Donald Trump claims victory on ‘the day the American people regained control’

Jeff Bezos nixed the Washington Post’s intentions to endorse a presidential candidate, but a range of other celebrities, untrammeled by the responsibilities of newspaper ownership, have been eagerly throwing their weight behind one of the two candidates.

Joe Rogan left it late in the piece, but has in the last hour come out for – wait for it – Donald Trump.

The great and powerful @elonmusk.
If it wasn’t for him we’d be fucked. He makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way.
For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump.
Enjoy the podcast pic.twitter.com/LdBxZFVsLN

— Joe Rogan (@joerogan) November 5, 2024

Could Rogan, though, even with the raw masculine power of Elon Musk at his side, defeat both Han Solo and Indiana Jones? Food for thought.

Harrison Ford: When dozens of former members of the Trump administration are sounding alarms saying ‘For God’s sake, don’t do this again,’ you have to pay attention. They’re telling us something important. I’ve got one vote, same as anyone else, and I’m going to use it to move… pic.twitter.com/C4m4x2Y2qv

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) November 2, 2024

Trump also has the thumbs up from Jake Paul, Buzz Aldrin, Mike Tyson, Don King, Dana White, Mel Gibson, Dennis Quaid, Jon Voight, Rosanne Barr and Kid Rock. And, to repeat, Mr Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, who had a good day legally speaking, has devoted much of his life and bank balance to trying to do a funny joke on Twitter. Keep at it, Elon!

Others on Team Harris: Rihanna, will.i.am, Jennifer Lopez, LeBron James, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Madonna, Taylor Swift obviously, Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Barbra Streisand, Eminem, Stevie Nicks, Willie Nelson, Usher, Olivia Rodrigo, John Legend, Cardi B, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and on it goes. 

Duncan Greive and Anna Rawhiti-Connell discussed the power of endorsement on today’s Fold podcast. But the most effective endorsement, if you ask me, is that from Bad Bunny. Seriously: the Puerto Rican musician’s post, prompted by all the garbage about “garbage island”, might have actually prompted some of his 45-million-plus followers to vote.

Reflecting already on your decision to plunge into the suppurating bowels of the American election? A spot of scroller’s regret? Looking for something more wholesome and domestic? You’re in luck. There is another Spinoff liveblog currently playing out and it’s a lot of fun: as part of travel week, Joel MacManus is gurning his way up the country on public transport. It’s a heartwarming chronicle that only sometimes tips into nsfw erotica and I recommend it.

We’ve entered the twilight zone. Election day is now less than two hours away in the eastern United States. And both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are heading for their final heaves having just completed rival rallies in Pittsburgh that summed up pretty well the contrast between the candidates. 

Trump delivered a characteristically rambling and digressive address – he’s lately taken to suggesting it’s in fact a rhetorical masterclass and calls it “the weave” – that dipped into the menacing, dystopian territory he’s lately occupied, together with baseless claims about election interference. Harris completed almost word for word the stump speech that has become familiar to the point of facsimile. It might sound vacuous but her supporters can always counter: would you really prefer a man who brags about sexual assault and, according to his former chief of staff, meets the definition of a fascist? 

Trump was on stage, by the way, for more than 100 minutes. Harris for about 10.

It completed a day in which each candidate fronted a clutch of rallies. Trump began in North Carolina, appeared twice in Pennsylvania – the most coveted and tightest of the battleground states – and will finish up in Michigan. 

Harris was in Pennsylvania for all three events, and her stops sound like a middle aged man’s most beloved mixtape, starting with Allentown and finishing on the Streets of Philadelphia.

If you’re keen to watch Kamala Harris say the same thing again or to marvel, perhaps for the final time, at Donald Trump dancing to YMCA, who am I to stop you?

The final Harris campaign rally, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

And the final Trump blast, from Grand Rapids, Michigan.

In keeping with kooky tradition, the first votes, or the first in-person votes at least, are expected to be cast in the tiny New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch. They’ll be counted swiftly and a result is likely within a minute of midnight on Tuesday (6pm in New Zealand). One of the reasons they’ll be counted swiftly is that there is a total of six voters.

In most states, in-person voting begins at 7am or 8am.

