US election: Who’s winning so far – and when will we know for sure?

Published

9 months ago

November 6, 2024

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Donald Trump is projected to have won the first two of the seven swing states to be declared – narrowing Kamala Harris’s routes to the White House.

Trump and Harris both need to hit the magic 270 Electoral College votes to become the next US president.

Trump wins are projected in they key battlegrounds of North Carolina and Georgia.

Losing there could indicate that any route for Kamala Harris has to go through the “blue wall” states – Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – which are all tight battlegrounds.

Votes are still being counted, and counting is generally more complicated in the US than in the UK, largely due to the country’s sheer size; the varying time differences alone make for a longer process.

Polls began closing at 11pm UK time and the last of them closed at 4am UK time.

In many past elections, it’s at around this time that a winner has been declared.

Election latest: Live updates as results come in

But US election results can take days – or even weeks.

Even with Donald Trump ahead in early battleground voting, factors like high turnout and voting by post can mean leads later change hands in crucial states.

Before we get into those factors in detail, you need to know how a winner is declared.

How calling the election works

When a winner is declared, whether it’s hours or days from now, it will initially be a “projected” winner.

It’s projected because the official results are typically only confirmed by state officials after 7-30 days, depending on the state.

Sky News has access to the most comprehensive exit poll and vote-counting results from every state, county and demographic across America through its US-partner network NBC.

Big voter turnout

There are some 240 million people eligible to vote in the US.

And if voter turnout is particularly high, it means vote counting will take longer than usual.

This was the case in 2020, when a record 158.5 million people voted – the highest turnout since 1900.

It isn’t yet known how many voters have visited the polls on election day, but more than 77 million Americans had already cast their votes by Monday, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab – 42,195,018 returned in person and 35,173,674 by mail.

In the 2020 presidential election, it took four days for Mr Biden to be called the winner, but that wasn’t just put down to the turnout.

Many also said it was because more people – around 100 million – voted by post than usual due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and those votes took longer to count.

Election officials have been optimistic that the 2024 vote count will be smoother without the many challenges the pandemic posed to officials in 2020, according to NBC News.

Tight race will lead to a longer wait

For months, polls have suggested this will be an incredibly tight election – particularly in a few battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

It’s been so tight that most experts have refused to predict the outcome – and exit polls have done little to separate the candidates.

But you’ll have seen overnight that Ms Harris and Mr Trump were projected winners in certain states early on after polls closed.

These are states where votes are so clearly leaning in one direction as they get counted that there is too much ground for the trailing candidate to make up.

In those swing states, however, voting is going to be far closer, and a winner will not be projected until the NBC News decision desk is certain of an outcome.

That could mean waiting until practically all the votes in some of the states are in to project a winner – which could take days.

Key terms to listen out for as the count progresses

There are a number of key stages between now and reaching a projected winner, NBC News says. Listen out for these calls:

Too early to call: This can mean two things: there might be a significant margin for one of the candidates, not enough to meet NBC’s statistical standards to project the race; or there is not enough data to determine the margin with certainty.
Too close to call: This means the final margin between the candidates will be less than five percentage points. NBC News’ decision desk will not use this characterisation until it has statistical confidence that the race will be this close.
Leaning: This status is introduced when the decision desk is confident that the candidate who is ahead is going to win, but the statistical threshold for calling the race has not yet been met.
Projected winner: NBC News has made a projection that a candidate will win.

How long has it taken in the past?

It’s common in the US for it to take a couple of days to know who the next president will be.

The 2020 election’s four day wait was an anomaly, but it paled in comparison to the 2000 election, when it took weeks.

Florida and its 25 Electoral College votes (it now has 30) were set to decide the contest between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W Bush, whose brother was Florida governor.

On election night on 7 November, TV networks called the state for Gore before polls had closed everywhere in the state. Later that evening, they reversed their stance and said it was too close to call, then called it for Bush and then returned to “too close to call”.

A preliminary vote tally the day after the election had Bush ahead by around 1,700 votes in Florida – so close that state laws triggered an automatic machine recount. The first recount winnowed Bush’s lead down to just 317 votes.

The issue was around Florida’s punch-hole ballots and hanging chads – punched holes that might still have a corner intact – and how these were counted.

A legal battle ensued that went right up to the US Supreme Court, which in a 5-4 decision along ideological lines ruled that any solution to the recount issue could not be put in place by the deadline, thus handing the state to Bush.

