Live election updates: Harris’ path to victory grows less forgiving

Polls closed in Nevada nearly three hours late after voters waited in long lines to cast ballots, the state's top election official said, and initial election results began to be posted just before 10 p.m. PST.

Polls had been scheduled to close at 7 p.m., but state law allows anyone in line at that time to cast a ballot.

Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar acknowledged Nevada's position as an electoral battleground and promised to keep updating results as the counties receive "and cure" additional ballots.

Mailed ballots are accepted and counted until Saturday, and thousands of voters whose ballots were set aside to allow for signature verification, or "curing," have until 5 p.m. Nov. 12 to validate their vote with election officials.

Aguilar, a Democrat, called Nevada's elections "safe, secure and transparent" and said he was proud of reports of high voter turnout.

The former presidential candidate has arrived at the Palm Beach Convention Center, entering and walking briskly as he made his way near the stage among crowds of supporters.

Trump has said he will play a role when it comes to health policy but has not specified what that would be. Kennedy, who launched his own presidential bid as an independent before dropping out of the race and endorsing Trump, joined him at several rallies in the last stretch of the campaign.

A group of first-time voters at Howard University said they're disappointed that Harris didn't come to her election watch party at the school, but didn't regret staying up past midnight.

"It's very unfortunate and I wish her team would've said something because we stayed up late and we still have class," said freshman Rashada Kaba. "But the fact that we would stay this late just shows how much we do actually support her."

The disappointment led to an indelible lesson, though, said freshman Awa Fall.

"Would I do it all over again, honestly? Absolutely," she said. "But all this proves is how much voting was and is important because a lot of people thought that she had it completely in the bag and didn't realize how close of a race it was."

As the election stretched into the early hours of Wednesday, Republicans — seeing a map trending positively for their party — began to point to a shift in demographic support among key voting groups who often lean Democrat.

Preliminary AP VoteCast data suggested a shift among Black and Latino voters, who appeared slightly less likely to support Harris than they were to back Biden four years ago. About 8 in 10 Black voters backed Harris, down from the roughly 9 in 10 who backed Biden. More than half of Hispanic voters supported Harris, but that was down slightly from the roughly 6 in 10 who backed Biden in 2020. Trump's support among those groups appeared to rise slightly compared to 2020.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio told AP at Trump's election watch party in West Palm Beach, Florida, that he's excited for the exit polling in states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, where Republicans are already seeing overperformance compared to this time in the election in 2020.

"I'm just really excited not just because I think it's going to be a victory but about how we won," the Florida lawmaker said.

Forgive Democrats if they are having a bit of déjà vu.

There are noticeable similarities between then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's election night in 2016 and the one that Harris had planned for tonight at Howard University.

Neither Clinton nor Harris, appeared at their election night party, despite both heading into Election Day believing they were about to defeat Donald Trump.

Both sent top aides to inform the demoralized audience that the woman would not speak. And there were noticeable similarities between what each man said.

"We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not been called yet. We will continue overnight to fight to make sure that every vote is counted," Cedric Richmond, Harris' campaign co-chair, told the audience Tuesday. "So you won't hear from the vice president tonight, but you will hear from her tomorrow."

"We're still counting votes," John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman, said in 2016. "And every vote should count. Several states are too close to call. So we're not going to have anything more to say tonight."

Even the mood of the events — and the trajectory they took over the course of the night — was similar. The vibe at Clinton's event at Javits Center started jubilantly, with people dancing, smiling and eager to make history — the campaign had even planned to launch reflective confetti in the air when Clinton won to resemble a glass ceiling shattering. The same was true for Harris, with the event resembling a dance party on the campus of the Democrat's alma mater.

By the time Podesta and Richmond had taken the stage, the party had stopped, people had left, and those who remained looked forlorn.

Harris still has a path to the White House through the Northern battleground states, but the map is getting less forgiving.

Harris' campaign has long said her surest way to 270 electoral votes was through Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states Trump won in 2016 and Biden captured narrowly in 2020.

Harris cannot lose Pennsylvania and reach 270 electoral votes. However, she can lose pieces of the blue wall — so named for its longtime reputation as a Democratic firewall — and still reach 270.

If she loses Michigan, she can make it up by winning Arizona and Nevada. She can lose Wisconsin and make up for it with Arizona.

But the map has surely shrunk for Harris, who cannot lose more than one in the three-state northern arc.

Harris' campaign co-chair, Cedric Richmond, told the audience gathered at what was planned to be the Democratic nominee's election night party at Howard University that the vice president would not speak tonight, but that the campaign was not giving up the fight against Trump.

