Live election updates: Trump wins North Carolina, narrowing Harris’ path

Democrat Kamala Harris won the electoral vote tied to Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District on Wednesday. The sitting vice president defeated Republican and former President Donald Trump in the district centered on Nebraska's largest city of Omaha and its surrounding suburbs. The district has earned the nickname of Nebraska's "blue dot" after having supported two other Democrats for president in the last 16 years – former President Barack Obama in 2008 and President Joe Biden in 2020. Nebraska and Maine are the only two states that split their Electoral College votes based on the popular votes in individual congressional districts. The Associated Press declared Harris the winner at 12:08 a.m. EST.

"Voted for the first time - for his dad," she shared on X .

Barron Trump turned 18 years old in March and began his freshman year at New York University this fall.

As midnight approached on the East Coast, the Harris campaign turned off its projected broadcasts of CNN at its election night watch party at Howard University. Instead, various high-energy remixes blared from speakers alongside floodlights flickering in tempo to hype the crowd.

The cheers in the crowd had become less frequent as more results came in from battleground states showing a tight race or victories for Trump.

Some attendees began leaving the event though the vast majority of rallygoers remained. It is unclear if Harris will make an appearance at her alma mater.

Vice President Kamala Harris won Hawaii and the state's four electoral votes on Wednesday. It's the 10th straight presidential election in which Hawaii has selected the Democratic Party candidate. The state last picked a Republican for the nation's top office 40 years ago, when Ronald Reagan emerged victorious in 1984. Hawaii is a solidly blue state, with Democrats controlling all statewide elected offices and the state's two U.S. House seats. Democrats have also long controlled more than three-quarters of the seats in both the state House and Senate. The Associated Press declared Harris the winner at 12:00 a.m. EST.

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.

Out of 177 polling places in Georgia's Fulton County, 32 faced bomb threats on Election Day. Police Chief W. Wade Yates confirmed only five locations had brief evacuations before safely resuming voting.

Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure and Security Agency, told reporters late Tuesday night that the election process endured "minor disruptive activity throughout the day" but that that activity was anticipated and planned for.

"At this time, we've seen no evidence of malicious activity impacting the integrity ... of election infrastructure," she said.

Easterly also said the bomb threats reported in multiple states were all deemed noncredible and did not affect the ability of 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.

Kamala Harris won New Mexico on Tuesday, adding five electoral votes to Democrats' tally. The Democratic Party's influence in New Mexico has only grown over the last two decades, with former President George W. Bush being the last Republican to win the state in 2004. Harris never made any campaign stops in the state, but support in New Mexico's more populous areas outweighed voters in conservative pockets as second-term Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and members of the state's congressional delegation campaigned on the vice president's behalf. The Associated Press declared Harris the winner at 11:33 p.m. EST.

Voters in Missouri — the first state to make abortion illegal after Roe v. Wade — approved a constitutional amendment that protects abortion in state law. The citizen-led initiative petition will legalize abortion up to 24 weeks, handing Democrats a crucial win on a top campaign priority.

Harris has promised to codify Roe v. Wade if she were to become president but that would depend on control of Congress, which remains unclear. But the measure also opens the door to legal challenges of a ban on most abortions that took effect immediately after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Elon Musk said he would seek to reduce the number of federal agencies if Trump wins the White House and gives the billionaire businessman a role in his administration.

Speaking on Tucker Carlson's online show from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, Musk said he wanted to help Trump make government more efficient. Musk, a key Trump supporter, is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the owner of X, formerly Twitter.

"We've got a gigantic bureaucracy, we've got overregulation," Musk told Carlson. "We need to let the builders of America build."

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.

The Associated Press called North Carolina for Trump at 11:18 p.m. eastern time after it became clear that there weren't enough outstanding votes left in Democratic leaning areas of North Carolina for Harris to overtake his lead.

Former President Donald Trump won the battleground state of North Carolina on Tuesday. Trump receives the state's 16 electoral votes after defeating Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Trump also won the state in 2016 and 2020, but Democrats had been optimistic they could reverse previous outcomes with campaign spending, canvassing and Harris rallies. They also tried to link Trump to embattled Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson. But Trump and running mate JD Vance visited North Carolina often during the fall campaign, pushing a more protectionist economic agenda and promises to crack down on illegal immigration and the southern border. The Associated Press declared Trump the winner at 11:18 p.m. EST.

