The U.S. election is officially too close to call after America went to the polls for one of the most consequential political contests in history - but Donald Trump appeared to have the early advantage.
In a major boost Trump won the key battleground states of North Carolina and Georgia. He also took a string of other states including Texas, Florida and Iowa. Kamala Harris secured states including California and Colorado.
Trump soared on betting markets as the count continued and the New York Times forecast suggested a 89 percent chance of a Republican victory.
North Carolina was called for Trump by the Associated Press at 11.19pm Eastern time. Just over and hour later, Georgia was called by NBC News.
It came as Republicans were also celebrating retaking control of the Senate for the first time in four years.
That gives the party important power in confirming the next presidents Cabinet, and any Supreme Court justice if there is a vacancy.
At Harris watch party in Washington D.C. silence descended and supporters were seen hugging as they began to contemplate possible defeat.
In a memo seen by Dailymail.com, Harris campaign chair Jen OMalley Dillon told staff: It takes time for all the votes to be counted - and all the votes will be counted. What we do know is this race is not going to come into focus until the early morning hours.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump after casting their votes in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump will hold an Election Night event at the Palm Beach Convention Center
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris reacts as she talks on the phone at the Democratic National Committee s Washington headquarters
A series of positive signals for Trump began shortly after 7pm Eastern time when polling stations closed in the key state of Georgia.
An exit poll there showed him winning 54 percent of independent voters compared to Kamala Harriss 43 percent.
In 2020 Trump had lost Georgia independents by nine points to Joe Biden. On CNN, an anchor looked visibly stunned as the finding was announced.
Meanwhile, exit polling showed Trump had dramatically improved among Hispanic voters nationally by 13 points from 2020. That included even bigger swings among the group in the key states of Pennsylvania and Michigan.
It suggested Harris had won the Latino vote by only 53 percent to 45 percent, despite a massive pre-election controversy when a comedian at a Trump rally compared Puerto Rico to a floating island of garbage.
Another encouraging sign for Trump came out of Florida, where he became the first Republican since 1988 to win Miami-Dade county.
And in the battleground state of Wisconsin, exit polls showed his share of the black vote more than doubling to 20 percent from nine percent in 2020.
Harris won 54 percent of women voters nationwide, and 86 percent of black voters, according to exit polling.
She also narrowly beat Trump by one point among voters aged over 65, with Trumps share down three points from 2020.
Supporters of former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gather near his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on Election Day
It came after a day of voting in which polling stations were hit by hoax Russian bomb threats and ballot machines malfunctioned throughout an entire county in Pennsylvania. The National Guard was activated in more than a dozen states amid fears of violence.
Trump was joined by wife Melania as he cast his vote in Palm Beach, Florida. He said: I dont even want to think about the losing part.
Harris stopped by the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington D.C., giving a box of Doritos to volunteers. She will await the result in the capital.
The closeness of the race and the number of states in play raised the likelihood that, once again, a victor might not be known on election night. In 2020, it took four days to declare a winner.
More than 86 million voters cast their ballots early and strong Election Day turnout was also reported.
The national exit poll offered further clues to what might be driving voters.
It found that 35 percent of voters said democracy was the top issue, followed by 31 percent who said the economy, 14 percent abortion and 11 percent immigration.
That appeared to favor Harris who had made the argument that Trump represents a threat to democracy a central plank of her campaign.
However, only 26 percent said they were enthusiastic or satisfied with the way things are going in the country while 43 percent were dissatisfied and 29 percent were angry.
In the key state of Pennsylvania, 83 percent of voters were white, up from 81 percent in 2020.
All eyes are on seven key battleground states where the victor is expected to be decided by razor-thin margins.
Those states are the rust belt industrial powerhouses of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and the so-called sun belt states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina.
As voters went to the polls, the FBI warned of bomb threats at polling stations in multiple states, adding that none were credible but many appeared to originate from Russia.
In Georgia, authorities said bomb threats had briefly disrupted voting.
Trump said Tuesday that he had no plans to tell his supporters not to refrain from violence if Harris wins, because they are not violent people.
Asked about accepting the races results either way, Trump said: If its a fair election, Id be the first one to acknowledge it.
It is the culmination of an astonishing presidential election unlike any other, with both candidates accusing the other of posing an existential threat to the future of the United States.
Raynell Jackson listens to polling results during the election night watch party for Kamala Harris in Washington D.C.