As polls continue to drop, poll-watchers are examining each new set of numbers with rabbinical intensity for signs of a change in national mood. The final PBS/Marist presidential poll, released a few hours ago, gives Kamala Harris a 4-point lead over Donald Trump among likely voters nationally, 51% to 47%. The same poll had Harris leading 52%-47% on October 16.

The national polls can only tell us so much, of course – what really matters are the polls in the seven or so swing states. The website 538 collates polling data (adjusted by pollster quality, recency and other factors) to come up with a rolling polling average for each state. Right now the swing states are as follows:

Georgia – Trump +1

North Carolina – Trump +1

Arizona – Trump +2

Michigan – Harris +1

Wisconsin – Harris +1

Pennsylvania – even

Nevada – even

Based on all the above, 538’s forecast for the presidential winner is… too close to call.

The first result of the 2024 presidential election has been called – and wouldn’t you know it, it’s a tie.

Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, opened its one polling booth on the dot of 12am EST (6pm NZT), and closed it a few minutes later, all six of the tiny hamlet’s six registered voters having cast their ballots.

The result: three votes for Kamala Harris and three votes for Donald Trump.

“People commonly joke to me about moving to New Zealand if the candidate they don’t want to win is elected.” So says Duncan Wood in the Spinoff’s collection of pre-election sentiment from New Zealanders in America. Which brings to mind a meme of years gone by.

Since long before Donald Trump became a serious political prospect, the Twitter account @MovingtoEnzed has collected plaintive cries from people, Americans especially, hoping to, well, move to New Zealand. Trump’s election, with a dash of Brexit, saw their number multiply. Searches of “how to move to New Zealand” reportedly surged during a 2020 presidential debate. A reliable stream of celebrities have promised to move to New Zealand if Trump was elected; almost none did.

A quick search of Twitter, or whatever it’s called now, showed very little chatter about election induced emigration, which could be for any number of reasons. Maybe they all moved already. Maybe they’ve gotten over the urge. Or maybe they’re not the kind of people who frequent Twitter any longer.

Anyway, this is really all just by way of an excuse to dust off and share again a beloved relic of the Spinoff’s 2016 election coverage: The Trumpocalypse Rating, as illustrated by the tremendous Ross Murray.

Guess what? Yes, it’s close. Since election day began in the US three and a half hours ago, election data savant (and 538 founder) Nate Silver has been watching his computer whirring away to detect what probabilites his model might proffer. And this is what he sees:

When I say the odds in this year’s presidential race are about as close as you can possibly get to 50/50, I’m not exaggerating.

At exactly midnight on Tuesday, I pressed the “go” button for the final time on our election model this year. I knew it was going to be close. I felt like I was spinning a roulette wheel … We’d decided ahead of time to run 80,000 simulations instead of our usual 40K.

And after 80,000 simulations, Kamala Harris won the Electoral College in … 40,012 of them, or 50.015%. The remaining 39,988 were split between Trump (39,718) and no majority — a 269-269 tie — which practically speaking would probably be resolved for Trump in the US House … This is my fifth presidential election — and my ninth general election overall, counting midterms — and there has never been anything like this.

It’s not really a coin flip, Silver says; it’s up to people to vote to decide. But, staggeringly:

From the model’s standpoint, the race is literally closer than a coin flip: empirically, heads wins 50.5% of the time, more than Harris’s 50.015%.

Read the full post here.

Glad you asked. Unless you’re lucky enough to have the channels on your fancy Sky box, the simplest place to watch the international rolling coverage is through a plucky little video streaming platform called YouTube. ABC (also available on Disney+) is up and running already …

And here’s what’s otherwise on offer, geoblock-free, all under way already or firing up in the coming hours:

CBS

CNN

Fox News

NBC

MSNBC (Kornacki Cam)

PBS

Sky News UK

Washington Post video feed

If you’re a BBC-head, you’ll need to watch on Auntie’s own site. Or if you’re a Rest Is Politics podcast fan, Alastair Campbell, Rory Stewart and Anthony Scaramucci, are marathon livestreaming results on YouTube from the US alongside stablemates Marina Hyde (The Rest Is Entertainment) and Dominic Sandbrook (The Rest Is History).

