Votes are still being counted in the US election, meaning the race is not yet won – but Donald Trump is just a handful of electoral votes from victory.

Overnight developments have thrilled Republicans, with Mr Trump going well ahead in the race for the magic number of 270 electoral college votes to win.

While the fight isn’t officially over yet for Kamala Harris – her opponent no longer needs the four remaining key battleground states to win, and he’s already claimed victory.

Here’s the story of the night…

Trump wins first three swing states

North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania – three of seven critical battleground states – have been called in favour of Donald Trump by Sky News’ US partner network NBC News.

North Carolina was the first battleground win of the election, giving Mr Trump the state’s 16 Electoral College votes, which he also narrowly won in 2020 with 49.9% of the vote, while Joe Biden garnered 48.6%.

It may not be a massive surprise, as North Carolina hasn’t swung to a Democrat for president since 2008, but it is still a significant blow for Ms Harris, who had been eyeing the state as a place to expand her path to 270.

Republican running mate JD Vance admitted before the vote it would be “very hard” for Mr Trump to win if their campaign did not hold North Carolina.

Both candidates have made frequent trips to the battleground in the final weeks of the race.

But perhaps an even bigger loss for Team Harris was Georgia, which Mr Trump was projected to win at about 5.30am UK time.

Numbers had shown Mr Trump was well ahead earlier this morning, but Democrats were holding out hope because he had been 200,000 votes ahead at the same stage of the 2020 election and still lost.

In 2020 it had proved a false lead because votes in the state’s four largest counties – Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb and DeKalb – which normally lean Democrat – had not been counted.

Once they were, Joe Biden came from behind to win the state.

Those same counties took the longest to count this time too, but Ms Harris couldn’t make up the ground in them.

Then at around 7am NBC News projected that Mr Trump would win Pennsylvania.

The state is seen as the key to victory in the election as it holds a crucial 19 electoral college votes.

Pennsylvania has been a heavy focus of the Republican and Democrat campaigns, with both camps spending huge amounts of money and time vying to win the state.

Trump’s victory there means he only needs to win the states he’s widely expected to win – he doesn’t need any more battleground states.

Florida goes to Trump

Sky News’ US partner NBC News projected Donald Trump as the winner in Florida at 1am UK time.

The Republican-leaning state has a massive 30 electoral votes, the third largest number behind California (54) and Texas (40).

Florida, which is Mr Trump’s home state, was once considered a swing state but has been reliably Republican for over a decade.

The last time Floridians went for a Democratic presidential candidate was when Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney by less than a percentage point in 2012.

New York Times needle is back

There was talk that the popular New York Times ‘needle’ may not have been available on election night due to strike action that nearly ran into polling day.

The Tech Guild, which represents the Times’s software developers and data analysts, went on strike on Sunday over contracts, pay and in-office working policies.

But the needle was up and running on election night, predicting a comfortable win for Donald Trump.

The needle is part of the New York Times’s election coverage brought to readers by 100 journalists, engineers, statisticians, data experts and researchers.

It “estimates the final outcome based on partial election results, helping readers understand what to make of the vote that has been counted so far”, the New York Times says.

You can read exactly how the needle works, and see it for yourself, on the New York Times’ website.

Republicans projected to win the Senate

NBC News projects the Republicans will take over control of the Senate from the Democrats.

It is forecast the party will win 51 seats to the Democrats’ 40.

The House, currently held by the Republicans, is still up in the air.

If Donald Trump were to win, having control of the Senate and the House would enable him to govern more freely than if these legislatures were split.

Crowds leave Harris event

Crowds were leaving Kamala Harris’s watch party in Washington DC at around midnight local time as news of Mr Trump’s projected swing state victories came in.

Supporters had hoped she would be delivering a historic victory speech there, but she didn’t show up at all in the end.

One of the supporters who attended, Anna Aurilio, told Sky News: “I’m heading home for a stiff drink but I’m a sport fan so I know it’s not over until it’s over.”

Another, Ellycia Smalley, said: “I’m a little down, obviously, but I’m not giving up hope, there are still big cities in swing states to be counted.

“It’s not over until the fat lady sings.”

That was before Pennsylvania was projected to go Mr Trump’s way.

One of her campaign chairs said she will be there tomorrow to “address the nation”.

Trump declares victory with 266 electoral college votes

Donald Trump took to the stage in West Palm Beach, Florida, with a huge entourage.

“I want to thank you all very much,” he said, praising the “incredible” MAGA movement.

“Frankly I believe this was the greatest political movement of all time,” he says, adding it’s now going to go to another level.

“We have a country that needs help very badly,” he adds, promising to “fix everything”.

“It’s clear that… this is a political victory,” he adds.

“I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honour of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president,” he says, effectively claiming victory.