What happens after a winner is declared?

Whether a winner is declared on the night or in the following days, they aren’t officially elected until the electoral votes are formally cast and counted.

Electors cast them on 17 December, they are counted and certified by Congress on 6 January and then the new president will take office after being inaugurated on 20 January.

Unlike the general election in the UK, there is a transition period between the election result and the new president taking over.

During the gap, Mr Biden will continue as president, with the election winner known as the president-elect until the transfer of power in January.

US

Ukrainians are appalled at Trump’s naive and cack-handed diplomacy

Published

20 hours ago

August 15, 2025

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Ukrainians are appalled at Trump's naive and cack-handed diplomacy

For Ukrainians, the spectacle of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump meeting in Alaska will be repugnant.

The man behind an unprovoked invasion of their country is being honoured with a return to the world stage by the leader of a country that was meant to be their ally.

And they feel let down.

Follow latest updates from Ukraine war

President Trump had threatened severe sanctions on Russia within 50 days if Russia didn’t agree to a deal. He had seemed close to imposing them before letting Putin wriggle off the hook yet again.

But they are not surprised. At every stage, Trump has either sided with Russia or at least given them the benefit of the doubt.

It is clear that Putin has some kind of hold over this American president, in their minds and many others.

Ukraine wants three things out of these talks. A ceasefire, security guarantees and reparations. It is not clear at this stage that they will get any of them.

Ukrainians and their European allies are appalled at the naive and cack-handed diplomacy that has preceded this meeting.

Vladimir Putin is sending a team of foreign affairs heavyweights, adept at getting the better of opponents in negotiations.

There are, the Financial Times reported this week, no Russia specialists left at the Trump White House.

Instead, Trump is relying on Steve Witkoff, a real estate lawyer and foreign policy novice, who has demonstrated a haphazard mastery of his brief and breathtaking credulity with the Russians.

Former British spy chief Sir Alex Younger described him today as totally out of his depth. Trump, he says, is being played like a fiddle by Putin.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding of the conflict at the heart of the Trump administration’s handling of it. Witkoff and the president see it in terms of real estate. But it has never been about territory.

Vladimir Putin has made it abundantly clear that Ukraine’s existence as a sovereign democratic entity cannot be tolerated. He has made no pretence that his views on that have changed.

Ukrainians know that and fear any deal cooked up in Alaska will be used by Putin on the path towards that ultimate goal

US

Melania Trump threatens to sue Hunter Biden for $1bn over Epstein comments

Published

1 day ago

August 14, 2025

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Melania Trump threatens to sue Hunter Biden for bn over Epstein comments

Melania Trump has threatened to sue Hunter Biden for more than $1bn (£736.5m) in damages if he does not retract comments linking her to Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr Biden, who is the son of former US president Joe Biden, alleged in an interview this month that sex trafficker Epstein introduced the first lady to President Donald Trump.

“Epstein introduced Melania to Trump. The connections are, like, so wide and deep,” he claimed.

Ms Trump’s lawyer labelled the comments false, defamatory and “extremely salacious” in a letter to Mr Biden.

Her lawyer wrote that the first lady suffered “overwhelming financial and reputational harm” as the claims were widely discussed on social media and reported by media around the world.

The president and first lady previously said they were introduced by modelling agent Paolo Zampolli at a New York Fashion Week party in 1998.

Mr Biden attributed the claim that Epstein introduced the couple to author Michael Wolff, who was accused by Mr Trump of making up stories to sell books in June and was dubbed a “third-rate reporter” by the president.

The former president’s son doubled down on his remarks in a follow-up interview with the same YouTube outlet, Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan, entitled “Hunter Biden Apology”.

Asked if he would apologise to the first lady, Mr Biden responded: “F*** that – that’s not going to happen.”

He added: “I don’t think these threats of lawsuits add up to anything other than designed distraction.”

Ms Trump’s threat to sue Mr Biden echoes a strategy employed by her husband, who has aggressively used legal action to go after critics.

Public figures like the Trumps must meet a high bar to succeed in a defamation suit like the one that could be brought by the first lady if she follows through with her threat.

In his initial interview, Mr Biden also hit out at “elites” and others in the Democratic Party, who he claims undermined his father before he dropped out of last year’s race for president.

The letter threatening legal action against Mr Biden is dated 6 August and was first reported by Fox News Digital.

It was addressed to Abbe Lowell, a lawyer who has represented Mr Biden in his criminal cases. Mr Lowell has not yet commented on the letter.