If you’re thinking of getting work/chores/a nap in before things kick off, set your alarm for 1pm. That’s when the first results are expected to arrive from states in the the east.

Polls close in parts of Indiana and Kentucky from noon in New Zealand (6pm Tuesday Eastern Time), but six states call time across the board an hour later at 7pm ET (1pm NZ). They include the battleground seat of Georgia, but unless the pollsters are way, way off the mark, a conclusive result for those 16 electoral college votes will take some time.

Instead, first action on the networks’ vivid blue-red map graphics are likely to signal an early lead for Trump with Indiana, Kentucky and South Carolina delivering 28 electoral college while Harris is expected to chalk up 16 in Virginia and Vermont. With 538 electoral college votes all up, that’s too early even for the most unhinged Maga fan to start celebrating. A big tranche of states close at 8pm (2pm NZ) including Texas.

Notwithstanding something unexpected (and Iowa, for what it’s worth, closes at 9pm NZ), the straws in the wind won’t be so much in the results as the details: election gurus will be poring over the numbers in particular counties, comparing urban with rural and overlaying any demographic information from exit polls in an attempt to detect any meaning patterns taking shape.

What about the other swing states? In North Carolina polls close at 7.30pm ET (1.30pm NZ); Pennsylvania and almost all of Michigan close at 8pm ET (2pm NZ). In Wisconsin and Arizona, 9pm ET (3pm NZ). And Nevada at 10pm ET, or 4pm this afternoon in New Zealand.

For dedicated US poll-watchers, the New York Times needle is equally loved and loathed. It’s an addictive, at-a-glance representation of each candidate’s chance of winning as votes trickle in on election day, known for its ability to spike anxiety (or euphoria) with its every twitch.

NYT elections guru Nate Cohn would normally be getting ready to unleash his famous tracker on the world, but as he tweeted this morning, election junkies may need to go without their fix this year. The NYT tech guild is currently on strike, and “while they don’t play a role in the model itself, they built and maintain the infrastructure that feeds us data and lets us publish on the internet”.

Cohn doesn’t definitively say there’ll be no needle this year, but warns there are “good reasons to bet against it”. Probably for the best.

Even before election day began, an estimated 82 million people had voted in the US election. That total, combing early in-person and postal votes, is more than half the total turnout of 2020 (154.6 million). In two swing states, Georgia and North Carolina, early voting surpassed 80% of the 2020 overall turout. It will have a serious impact on assessing the tallies as they arrive. Some critical states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, did not begin the counting process of those early votes until today.

A warning on interpretation of these early votes, via Reuters:

In the 2020 election, some states showed a “red mirage,” in which Trump was leading on election night, before a “blue shift” saw Democrat Joe Biden overtake him as mail-in ballots favored by more Democratic voters were counted. Experts had accurately predicted it would happen but Trump still used the shift to amplify his false claims that the election was stolen.

It could happen again this week, especially in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. The opposite – a “blue mirage” apparently showing a strong result for Harris only for a “red shift” to reverse the trend – could also happen this week, especially in North Carolina and Georgia.

Trump versus Harris sucks up most of the oxygen, especially outside the US, but every voter has many other “down-ballot” decisions to make, including representatives in Congress. In the House of Representatives, all 435 spots are up for grabs. 34 of 100 seats. Republicans currently have a small majority in the House and Democrats a slim advantage in the Senate.

But there’s plenty more besides, variously: governors, state legislatures, county boards, judges, prosecutors, sheriffs, school boards, and on it goes. Then there are referendums. Ten states (including swing states Nevada and Arizona) have questions on the ballot involving abortion; such issues can have an impact on who turns out to vote and sometimes, accordingly, how the presidential candidates fare.

Here, for example, is a sample ballot that shows you what the people of Shelby County, Illinois, are voting on:

From the New York Times:

Standing at his final rally of the 2024 campaign, former President Donald J Trump in the first minutes after midnight on Election Day used a crude sexist remark to attack Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker who is one of his longstanding political rivals.

