US election: Who’s winning so far – and when will we know for sure?
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.
An election worker processes mail-in ballots in Philadelphia. Pic: AP
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.
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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.
A disputed ballot being examined in Florida in 2000. Pic: AP
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.
Jurors in the trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs have reached a verdict on four of the five counts against him – but the hip-hop mogul will have to wait to learn his fate.
In tense scenes towards the end of the court day on Tuesday, jurors sent a note to say they had reached verdicts on two charges of sex trafficking and two charges of transportation for prostitution, but had been unable to reach a unanimous decision on the charge of racketeering conspiracy.
Combs‘s lawyers surrounded him at the defence table after the note was sent to the court, and at one point he held his head in his hands.
After discussions with prosecution and defence lawyers, Judge Arun Subramanian told jurors to continue deliberating on Wednesday rather than deliver a partial verdict.
Combs and one of his lawyers, Marc Agnifilo, earlier in the day. Pic: Reuters/Jane Rosenberg
The jury has testimony from more than 30 witnesses to consider – including Combs’s former long-term partner Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and another former girlfriend called “Jane”, who testified under a pseudonym to protect her identity.
Prosecutors allege the 55-year-old rapper used his fame and power to force Cassie and “Jane” into drug-fuelled sex sessions with male sex workers, which were referred to as “freak-offs”, “wild king nights”, or “hotel nights”.
He was also physically violent and blackmailed them with footage, jurors were told.
They also heard from “Mia”, a former employee who alleged she was sexually assaulted by the rapper on several occasions during her career. She also testified using a pseudonym.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges and his defence team has argued that prosecutors are attempting to criminalise what they say was a consensual “swingers lifestyle”.
The rapper chose not to testify and his lawyers did not call any witnesses, building their arguments instead through lengthy cross-examinations of the witnesses called by the prosecution.
What is racketeering conspiracy?
Racketeering conspiracy, which is count one on the verdict sheet, is the most complicated of the charges against Combs.
Jurors need to decide not only whether the rapper created a “racketeering enterprise”, but also if he was involved in various offences as part of this, including kidnapping, arson and bribery.
The charge falls under the US’s RICO laws (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act), which is best known for being used in relation to organised crime and drug cartel cases.
Read more:
Prosecution’s closing argument
Defence’s closing argument
After closing arguments last week, jurors began deliberation on Monday and had spent about 13 hours discussing in total by the time they sent their note.
Before reaching the verdict on the four counts, they had requested to review crucial testimony from Cassie about her account of an assault in a hotel in Los Angeles in 2016.
Captured on CCTV, the footage was played in court several times – showing Combs, wearing only a towel and socks, beating, kicking and dragging Cassie in a hallway.
His defence team admitted in their opening statement that this was domestic violence, and said the music star regretted these actions – but that they did not amount to any of the federal charges against him.
Read more:
The rise and fall of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs
What we learned from Cassie’s testimony
As well as Cassie’s evidence on that assault, they asked to see her testimony on an incident at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013 – when she said Combs accused her of taking drugs from him and kicked her off of his yacht.
On their way back to the US, she told the court, he threatened to release explicit videos of her having sex with an escort.
Jurors also wanted to review testimony given by a male sex worker at the start of the trial.
Combs could face 15 years to life in prison if he is convicted of all charges.
Jurors will continue deliberating on the racketeering conspiracy charge on Wednesday.
Elon Musk has stepped up his attacks on Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill – weeks after a spectacular fallout between the world’s richest man and the US president.
Following weeks of relative silence after clashing with Mr Trump over his “big beautiful bill”, the billionaire vowed to unseat politicians who support it.
In a post on X, Musk said those who had campaigned on cutting spending but then backed the bill “should hang their heads in shame”.
He added: “And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”
Musk also threatened to put their faces on a poster which said “liar” and “voted to increase America’s debt” by $5trn (£3.6trn).
The posts attracted a swift reply from Mr Trump, who claimed the billionaire “may get more subsidy than any human being in history” for his electric car business.
“Without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa,” he wrote on Truth Social.
“No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!”
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Elon’s dad on the Musk-Trump bust-up
Musk spent at least $250m (£182m) supporting Mr Trump in his presidential campaign and then led the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which sacked about 120,000 federal employees.
He has argued the legislation would greatly increase the US national debt and wipe out the savings he claimed he achieved through DOGE.
As the Senate discussed the package, Musk called it “utterly insane and destructive”.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said the bill’s massive spending indicated “we live in a one-party country – the PORKY PIG PARTY!!”
“Time for a new political party that actually cares about the people,” he wrote.
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Musk previously said some of his social media posts during his dramatic fallout with Mr Trump “went too far”.
He had shared a series of posts on X, including one that described Mr Trump’s tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination”.
He also claimed, in a since-deleted post, that the president appeared in files relating to the disgraced paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
But Musk later wrote: “I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far.”
In response, the president told the New York Post: “I thought it was very nice that he did that.”
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