This comes as pressure on the White House to release the Epstein files has been mounting for weeks, after he made a complete U-turn on his administration’s promise to release more information publicly.

The US Justice Department, which confirmed in July that it would not be releasing the files, said a review of the Epstein case had found “no incriminating ‘client list'” and “no credible evidence” the jailed financier – who killed himself in prison in 2019 – had blackmailed famous men.

US

Trump’s pride vs Putin’s legacy: What to expect from pivotal Ukraine summit

Published

2 days ago

August 14, 2025

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Trump's pride vs Putin's legacy: What to expect from pivotal Ukraine summit

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will meet for the first time in six years on Friday, with a possible deal to end the Ukraine war on the agenda.

Mr Trump has threatened “very severe consequences” if his Russian counterpart doesn’t agree to a ceasefire at the summit, being hosted at a remote US army base in snowy Anchorage, Alaska.

Follow latest updates from Ukraine war

But there are fears they will discuss a deal robbing Ukraine of the land currently occupied by Russia – something Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he won’t accept.

Here’s what three of our correspondents think ahead of the much-anticipated face-to-face.

Putin’s legacy is at stake – he’ll want territory and more
By Ivor Bennett, Moscow correspondent, in Alaska

Putin doesn’t just want victory. He needs it.

Three and a half years after he ordered the invasion of Ukraine, this war has to end in a visible win for the Russian president. It can’t have been for nothing. His legacy is at stake.

So the only deal I think he’ll be willing to accept at Friday’s summit is one that secures Moscow’s goals.

These include territory (full control of the four Ukrainian regions which Russia has already claimed), permanent neutrality for Kyiv and limits on its armed forces.

I expect he’ll be trying to convince Trump that such a deal is the quickest path to peace. The only alternative, in Russia’s eyes, is an outright triumph on the battlefield.

I think Putin‘s hope is that the American president agrees with this view and then gives Ukraine a choice: accept our terms or go it alone without US support.

A deal like that might not be possible this week, but it may be in the future if Putin can give Trump something in return.

That’s why there’s been lots of talk from Moscow this week about all the lucrative business deals that can come from better US-Russia relations.

The Kremlin will want to use this opportunity to remind the White House of what else it can offer, apart from an end to the fighting.

Ukraine would rather this summit not be happening
By Dominic Waghorn, international affairs editor, in Ukraine

Ukraine would far rather this meeting wasn’t happening.

Trump seemed to have lost patience with Putin and was about to hit Russia with more severe sanctions until he was distracted by the Russian leader’s suggestion that they meet.

Ukrainians say the Alaska summit rewards Putin by putting him back on the world stage.

But the meeting is happening, and they have to be realistic.

Most of all, they want a ceasefire before any negotiations can happen. Then they want the promise of security guarantees.

That is because they know that Putin may well come back for more even if peace does break out. They need to be able to defend themselves should that happen.

And they want the promise of reparations to rebuild their country, devastated by Putin’s wanton, unprovoked act of aggression.

There are billions of Russian roubles and assets frozen across the West. They want them released and sent their way.

What they fear is Trump being hoodwinked by Putin with the lure of profit from US-Russian relations being restored, regardless of Ukraine’s fate.

That would allow Russia to regain its strength, rearm and prepare for another round of fighting in a few years’ time.

Trump and his golf buddy-turned-negotiator Steve Witkoff appear to believe Putin might be satisfied with keeping some of the land he has taken by force.

Putin says he wants much more than that. He wants Ukraine to cease to exist as a country separate from Russia.

Any agreement short of that is only likely to be temporary.

Trump’s pride on the line – he has a reputation to restore
By Martha Kelner, US correspondent, in Alaska

As with anything Donald Trump does, he already has a picture in his mind.

The image of Trump shaking hands with the ultimate strongman leader, Vladimir Putin, on US soil calls to his vanity and love of an attention-grabbing moment.

There is also pride at stake.

Trump campaigned saying he would end the Russia-Ukraine war on his first day in office, so there is an element of him wanting to follow through on that promise to voters, even though it’s taken him 200-plus days in office and all he’s got so far is this meeting, without apparently any concessions on Putin’s end.

In Trump’s mind – and in the minds of many of his supporters – he is the master negotiator, the chief dealmaker, and he wants to bolster that reputation.

He is keen to further the notion that he negotiates in a different, more straightforward way than his predecessors and that it is paying dividends.