“She’s a bad person,” Mr Trump said at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich. “Evil. She’s an evil, sick, crazy —” He made an exaggerated face, his mouth open wide to draw attention to the next syllable: “Bi—”

Then he held up a finger dramatically, feigning that he’d caught himself. “Oh no,” he said. As the crowd of thousands began laughing, Mr Trump mouthed the word into the microphone. “It starts with a B, but I won’t say it,” Mr Trump added. “I want to say it.”

As the crowd roared even louder, some of the attendees began to supply the word he’d barely omitted, shouting, “Bitch!”

There is still more than an hour until the first polls close, but exit polls are with us already. Importantly, these are not the kind of exit polls you’d see in, say, the UK. People are still voting across the US so we’re not getting “who did you vote for?” Instead we get things like favourability, issue priority and candidate strengths, alongside demographic information, all drawn from nationwide questionnaires and telephone surveys conducted by Edison Research for a bunch of news outlets. The data crunchers will feed all that information into their big predictive soups.

Anyway, according to NBC, Kamala Harris has a 48% favourable to 50% unfavourable rating; the corresponding numbers for Trump are  44% favourable versus 54% unfavourable.

Asked for the most important issue, the state of the democracy tops the list, followed closely by the economy.

And how does that break along gender lines?

And some issues:

Donald Trump is hosting a big-night watch party at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida. Among those invited, no doubt because he is fun at parties, is Elon Musk, who has spent more than $130 million on trying to get Trump elected.

Trump’s rival, Kamala Harris, is throwing her watch party at Howard University, where she used to study. That’s a brisk nine-stop ride on the G8 bus from the White House.

To claim victory tonight, either Harris or Trump will need 270 electoral votes, representing a majority of the 538 electors that make up the Electoral College (here’s a quick explainer on how it all works).

Making the process easier for prognosticators, most states are already solidly Democratic or Republican. Analysts give Harris 226 guaranteed votes, and Trump 219. So where will the rest of the votes come from?

For Harris, the easiest path to victory is via the so-called blue wall: Wisconsin (10 votes), Michigan (15) and Pennsylvania (19). All of them went for Joe Biden in 2020, but are swing states this year. If Harris sweeps all three, she’ll have 270 votes. Done.

But if she misses out on one or more of the blue wall states, she’ll need to look elsewhere to make up the difference. The most likely back-ups are in the southern “sun belt”, where the battleground states are North Carolina (16 votes), Georgia (16), Nevada (6) and Arizona (11).

Trump’s straightest path to victory involves holding onto North Carolina and flipping Georgia and Pennsylvania. But if Harris manages to win Pennsylvania, he’s on much shakier ground. Even with North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona, he’d only have 268 electoral votes – 2 fewer than he needs. Pennsylvania may not be the whole ball game, but it’s not far off.

And we’re off. With polls closed in a half dozen states, the first confirmed numbers are rolling out, and the Associated Press has called three states: Kentucky and Indiana for Trump; Vermont for Harris. That gives Trump 19 electoral college votes and Harris 3. Trump is currently up by 14 percentage points in Georgia, but only 6% of the vote has been counted, so don’t read too much into that.

Also in Vermont, Bernie Sanders has been returned to the Senate.

West Virginia has been called for Trump, so the scoreboard now reads Trump 23, Harris 3.

At Trump HQ in Florida, meanwhile, adviser Corey Lewandowski has told reporters that the momentum is with them, and they’re enjoying the early numbers, especially from Georgia. Turnout for Trump in Georgia, he said, is “through the roof”. In Florida, meanwhile, Trump is tracking considerably better than the same point four years ago.

Trump “feels great”, he said. “We are ready, when the election is called, to begin the transition to put this country back on track.”

A bunch of new states from the east have been called by AP.

For Trump: South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Mississippi.

For Harris: Maryland, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

No surprises here but that leaves the state of play as Trump 95, Harris 35.

Republican Rick Scott has been re-elected senator in Florida, dashing Democratic hopes that their candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell could pull off a surprise win.

Earlier, Republican Jim Justice was announced the winner of the West Virginia senatorial seat previously held by Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat who is retiring this year.

Manchin had been the Democrats’ 51st vote in the Senate. With the loss of his seat, and Scott’s victory in Florida, Democrats will need Sherrod Brown in Ohio or Jon Tester in Montana to be re-elected – or for Colin Allred to squeak out a win against Ted Cruz in Texas – to retain control of the Senate. All three states are seen as solidly Republican.

