Election results 2024: Strength of Trump Virginia surprised

While on the East Coast all seven swing states were too close or too early to call as of 10:30 p.m., Donald Trump showed signs of strength in several key areas.

In Virginia, there were signs that the former president had gained ground in the deep blue suburbs of northern D.C. With 95 percent of the vote, Vice President Kamala Harris won Loudoun County by about 16 points. President Joe Biden led Loudoun by 25 points four years ago. Harris would need to score higher in other highly educated suburban counties like Loudoun across the country if she wanted to win the Electoral College.

According to CNN data, Trump was ahead in Virginia by about 30,000 votes — less than a point — with two-thirds of the votes tabulated. Third-party candidates Jill Stein, Cornel West and Chase Oliver have more than made up that deficit.

A little further south in the swing state of North Carolina, Trump was leading by five points with two-thirds of the vote New York Times gave him a 79 percent chance of winning this battlefield.

And in Georgia, Trump was ahead by about five points with 80 percent of the vote Just estimated a Trump victory in Georgia with 82 percent certainty. In one of the evening's first early signs that Trump was overperforming in the battlegrounds, CNN's exit poll showed the former president winning the state's independents by 11 points. In 2020, Biden won independents in Georgia by 9 points. Independents make up 31 percent of Georgia's electorate.

If Trump wins North Carolina and Georgia — and assuming Virginia goes for Harris after all the votes are counted — she would almost certainly have to lead all three Blue Wall states in the Rust Belt.

As for the states called by the major networks, Trump was expected to win a handful of reliably red states like Texas, Tennessee and Arkansas, while Harris picked up victories in the northeastern states of Vermont, New York, Massachusetts and Vermont.

As expected, Trump also won significantly in Florida, although the margins in his favor were even higher than expected. With 90 percent of votes cast, he led by nearly 13 points, marking the former president's strongest showing yet in his home state.

In the evening's first major round of voting, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice was projected to win the state's open Senate race, flipping the seat for Democratic and independent Sen. Joe Manchin, who is retiring, according to CNN forecasts.

In Pennsylvania, an important building block in the “Blue Wall” that Harris must hold together, the race was still too early to decide.

Turnout was high in Democratic strongholds like Philadelphia and college towns in the Keystone State. Videos circulating on social media showed long lines at polling places near Lehigh University and Villanova, a poll worker in South Philly said Requester It recorded the highest voter turnout in 30 years.

In Cambria County, outside Pittsburgh, there have been reports of voting machine malfunctions that the county attorney said were caused by a software error. To accommodate the issue, polling stations in the county will remain open two hours later.

No widespread voting problems had been reported as of late afternoon, and the complications in Cambria did not appear to be due to major problems elsewhere.

In another battleground across the country, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told reporters: “As far as I know right now, everything is going as smoothly as it could be in the state of Arizona.”

The FBI, meanwhile, said a series of bomb threats against polling stations in several battleground states were hoaxes that appeared to have originated in Russia. In the nation's capital, where businesses were boarded up in preparation for possible protests, a man who “smelled like gasoline” was arrested after entering the Capitol complex with a flare gun and a flashlight. Capitol Police later said the incident appeared to have nothing to do with the election.

And so it is in a country torn by polarization, where the violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 was still the focus. Voters were tasked with delivering a historic night regardless of the outcome: either Trump, a convicted felon who has vowed “retaliation” against his political enemies but who remains the preferred candidate to solve some of the nation's toughest problems , re-elect or fire him The incumbent vice president, who only began her campaign in late July when her boss resigned, was the first woman to occupy the Oval Office.

Some 84 million people have already cast their votes before Election Day, with the result expected to come down to seven swing states: the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and the Sunbelt states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.

Heading into Tuesday, major polling averages all suggested the race was closer to a 50-50 tie than at any time in modern history. However, that doesn't automatically mean that the race will be close. Trump famously benefited from polling errors that underestimated his support in the last two elections. But Democratic candidates outperformed in the 2022 midterm elections, largely thanks to voters' anger over the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the office Roe v. Wade.

While Trump gained strength in the polls around mid-October, Harris appeared to gain late momentum leading up to Election Day. A respected poll of Iowa voters showed Harris leading Trump by three points on Saturday in the state that Trump won by eight points last time. Another widely touted poll from Marist College found 51 percent support for Harris while 47 percent supported Trump.

Early election polls also showed contradictory signs. NBC News found that the state of democracy was the most important issue for voters: 35 percent of voters chose it, while 31 percent chose the economy – potentially a bright spot for Harris. But a CNN poll found that nearly three-quarters of voters were dissatisfied with the state of affairs in the country – an ominous sign for any incumbent party.

CNN's Chris Wallace said Harris would need a “miracle” to overcome these headwinds.

Republicans also had other reasons to be confident. The number of early voters in Nevada, where about half of eligible voters cast their ballots early, appeared to weigh in favor of the Republican Party. After the final day of early voting, registered Republicans held a nearly 50,000-vote lead over registered Democrats in the battleground, according to state data released Friday.

Karl Rove, the Republican strategist, suggested on Fox News on Tuesday that Virginia, New Hampshire and New Mexico were also in play for Trump. Should he take one of these previously safe Democratic states, it would signal a return of the poll bias that favored the former president in the last two cycles — and an early night for the country.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.