Audience members watch anxiously as votes from around the country come in
The campaign saw an explosive chain of events that no one could have predicted, including two assassination attempts against Trump, Joe Biden being ruthlessly cast aside by his own party and a last-ditch Democrat bid to propel Harris to the White House.
In the end, a blizzard of polls showed the electorate split down the middle, both nationally and in the seven battleground states that will eventually decide the outcome.
Rewinding to a few years ago, neither Trump nor Harris were even expected to be the choices.
Supporters of Donald Trump cheer for their candidate near his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida
Voters cast their ballot at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, DC
In the wake of his 2020 loss, Trump had languished at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and four criminal indictments were brought against him. Many experts had written his political obituary.
It was widely expected that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, or former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, would be the future of the Republican Party.
Meanwhile, Harris had struggled as Bidens vice president, blundering her way through interviews with word salad answers, and was mocked by Republicans as a border czar who avoided going to the border.
But then, one of the most unpredictable and consequential sagas in political history began.
After vanquishing DeSantis and Haley, Trump was found guilty by a New York jury on May 30 of falsifying business records over a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
It made him the first president in U.S. history to be criminally convicted.
Instead of sinking him, however, he bulldozed on to win the Republican presidential nomination.
His mugshot was adopted by supporters as a symbol of resistance against a justice system he claimed had been weaponized against him by Democrats.
Trump relentlessly hammered Sleepy Joe Biden over his age, inflation, and immigration ahead of their TV debate on June 27.
That debate proved Bidens political Waterloo as he seemed confused, stammering and trailing off as he attempted to answer straightforward questions.
Voters cast their ballots at the Fulton County Metropolitan Library voting precinct on Election Day in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 05 November 2024
U.S. Consulate General Services Officer Timothy Lockwood poses with cardboards of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump during the Election Night event in Milan, Italy
As Biden plunged in the polls Trump, on a high, held a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.
Following a stunning failure by the Secret Service, a lone gunman began shooting at Trump from a nearby rooftop.
The former president was hit in the ear but lurched back to his feet, a streak of blood across his face, throwing his fist in the air and shouting fight, fight, fight! in front of a U.S. flag.
It was an iconic moment that further invigorated Republicans - and there were signs he would beat Biden in a landslide.
But then everything changed again.
Under immense pressure behind the scenes from Democrat insiders, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Biden ultimately, and seemingly reluctantly, agreed to end his run for re-election on July 21, endorsing Harris instead.
It led to furious allegations from Republicans that Harris had been complicit in covering up the effects of age on the 81-year-old president.
In February, Robert Hur, a special counsel investigating Bidens handling of classified documents, had publicly called him an elderly man with a poor memory. But for five months Harris maintained she saw nothing wrong.
Having stepped into Bidens place, Harris had a little over 100 days until the election, but Democrats had renewed hope.
On September 10, Harris and Trump met for the first time in person, for what would be their only televised debate.
Trump made false claims about migrants eating peoples pets and Harris was widely viewed as having performed well, receiving a boost in the polls.
For the final weeks the race remained remarkably close, with all eyes focused on the swing states.
Both sides flooded internet platforms and TV and radio stations with a last round of attack adverts.
Voters wait in line at Supersite polling station in downtown Chicago, Illinois
A polling station at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC
Trump reached tens of millions of listeners by going on an influential podcast hosted by Joe Rogan, which Harris decided not to appear on. Trump and Rogan talked for three hours. Rogan then endorsed Trump.
In the final days there were a litany of mini-scandals.
A comedian at Trumps rally at Madison Square Garden in New York disparaged Puerto Rico, comparing it to a floating island of garbage.
Biden went on to call Trumps supporters garbage, infuriating Republicans and motivating them to vote.
Voters cast their ballots inside the Galleria in Las Vegas, Nevada
Democrat nominee U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is embraced by her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff
In another self-inflicted Democrat wound, billionaire Mark Cuban, while campaigning for Harris, said of Trump: You never see him around strong, intelligent women, ever - a comment that drew strong rebukes from high-profile Republican women.
Then, Trump made his own inflammatory remarks about his Republican critic Liz Cheney, asking how she would feel if the guns are trained on her face.
It all unfolded against a backdrop of conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, hacking by foreign governments, and a cameo election role for the worlds richest man, Elon Musk.
Whether any of it moved crucial voters deciding at the last minute was impossible to tell.
If someone had told you ahead of time what was going to happen in this election, and you tried to sell it as a book, no one would believe it, said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster.
Its energized the country and its polarized the country. And all we can hope is that we come out of it better in the end.