morning.

“There are a lot of states to count still, but if you want to look at one question, she cannot lose Pennsylvania,” King said.

With 93% of votes counted in Pennsylvania, Trump has just over a 3 point lead. Though the vice president could still build her lead in the democratic stronghold of Philadelphia, staking a win on outstanding votes there is “it’s improbable at the moment, let’s be honest, but it’s not impossible.”

Philadelphia county at around 1:00 a.m. had reported 78% of its votes — 78.1% for Harris and 20.7% for Trump. Former President Joe Biden won that county 81.4% to Trump’s 17.9% in 2020.

Not only did Trump improve by 3 points in this major democratic city, the former president has generally over performed over 2020 by 3 points in red counties he won in 2020, too, King said.

Meanwhile, Republicans wrested the US Senate from Democratic control, US media projected early Wednesday, ending four years in the minority and providing a huge boost to the party in its quest to dominate every branch of government.

The result is as projected earlier by CNN that Republicans will win the US Senate majority, significantly shifting the balance of power in Washington.

The victory means that the incoming president will get enormous support to enact their agenda and appoint justices to the powerful US Supreme Court if it’s Donald Trump — but legislative deadlock if it is his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris.

The US Capitol is divided into the House of Representatives — where all 435 seats are up for grabs — and a 100-member Senate, which has 34 seats at stake this year. Congressional elections run alongside the White House race.

Jim Justice, the sitting Republican governor of West Virginia, delighted Republicans early in the night when he emerged as an easy victor in the Senate race to replace retiring moderate Joe Manchin, an independent who voted with the Democrats.

Ohio then moved into the Republican column after longstanding Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown was defeated by Bernie Moreno, a Trump-endorsed businessman and the son of a one-time high-ranking Colombian government official.

Fox News and ABC called the race for control of the upper house after Republican Senator Deb Fischer fended off an unexpectedly robust challenge from an independent in Nebraska.

“I look forward to working with President Trump and our new conservative majority to make America great again by making the Senate work again,” Texas Senator John Cornyn, a contender to lead the Republican majority from January, said in a statement.

The Justice and Moreno victories reversed the Democrats’ 51-49 Senate advantage, with Republicans looking to extend their lead even further with potential pick-ups in Montana, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz celebrated winning reelection with a speech reiterating his campaign’s refrain ‘The people of Texas have spoken’

“Tonight, the people of Texas have spoken. And their message rings clear as a bell across our great state: Texas will remain Texas,” Cruz said in his victory speech. He celebrated his campaign trail across the state, too, adding that he “found something that gives me profound hope: Common sense isn’t dead.”

Cruz’s seat was considered vulnerable to a potential flip from red to blue, especially in a race against his challenger, Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, and in light of Democrats’ Texas TV ad campaigns. But, Cruz said, “this decisive victory should shake the Democratic establishment to its core.”

Cruz also highlighted what he called a “generational shift” Hispanic vote, which polling suggests is playing out across other parts of the country, too. “Our Hispanic communities aren’t just leaving the Democratic Party; they’re coming home to conservative values they never left,” Cruz said.