“This is a magnificent victory for the American people that will allow us to make America great again.”

The Republican Party has made gains in the Senate and secured a majority for the first time in four years.

A third of the Senate’s 100 seats were up for grabs at this year’s elections, with 51 required for a majority.

The Senate, similar to the House of Lords in the UK but is elected, is made up of two senators for each state.

The Democrats have been in control of the upper house of Congress for the last four years.

US election latest: Trump addressing ‘jubilant’ supporters

But the Republicans have wrestled control after making gains in elections overnight.

With eight seats yet to be declared, the Republicans have 51 seats in the Senate and the Democrats have 40.

Independent candidate Bernie Sanders, who sits with the Democratic caucus, has been projected to win a fourth term representing Vermont.

Among the Republicans’ gains were Trump-backed Bernie Moreno, who flipped a seat in Ohio which had been held by the Democrats since 2007.

Another gain was in West Virginia where Jim Justice won a seat that was left vacant after independent senator and former Democrat Joe Manchin’s retirement.

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives, the lower house, are also up for grabs.

Read more:
Trump declares victory in presidential election
The key moments of the US election night so far

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The Republicans’ gains in the Senate come as Donald Trump has been projected to win several key battleground states in the race to the White House, closing in on a second presidential term.

He declared victory in a speech to supporters in Florida, while Kamala Harris will not speak until later on Wednesday.

Donald Trump can be president again without winning any more battlegrounds.

Victories for Mr Trump in the key states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina – all three largest battlegrounds – leave him needing just four electoral college votes to be president-elect.

He can achieve this with a win in Alaska, usually safe Republican, and the one electoral vote in Maine that voted for him in the last two elections. The battleground states of Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan are also outstanding.

Kamala Harris is yet to win a single one of the eight battleground states.

The exit poll tells a story of America’s increasing division on party lines and the biggest issues facing the country, but slightly less so in terms of demographic indicators like race and age.

Black and Latino voters look to have backed the Republicans in higher numbers than at other recent elections, while white voters and older voters – particularly women – have moved closer to the Democrats.

The results in the remaining battlegrounds, plus a handful of other states are still outstanding.

Standings in states still to be declared

Results from counties that have finished voting skew heavily towards Mr Trump, however – the vote so far has swung towards him in 90% of counties that have counted more than 95% of their votes.

So far we know of 26 counties which have flipped between parties from their 2020 result. Twenty-three of these have favoured Mr Trump. Eight of these counties had voted Democrat at every election since at least 2000.

What does the exit poll tell us?

The election found the American public in an unforgiving mood.

The exit poll, carried out by Sky’s US partner NBC News, points towards a country that is dissatisfied with its current situation, although still very much divided on what the most important issues are.

Two-thirds of people consider the condition of the nation’s economy to be not so good or poor.

A remarkable three-quarters of people told the exit poll they felt dissatisfied or angry about the way things are going in the country.

And some 60% expressed disapproval of the Supreme Court, while a similar number of people disapproved of the way Joe Biden is handling his job as president.

Harris voters thought “democracy” was the most important issue behind their vote, while Trump supporters rated the economy and immigration higher. On both sides, only a few people made up their decision in the last month.

The exit poll also tells us that Mr Trump has lost support among some of his most reliable groups. Voters aged over 65 backed the Democrats this year, having favoured Mr Trump at the last two elections. He also lost support among white women and white non-college-educated people.

Harris’s polling lead was also down among some groups that had supported Biden most enthusiastically. There was a massive fall among Latino voters, but also among the youngest voters and women.

In a year in which abortion was also on the ballot in 10 states, these groups in particular were expected to be among Harris’s most solid groups of votes.

How are the abortion votes going?

As well as the election, voters in 10 states were also voting on whether there should be a right to abortion enshrined and protected in the local constitution.

Voters in New York, Maryland and Colorado have voted to establish that right.

Voters in Florida, however, narrowly failed to reach the 60% threshold required to pass the measure, although a majority of people did support the right. It was the only state that needed more than a simple majority to pass.

According to the exit poll, 92% of Democrat voters across the country believed that abortion should be legal, contrasted with 38% of Republicans.

As well as abortion, voters were also at odds with the former president on immigration – 56% of people believed that undocumented immigrants should be offered a chance to apply for legal status.

What about the Senate and the House?

The Democrats have lost control of the Senate. They had a 51/49 majority going into the elections and have lost two seats to Republicans so far, in Ohio and West Virginia.

Defending their majority would always have been difficult this year. The seats that were up were ones the party had won six years previously, at the “blue wave” midterm elections in 2018 – halfway through Trump’s first term.

The Republicans have also made one gain in the House, where they already had a majority. In the result of an electoral college tie, the House will pick the president.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.