After sounding the alarm about a possible absence of the New York Times needle this morning, we have good news for fans of consistently high cortisol levels.

Straight from the horse’s mouth (Nate Cohn on X), we can confirm the needle is back.

We have a needlehttps://t.co/Vp8KVIxgN3

— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) November 6, 2024

Cohn chased this news by posting “Harris’ lead in the national vote down to 1.3 on Florida alone”.

Here’s the needle at 2.29pm (NZT).

Or we can assume he is. He’s ahead in the states called so far. Since we last updated AP has called Arkansas for Trump, with New Jersey and Illinois called for Harris. That leaves things as  Trump 101, Harris 71, in the race to 270.

But that’s not why Trump and his camp are feeling confident. More important is the way things are shaping up in the battleground states, such as North Carolina. Other early signs include Harris heading for a deeper loss than Biden in Florida and a narrower victory in New Hampshire and Virginia. A long way to go, mind you. A long way.

Donald Trump has a 73% chance of winning North Carolina, with 14% of the estimated vote reporting. pic.twitter.com/uzH0UbESjJ

— Decision Desk HQ (@DecisionDeskHQ) November 6, 2024

More calls from Associated Press. Harris wins New York and its 28 college votes plus Biden-land Delaware, while Donald Trump sweeps 40 in Texas, along with North Dakota, South Dakota, Louisiana, Ohio, Wyoming, as well as two electoral votes for winning the statewide vote in Nebraska.

No surprises there, but it leaves the state of play as Trump 177, Harris 97.

More importantly, the latest forecasts for the swing states from Nate Needle Cohen and the New York Times:

Arizona: 66% probability Trump wins

Georgia: 77% Trump

Michigan: even

Nevada: 54% Trump

North Carolina: 65% Trump

Pennsylvania: 53% Trump

Wisconsin: 51% Harris

With 54% of the vote counted and Trump holding a 3.4 percentage point lead over Harris, Decision Desk HQ has made the call: Donald Trump will take North Carolina. This is the first call of a battleground state by a reputable organisation. Notably, the networks and AP don’t agree that there’s enough certainty to make such a call at this point.

Decision Desk HQ projects Donald J. Trump wins the Presidential election in North Carolina.#DecisionMade: 9:22 PM EDT

Follow live results here:https://t.co/PZocSAoy3P pic.twitter.com/IcJ5Pro772

— Decision Desk HQ (@DecisionDeskHQ) November 6, 2024

The New York Times needle had been in the “tossup” zone since it was reborn a couple of hours ago. But now, for the first time this election, it’s leaning. Specifically, it’s leaning Trump, giving him a 69% chance of victory.

Decision Desk HQ, by the way, is similarly minded.

While Decision Desk HQ has seen enough to call the battleground state of North Carolina for Trump (see below), the Associated Press is tilting its head, narrowing its eyes and peering gently across the frame of its spectacles. Is Trump ahead by four points or so with half the votes counted? Yes it is. However, “many of the state’s most populous counties haven’t reported significant numbers of votes cast in person on or before election day.”

AP has, however, called a few more states. Missouri, Montana and Utah are for Trump, with Colorado going to Harris. That leaves the tally at Trump 198 and Harris 109.

Nate’s NYT needle is on the move again and it’s grim news for Harris, putting Trump’s chances of winning at a remarkable 82%.

The “Needle’s early take” (and it’s not clear whether the Needle dicated this assessment or typed it directly into the New York Times’ content management system) is this: “Trump is now a narrow but clear favorite to win Georgia and North Carolina. If he does, Harris would probably need to sweep the three Northern swing states — a real possibility, but a tall order.”

Meanwhile, NBC has called Iowa for Trump. Democrats rejoiced at a late Des Moines Register poll that showed Harris three points ahead. It was out of line with other polling and it’s clear now it was a rogue.

The Polymarket stakes for the presidency have put Trump as favourite for a month now, but they’ve really blown out in the last three hours, suggesting Trump has more than 92% chance of victory.