Trump turned the Colorado suburb of Aurora into part of his message against illegal immigration. In the end, he failed to capture the Mountain State, which has become increasingly Democratic in recent years.

Trump likened Aurora to a "war zone" overrun by a Venezuelan gang that had taken over multiple buildings. Authorities pushed back against that characterization, saying it was a single block and the area was once again safe.

Colorado is one of the several states Trump visited down the stretch outside the seven most competitive states. In recent weeks, he also campaigned in California, New Mexico and, memorably, in New York for the rally at Madison Square Garden.

Former President Donald Trump won Idaho for the third consecutive election on Tuesday, adding four electoral votes to his tally. Idaho is deeply red, and the Republican presidential nominee has carried the state with more than 60% of the vote for the last several elections. The last time a Democratic presidential nominee won Idaho was 60 years ago, when Lyndon Johnson beat Republican Barry Goldwater by a narrow margin of just over 5,300 votes. The Associated Press declared Trump the winner at 11:00 p.m. EST.

Kamala Harris won California on Tuesday, giving her the largest prize in the presidential election - 54 electoral votes. The outcome in the heavily Democratic state where Harris previously served as a U.S. senator and attorney general was expected. A Republican candidate hasn't won a presidential contest in the nation's most populous state since 1988, and the GOP hasn't seriously contested California in a presidential election since 2000. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in California by about 2-to-1, and the party holds every statewide office and dominates the Legislature and congressional delegation. The Associated Press declared Harris the winner at 11:00 p.m. EST.

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

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson refuted Trump's social media claims of "heavy law enforcement" in Detroit before polls closed, calling them "not true."

"The former president said there was a strong law enforcement presence in Philadelphia and Detroit," Benson said. "That was not true. We quickly debunked it."

At a news conference in downtown Detroit after Michigan's polls closed, Benson praised the election as "very successful," and noted minimal issues. She added that the state is on track for record-breaking turnout.

Former President Donald Trump won Iowa on Tuesday, claiming the state's six electoral votes. Formerly considered a swing state, Iowa has proved to be a clear example of Trump's appeal among Republican voters and his staying power in the GOP. A majority of Iowans backed Democrat Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 but chose Trump decisively in 2016 and again in 2020. Now, after easily earning the support of Iowa's Republican caucusgoers earlier this year and buoying his reelection bid, Trump has won the state in three consecutive presidential elections. The Associated Press declared Trump the winner at 10:40 p.m. EST.

Former President Donald Trump won Kansas and its six electoral votes on Tuesday. Republican candidates have carried Kansas in every presidential election since 1964, and it was the third election in a row that Trump has won the state. Kansas City-area suburbs that once were reliable GOP strongholds started leaning more Democratic after Trump was elected president in 2016, but Trump has retained his strong popularity in much of the state and particularly in rural areas. The Associated Press declared Trump the winner at 10:39 p.m. EST.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Parliament on Wednesday that his government will forge a strong partnership with whoever becomes U.S. president.

"The election of a new President of the United States is always a moment of profound consequence for the world, for our region and for Australia," Albanese said.

"Our government will seek and build a strong partnership with whoever the American people choose as their next president. The alliance between Australia and the United States has always been bigger than individuals," he added.

Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, has reported its first votes. The massive county is key for candidates. Its first update included more than a million votes, about half of the expected total there. The first reported votes were ballots that arrived or were cast ahead of Election Day. County election officials have warned it could take as long as 13 days to tabulate all ballots.

The Historic King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit hosted a "pray and watch" party Tuesday night. Voters bowed their heads in prayer led by the Rev. Charles Williams.

A "pray and watch party" is underway at Detroit's Historic King Solomon Baptist Church, which features a rotating group of pastors saying a prayer as results roll in and about two dozen attendees.

When TV coverage of the election goes to commercial, a pastor takes to the pulpit and says a few words.

"I am so glad we are here," said the Rev. Charles Williams II, the event's host. "If I was at home, I would turn off the TV and go to bed."Because this is challenging," Williams said, reflecting the anxiety in the room filled with Harris supporters.

Vice President Kamala Harris won the District of Columbia on Tuesday, securing the capital's three electoral votes. Harris' win in D.C. is no surprise – the District is a longtime Democratic stronghold whose government repeatedly feuded with Republican Donald Trump when he was the president. Trump has described modern-day Washington as a crime-ridden dystopia, and Republican allies in Congress have threatened to strip D.C. of its limited autonomy. The Associated Press declared Harris the winner at 10:20 p.m. EST.