"We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not been called yet. We will continue overnight to fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken," said Richmond. "So you won't hear from the vice president tonight but you will hear from her tomorrow."

Richmond said Harris would return to Howard "not only to address her supporters but to address the nation."

The event, which began as a jubilant celebration of Harris and the prospect of a new presidency, began to sour as the Democrat's path to victory narrowed.

The head of the U.S. government's cybersecurity agency says that though bomb threat emails sent to multiple states came from Russian email domains, it's not clear that the culprits were actually Russian.

Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told reporters Tuesday night that the matter was still being investigated and that the identity of the senders remains unknown.

The FBI said earlier in the day that the email threats sent to Georgia and other states were all judged to be noncredible and were from a Russian email domain. Easterly said the emails did not affect the ability of the voters to cast ballots.

Forty-eight states and Washington, D.C., award all their presidential electoral votes to the candidate who wins statewide. And then there's Nebraska and Maine.

The two states each award two electoral votes to the winner of the statewide vote, as well as one electoral vote to the popular vote winner in each congressional district. Nebraska has three congressional districts and five total electoral votes, while Maine has two congressional districts and four total electoral votes. This means that, although Nebraska is reliably Republican in statewide elections, a Democratic candidate could poach one electoral vote from the 2nd Congressional District, which includes the Democratic-friendly population center of Omaha.

Meanwhile, Maine votes reliably Democratic in statewide elections, but Republicans are competitive in the more conservative 2nd Congressional District.

Trump and Vance made attacks on transgender rights a central part of their closing argument , and findings from AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 115,000 voters nationwide, suggest that those arguments may have resonated with some voters.

About half of voters overall said that support for transgender rights in government and society has gone too far, according to VoteCast, while about one-quarter said support has been about right and about 2 in 10 said support has not gone far enough.

The vast majority — around 8 in 10 — Trump voters said that support for transgender rights has gone too far, while Harris voters were more divided.

Harris' campaign chair stressed patience and resolve in a message to all campaign staff obtained by The Associated Press, arguing that the "closeness of the race is exactly what we prepared for" and predicting the race won't "come into focus until the early morning hours."

The message from campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon was meant for an audience beyond campaign staff, too, as nervous Democrats nationwide watch the race between Harris and Trump narrow to a handful of key battleground states.

"As we have known all along, this is a razor thin race," wrote O'Malley Dillon, citing turnout in Philadelphia and early vote totals in suburban Bucks County, Pennsylvania; outstanding votes in Detroit; and uncounted vote in Dane and Milwaukee counties in Wisconsin, two Democratic strongholds.

While the longtime Democratic operative noted forthcoming counting in Nevada and Arizona, the memo highlighted how central the so-called "blue wall" states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania are to Harris' path to victory.

"We've been saying for weeks that this race might not be called tonight," she wrote, adding later, "This is what we've been built for, so let's finish up what we have in front of us tonight, get some sleep, and get ready to close out strong tomorrow."

Voters were of two different minds about the importance of the legal cases involving Trump.

Roughly half described the cases as important in how they cast their ballots, and nearly half said they were a minor or unimportant factor, according to AP VoteCast.

Not surprisingly, among those who saw them as important, about 7 in 10 backed Harris. And among those who saw them as minor, three-quarters went with Trump.

Voters were more likely to place greater importance on other issues, such as the situation on the U.S.-Mexico border, abortion, the future of free speech, the fate of democracy and the prices of gasoline, groceries and other goods.

After chanting "Kamala" early in the evening, the crowd at Harris' watch party quiets to watch CNN's election night coverage. Her supporters and staff are gathered on The Yard at Howard University, her alma mater, as they await results in key battleground states.

The mood at Harris' election night party at Howard University shifted from electric to anxious as race calls began rolling in. The musical performances and triumphant speeches on display earlier in the evening have been replaced by occasional DJ mixes and broadcast race calls.

Anxious faces and hushed talk spread through the crowd as the night stretched on and the tightness of the race became apparent.

The still-packed crowd periodically went quiet as attendees watched returns come in on a giant projection of CNN. Rallygoers cheered and waved American flags as solidly blue states like Harris' native California were called in her favor.

By winning North Carolina, Trump maintains options to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold.

Trump can reach the magic number by carrying Georgia and Pennsylvania or by carrying Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin. He also can win by carrying Wisconsin and Arizona, as well as other combinations involving Nevada.

But that would require him to crack the blue wall of northern states Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Trump blitzed North Carolina in the final days of the campaign, stopping in four cities over four days and finishing his North Carolina campaign in Raleigh on Monday.