AP has called Iowa and Kansas for Trump, and the District of Columbia for Harris. She’s also picked up three Maine votes and Trump one. In the race to 270, that gives Trump 210, Harris 113.

With Trump leading in the “blue wall” swing states of Wiconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, the stocks of hope in the Harris camp are running thin. The Needle is readying its dressing gown and slippers, jotting a few notes for a forthcoming novella, and giving Trump an 88% chance of winning. It did end up doing blushing and bending back the other way in 2016, but surely not again?

Donald Trump has won the swing state of North Carolina and its 16 electoral college votes, the AP reports.

“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.”

There’s quite a crowd gathering at Mar-a-Lago for Donald Trump’s watch party, which is tipping by the minute into a victory party. Among the esteemed guests are Elon Musk, who has plenty to gain from a Trump presidency, and Tucker Carlson, who may or may not be elaborating on his recent statements that abortions cause hurricanes and that he was recently attacked by a literal demon.

Some international political figures are there, too: the rightwing British populist Nigel Farage, and Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of former Brazilian President Jair.

https://t.co/JcVCLtnWh4

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) November 6, 2024

With AP calling Iowa for Trump (see below), Harris’s potential paths to the presidency continue to narrow. AP has meanwhile called California, Oregon, New Mexico and Washington state for Harris and Idaho for Trump.

That leaves the race looking like this: Trump 230, Harris 192.

While things are looking tricky for Harris, her party might take a speck of consolation from brighter signs in the Congress race, or part of it at least.

Decision Desk HQ reckons the Democrats are now favoured to take a majority in the House of Representatives. Were that to happen, it would provide an important potential brake on a Trump presidency, if that’s where we’re heading. The importance of such a gain for Democrats is hard to overstate, especially given Republicans are on the brink – one seat! – of taking the Senate. DDHQ reckons that’s pretty much done.

“The Needle latest?” I hear you ask. Trump = 89% chance.

Let’s flick away for a moment from the US media and check out TVNZ 1.

Looks like Kate, Marlon and Laurence have put together a score of 15. Not enough. They’ll need plenty of pushbacks. Not even close. Those 15 are chased down with 36 seconds remaining. For Shaun Wallace, it’s just another day at the office.

Next up is 1News. “The battle for the White House tonight is on a knife edge,” says Simon Dallow. Not sure that’s the right choice of cutlery, especially given, as he points out, “Donald Trump has momentum.”

Jack Tame is in Washington DC. “It is fair to say, here at Kamala Harris’s headquarters,” says Tame, “that the mood is pretty flat. There are a lot of confused-looking people. People aren’t totally despairing, but certaintly it isn’t the night they hoped it would be.” And a data point: Harris for President T-shirts that were selling for $20 at the start of the evening could now be purchased for $5.

Harris will pick up Hawaii and Virginia, AP says. That puts the head to head in the electoral college Trump 230 versus Harris 210. Does that mean things are swinging back the Democrat’s way?

No. The gaps in the states that decide the contest continue to hold or grow for Trump. The Needle people are now predicting that Trump will win the popular vote, and picking his chances of winning the presidency as 93%. Ninety-three per cent.

That would be two of seven swing states to the Republican. He’s getting close.

With the re-election of incumbent Deb Fischer in Nebraska, the Republicans have won control of the Senate.

The party had earlier picked up two Democratic senate seats in West Virginia and Ohio. Fischer’s win against independent Dan Osborn, who put up a tougher-than-expected challenge in the solidly Republican state, ensures the party will gain control the Senate in the new term.

The Senate is the upper house of Congress. Among its responsibilities is the confirmation of the president’s appointments for key government positions and the Supreme Court.

The crowd that has gathered at Howard University have been delivered the deeply underwhelming news that Kamala Harris will not be appearing tonight. Cedric Richmond, the co-chair of her campaign, appeared on stage to say , “you won’t hear from the vice president tonight, but you will hear from her tomorrow.” Her team woud “continue overnight to fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken”, he said, to a grim smattering of applause.

The Needle looks done for the night, too. It is gently snoring, fast asleep, at 95%-plus for Trump.

Decision Desk HQ has called Pennsylvania for Trump and accordingly the presidency.

