US election: The results so far in maps and charts
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.
Authorities have identified the 16 people killed in a massive blast at a munitions factory in rural Tennessee.
They were killed in an explosion on Friday at an Accurate Energetic Systems facility around 60 miles southwest of Nashville. The company researches and supplies explosives for the military.
Investigators are still working to discover the cause of the explosion.
A satellite image showing the plant before the explosion, in April 2021. Pic: Vantor/Reuters
A satellite image showing the aftermath of the blast. Pic: Vantor/Reuters
Those killed were: Jason Adams, Erick Anderson, Billy Baker, Adam Boatman, Christopher Clark, Mindy Clifton, James Cook, Reyna Gillahan, LaTeisha Mays, Jeremy Moore, Melinda Rainey, Melissa Stanford, Trenton Stewart, Rachel Woodall, Steven Wright and Donald Yowell.
Reyna Gillahan. Pic: Facebook
Donald Yowell. Pic: Facebook
At a news conference, Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis said people in the community probably at least knew relatives of the victims killed in the explosion.
“It’s just small county, rural America, where everybody knows each other and everybody’s gonna take care of each other,” he said.
A candlelit vigil was held to honour the victims. Pic: AP
Authorities said there were no survivors of the blast, which left twisted and burning metal in its wake.
They said they were working to clear the area of hazards, including explosives, and identify remains.
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Once the area is clear they can begin investigating what caused the explosion, said Matthew Belew, acting special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
He said some of the relevant evidence was spread out over miles.
“It’s almost like putting a puzzle back together,” he added.
“We have worked closely with AES to look at pictures, look at blueprints, any of the identifying things that were in the building. And then we slowly methodically start to put some of that stuff together.”
US
Britain has been playing a role behind the scenes of Trump’s deal between Israel and Hamas | Beth Rigby
Sir Keir Starmer will join world leaders at a historic summit in Egypt today – to witness the signing of the Gaza peace plan to end two years of conflict, bloodshed and suffering that has cost tens of thousands of lives and turned Gaza into a wasteland.
Travelling over to Egypt, flanked by his national security adviser Jonathan Powell, the prime minister told me it was a “massive moment” and one that is genuinely historic.
US President Donald Trump moved decisively last week to end this bloody war, pushing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas into a ceasefire as part of his 20-point peace plan.
Pic: AP
In the flurry of the following 48 hours, Sir Keir and another 20 or so leaders were invited to Egypt to bear witness to the signing of this deal, with many of them deserving some credit for the effort they made to bring this deal around – not least the leaders of Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, who pressed Hamas to sign up to this deal.
Today, the remaining 20 living hostages are finally set to be released, along with the bodies of another 28 who were either killed or died in captivity, and aid is due to flow back into a starving Gaza.
Some 1,200 Israelis were killed on 7 October 2023, with another 250 taken hostage. In the subsequent war, most of Gaza’s two million population has been displaced. More than 67,000 Gazans have been killed, according to Palestinian health officials.
Then, the signing ceremony is due to take place this afternoon in Sharm el Sheikh. It will be a momentous moment after a long and bloody war.
But it is only just the beginning of a long process to rebuild Gaza and try to secure a lasting peace in the region.
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Humanitarian aid rolls into Gaza
The immediate focus for the UK and other nations will be to get aid into Gaza, with the UK committing £20m for water, sanitation and hygiene services for Gazans.
But the focus for the UK and other European allies is what happens after the hostages are released and Israel withdraws its troops.
What happens next is a much bigger and more complicated task: rebuilding Gaza; turning it into a terrorist-free zone; governing Gaza – the current plan is for a temporary apolitical committee; creating an international stabilisation force and all the tensions that could bring about – which troops each side would allow in; a commitment for Israel not to occupy or annex Gaza, even as Netanyahu makes plain his opposition to that plan.
The scale of the challenge is matched by the scale of devastation caused by this brutal war.
The prime minister will set out his ambition for the UK to play a leading role in the next phase of the peace plan.
Starmer arrives in Sharm el-Sheikh. Pic: PA
Back home, the UK is hosting a three-day conference on Gaza’s recovery and reconstruction.
Last week, France hosted European diplomats and key figures from Middle Eastern countries, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – and later this week, the German chancellor is hoping to organise a conference on the reconstruction of Gaza with the Egyptians.
But in reality, European leaders know the key to phase two remains the key to phase one, and that’s Donald Trump.
As one UK figure put it to me over the weekend: “There is lots of praise, rightly, for the US president, who got this over the line, but the big challenge for us post-war is implementing the plan. Clearly, Arab partners are concerned the US will lose focus.”
Bridget Phillipson and Mike Huckabee. Pics: Sky/AP
The prime minister knows this and has made a point, at every point, to praise Mr Trump.
His cabinet minister Bridget Phillipson learned that diplomatic lesson the hard way yesterday when she was publicly lambasted by the US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee for suggesting to my colleague Trevor Phillips that the UK “had played a key role behind the scenes” and failed to mention Mr Trump by name.
“I assure you she is delusional,” tweeted Governor Huckabee. “She can thank @realDonaldTrump anytime just to set the record straight”.
Today, leaders will rightly be praising Mr Trump for securing the breakthrough to stop the fighting and get the remaining hostages home.
People hug next in Hostages Square. Pic: Reuters
But this is only the beginning of a very long journey ahead to push through the rest of the 19-point plan and stop the region from falling back into conflict.
Britain has, I am told, been playing a role behind the scenes. The PM’s national security adviser Mr Powell was in Egypt last week and has been in daily touch with his US counterpart Steve Witkoff, according to government sources. Next week the King of Jordan will come to the UK.
Part of the UK’s task will be to get more involved, with the government and European partners keen to get further European representation on Trump’s temporary governance committee for Gaza, which Tony Blair (who was not recommended or endorsed by the UK) is on and Mr Trump will chair.
The committee will include other heads of states and members, including qualified Palestinians and international experts.
As for the former prime minister’s involvement, there hasn’t been an overt ringing endorsement from the UK government.
It’s helpful to have Mr Blair at the table because he can communicate back to the current government, but equally, as one diplomatic source put it to me: “While a lot of people in the Middle East acknowledge his experience, expertise and contact book, they don’t like him and we need – sooner rather than later – other names included that Gulf partners can get behind.”
Today it will be the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey that sign off on the peace plan they directly negotiated, as other Middle Eastern and European leaders, who have flown into Sharm el Sheikh to bear witness, look on.
But in the coming days and weeks, there will need to be a big international effort, led by Mr Trump, not just to secure the peace, but to keep it.
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