Donald Trump has declared victory over Kamala Harris in the US presidential election as he stands on the cusp of a historic political comeback.
The Republican told his ecstatic supporters at a campaign party in Florida that they would usher in “a new golden age for America”.
He needs just one more state to officially take him over the winning threshold of 270 electoral college votes, according to projections by the BBC’s US partner CBS. He would be the first former president to return to the White House in more than 130 years.
In more good news for Trump, his party is projected to win majority control of the Senate.
He told supporters in West Palm Beach on Wednesday morning: “This will truly be the golden age of America – that’s what we have to have.
“This is a magnificent victory for the American people that will allow us to make America great again.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and Trump mega-donor, was with the Republican nominee as the results came in.
Trump could be on track for a clean sweep of the seven swing states needed to win the White House and he might even win the overall popular vote nationally – a feat he fell short of when first elected in 2016.
He is projected to win Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. CBS says Wisconsin is leaning towards the Republican and he is ahead in the other so-called Rust Belt state of Michigan. The results are not final.
He also has a solid lead in Nevada, while the race remains tight in the other sun belt battleground of Arizona.
As expected, Trump has swept conservative strongholds from Florida to Idaho, while Harris won liberal states from New York to California, CBS projects.
The Democrat had been expected to address a crowd on election night at Howard University in Washington DC, where she was an undergraduate, but it emerged after midnight that she would not appear.
Following the announcement by campaign co-chairman Cedric Richmond, the crowd all but disappeared from Harris HQ at the historically black college.
CBS exit poll data suggests Vice-President Harris – who was hoping to become America’s first woman president and campaigned heavily for abortion rights – may have under-performed with women.
Some 54% of female voters cast their ballots for her, the numbers indicate. But Joe Biden won the support of 57% of women in 2020.
Black and Latino voters also appeared slightly less likely to support Harris than they were to back Biden four years ago, according to Associated Press exit poll data.
Congress is also up for grabs in Tuesday’s vote.
In what would be a major boost for a Trump presidency, CBS projects Republicans will win control of the Senate after wresting two seats in West Virginia and Ohio from the Democrats and seeing off a competitive challenger in Texas.
Neither party seemed to have an overall edge in the House, which Republicans narrowly control.
Around 86 million voters cast their ballots early amid one of the most turbulent campaigns in recent American history.
Harris, 60, only became the Democratic Party candidate in July, after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race under pressure from within the party.
Trump, 78, was the target of two assassination plots – narrowly avoiding a sniper’s bullet in Pennsylvania.
He would be the oldest president ever elected. He was the only president to be impeached twice and the first former president to be criminally convicted.
Both sides have armies of lawyers on standby for legal challenges on and after election day.
Law enforcement agencies nationwide were on high alert for potential violence, but it has been peaceful so far.
About 30 bomb threats hoaxes targeted election-related locations nationwide on Tuesday, more than half of them in the state of Georgia alone, reports CBS.
