Pessimism is growing at Harris headquarters as experts raise concerns about early voting numbers

Pessimism about Kamala Harris' path to the White House grew based on early voting results across the U.S. on Tuesday evening.

Trump quickly took the lead in the Sun Belt states of North Carolina and Georgia, with the former eventually becoming a Republican.

In the meantime, The New York Times Electoral Needle predicts Trump can eke out a 92 percent victory based on current data, with the Republican predicting he will win 302 of the 270 necessary Electoral College votes. The Just is also currently predicting that Trump will win the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Of 1,300 counties where at least 95 percent of votes were counted, Trump improved his majority in at least 92 percent of them, according to a Politico analysis in 2020, even though most of those counties are not in battlegrounds.

The early signs of an election had major Trump supporters like Elon Musk rejoicing.

“Game, set and victory,” he wrote on X on Tuesday evening.

Harris will likely have to defeat the blue wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to win.

Trump currently leads Harris in Michigan 51.7 percent to 46.6 percent, with 41.1 percent of expected votes counted. In Wisconsin, meanwhile, Trump leads Harris 51 percent to 47.6 percent, which equates to 73 percent of the vote.

However, the Harris campaign has not lost faith.

This ostensibly takes into account positive factors such as enthusiasm in Michigan's college towns and above-average support in the suburbs of Indiana and Georgia, in some cases surpassing Biden's 2020 results in the latter state.

The campaign also reveals it The Independent that Trump's broad support in rural Georgia does not go beyond what Harris already expected.

“As we continue to see data trickle in from the Sun Belt states, we have always known that our clearest path to 270 electoral votes is through the Blue Wall states,” said Harris campaign chairwoman Jen O'Malley Dillon wrote in an email to employees received from The Independent. “And we feel good about what we see.”

The email said Harris had exceeded turnout expectations in must-win Philadelphia to the point where it could surpass 2020 levels, and he expected a “strong turnout” in Detroit, where election results would not be known until later in the evening be given.

The Democratic election campaign is also still waiting for results from parts of hotly contested Wisconsin as well as the contested west coast states of Nevada and Arizona.

Elsewhere, observers have called that state for Harris, even as famed Democratic strategist James Carville warned about the strength of some Trump performances in suburban areas like Loudon County, Virginia.

Carville said he is more optimistic about possible votes for Harris in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

“I'm talking about a 50,000 to 100,000 increase in Democratic votes in Philadelphia,” he added, “so that should provide some relief.” That should provide some relief; and some of what I see in Georgia is obviously more encouraging than in Florida. Everything is more encouraging.”

In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a closely watched swing county, Trump led Harris 49.44 percent to 49.27 percent, with 60.5 percent of precincts reporting, according to unofficial numbers from the local elections board.

Overall, according to the Associated Press, Trump leads Harris 51.4 percent to 47.6 percent, with 82 percent of votes counted.

As votes came in this morning in the Keystone State, Trump baselessly claimed he was hearing talk of “massive fraud” in Pennsylvania, even though Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said this had “no factual basis at all.”