Decision Desk HQ projects that former President Donald Trump (R) has won enough electoral votes to win the Presidency.#DecisionMade: 1:21am ET

Follow live results here: https://t.co/KhbXnlljiu pic.twitter.com/8NH5YdjqkR

— Decision Desk HQ (@DecisionDeskHQ) November 6, 2024

DDHQ is not one of the household name outfits that call races. It is, however, a reputable outfit with a sound record. And it’s looked at a 3.4-point gap with 91% of the vote counted and said: game over.

Trump is reportedly preparing to speak in Florida.

Fox News is the first network to declare Trump across the line, calling Wisconsin and Pennsylvania for the man ousted in 2020.

BREAKING NEWS: The Fox News Decision Desk projects that Donald Trump will become the 47th President of the United States. pic.twitter.com/jQBA6Dlx1n

— Fox News (@FoxNews) November 6, 2024

Fox News just called PA for Donald Trump. The moment at the watch party — folks are now breaking into USA chants pic.twitter.com/qtdg9KbYjV

— Shelby Talcott (@ShelbyTalcott) November 6, 2024

Donald Trump has acclaimed “the greatest political movement of all time”, one which has “reached a new level of importance, because we’re going to help our country heal”. His victory has not yet been called all by all the networks nor AP, but it is only a matter of time.

In a speech to supporters that ran for more than 20 minutes, Trump said he was on course for as many as 315 electoral college votes and that he would win the popular vote. All of that is possible, if not likely. He added that the Republicans were on course to win the House. That’s still up in the air, though likelier than it was a c0uple of hours ago. Forecasts now have a GOP House majority at around 65% likelihood. That would give the party an extraordinary grip on power, spanning the presidency, Senate and House. A Republican-leaning Supreme Court would likely become more so.

In a typically digressive speech Trump thanked his family and paid tribute to his running mate, JD Vance, who “turned out to be a good choice”, despite Trump having “taken a little heat in the beginning” for the VP pick.

Vance said: “We just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America.”

Trump paid special tribute to his campaign bosses Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, as well as Elon Musk. He spoke at length about watching rockets. He also spoke at length about the success of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and hailed UFC boss Dana White to the microphone. “This is karma, he deserves this,” said White, who in turn gave a shout out to “the mighty Joe Rogan”.

Another supporter singled out: Robert F Kennedy, who abandoned his own presidential run to support Trump. RFK would “make America healthy again”, said Trump. He added: “But Bobby, leave the oil to me” – a reference to Kennedy’s environmental views. “Bobby, stay away from the liquid gold. Otherwise, go have a good time, Bobby.”

Trump, who said he’d “never be doing a rally again”, hailed “the day the American people regained control of our country”. He said he would keep his promises and hoped to bring unity to the US as part of a “noble and righteous mission”. He also said: “Many people have told me God saved my life for a reason. And that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness, and now we are going to fulfill that mission together.”

Christopher Luxon has joined many leaders around the world (including, with what one must imagine is an even heavier heart than most, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy) in sending congratulations to Donald Trump. Given the president-elect’s approach to free trade and the China-Taiwan issue the line that most leaps out is the one that ends with “enhancing our trade and economic relationship and building security and resilience in the Indo-Pacific”. Here’s the statement in full:

The relationship between our two countries is strong and enduring. I look forward to developing even closer relations with the incoming Trump administration.

The US is one of our most important partners, our second largest export destination, and a major source of global innovation and growth. Our long-standing cooperation both bilaterally and in our region has helped ensure our prosperity and security. We will continue to work in partnership with the US to advance our shared long-term interests, particularly through further enhancing our trade and economic relationship and building security and resilience in the Indo-Pacific.

I would like to commend the vibrant relationship between our two countries and the breadth of cooperation we have enjoyed during President Biden’s tenure. I admire his dedication to public service and the American people.

Some have called the presidency for him, some haven’t yet, but it’s done. Donald Trump will return to the White House as the 47th president of the United States of America. The Republicans have regained a Senate majority, while the fate of the House of Representative remains at this stage in the balance.

Thanks for your company today. It’s about 90 minutes from dawn in Washington DC and Florida. Catch up with all the developments and analysis of note when the sun comes up in New Zealand in the Bulletin. Ka kite anō au i a koutou.