Former President Donald Trump captured the first swing state on election night, with The Associated Press projecting he would win North Carolina. In the early hours of Wednesday, the AP called another tight race for him in Georgia.
The GOP nominee had led narrowly in the Tar Heel State most of the 2024 cycle, though one late-race survey gave Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, a slim lead. Trump won North Carolina in both 2016 and 2020, but both President Joe Biden, before he dropped out of the race in late July, and Harris spent ample time and money there trying to flip the state.
Biden narrowly won Georgia in 2020, the first time for a Democrat in more than two decades, but the fast-growing state flipped back to Trump, who won it in 2016.
Yet, Jen O’Malley Dillon, Harris’ campaign manager, made clear in an internal memo Tuesday night that the vice president’s team had concluded Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin would be her best path to victory.
“While we continue to see data trickle in from the Sun Belt states, we have known all along that our clearest path to 270 electoral votes lies through the Blue Wall states,” she wrote. “And we feel good about what we’re seeing.”
O’Malley Dillon indicated to her staff that she expects the presidential race would not be called until at least into the day on Wednesday. In the internal memo obtained by Roll Call, she walked staffers through the campaign’s understanding of where outstanding votes that could help the vice president had yet to be counted.
“We’ve been saying for weeks that this race might not be called tonight. Those of you who were around in 2020 know this well: It takes time for all the votes to be counted — and all the votes will be counted. That’s how our system works. What we do know is this race is not going to come into focus until the early morning hours,” O’Malley Dillon wrote.
“This is what we’ve been built for, so let’s finish up what we have in front of us tonight, get some sleep,” she added, “and get ready to close out strong tomorrow.”
Harris and Trump closed their campaigning with rallies in two swing states, him in Michigan and her in Pennsylvania. Trump spoke for nearly two hours, doing his usual self-described “weave” approach to hop among semi-related topics. Harris delivered remarks similar to her Democratic National Convention speech to a crowd in Philadelphia, after her campaign put on a music concert.
Trump, who survived two assassination attempts in the race’s final months, surged in national and swing-state polls in recent weeks, but he and his surrogates stumbled repeatedly during the race’s final week. Team Trump said insulting things about Puerto Rico as it courted Latino voters and women as they tried to improve upon a gender gap in polling that put Harris well ahead with women voters.
The “momentum is on our side,” Harris declared at her final rally. Trump, meantime, spent part of Tuesday contending there had been “cheating” in places like Democrat-heavy Philadelphia — but offered no evidence as local officials denied the allegations.
As results came in Tuesday night, Trump was out-performing some projections and some 2020 election results. Data suggested Trump was doing better than expected among women and young voters in key states.
Votes were still being counted in other states, including ones in the three Rust Belt states and Georgia.
But South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, all but declared victory in a post on the social media platform X.
“To my Democratic friends: Take a deep breath. The sun will rise. The world will turn and despite what Oprah says, we will have another election. To my Republican friends and colleagues: Get ready to govern and turn the country around,” he wrote, before referring to a fast-track legislative process that would be available to his party, if it wins control of both chambers and the White House: “Budget reconciliation, here we come.”
This is a developing story…
Niels Lesniewski contributed to this report.
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