US Elections: Race to the White House – Live

President Trump will win Mississippi, CNN projects.

There are six electoral votes at stake in Mississippi. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

Can Biden become only the second Democrat to flip Arizona since 1948?

Arizona has long been a Republican stronghold, but a growing Latino population and an influx of voters from more liberal areas has Democrats believing they could flip the state with Joe Biden atop the ticket.

Trump carried the state by over 3 percentage points in 2016, but Democrats won one of the state’s Senate seats in 2018 and carried both Maricopa and Pima County, where about 75% of the election’s votes are expected to be cast.

Trump remains markedly popular in the state’s rural areas, so the key to the race will be how big he wins counties like Pinal, Yavapai and Mohave, while Biden looks to boost turnout in Maricopa and Pima.

Arizona represents an insurance policy for Biden. It’s not a must win for the Democrat and a loss would not spell doom for Trump, but a blue Arizona could signify broader changes for Republicans. Polls show the race is narrow: A recent CNN survey found a race within the poll’s margin of sampling error, with Biden at 50% support to Trump’s 46%.

The state is also home to one of the most hotly contested Senate contests between Republican incumbent Martha McSally and Democrat Mark Kelly, who has consistently had a fundraising advantage and a recent CNN poll found the Democrat with a 7 percentage point lead.

It’s just after 11 p.m. ET. This is where the race to 270 stands.

CNN has just projected Joe Biden will win California – the biggest prize of the electoral college, with 55 electoral votes.

Based on CNN’s current projections, Biden has 192 electoral college votes, and Trump has 108 electoral college votes.

Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votes to win the presidency.

President Trump will win Wyoming, CNN projects.

There are three electoral votes at stake in Wyoming. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

Joe Biden will win Washington, CNN projects.

There are 12 electoral votes at stake in Washington. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the state, and President Trump won the general election.

Joe Biden will win Oregon, CNN projects.

There are seven electoral votes at stake in Oregon. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the state, and President Trump won the general election.

Joe Biden will win California, CNN projects.

There are 55 electoral votes at stake in California. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the Golden State, and President Trump won the general election.

Here’s where polls are closing at 11 p.m. ET:

Follow along here and CNN’s Election Center for full coverage.

President Trump’s early lead in Pennsylvania could shrink as the early vote continues to come in, CNN’s political director David Chalian said tonight.

Chalian said that with 35% of the vote currently in, just 18% of the vote is early vote, a number that is expected to rise to 45%.

“We know that Joe Biden is doing much better in the early vote,” he said “…There’s a ton more early votes still to be counted here and that could benefit Joe Biden in Pennsylvania.”

“We just have to wait to see that early absentee mail vote come in and be counted,” he added.

Joe Biden will win Illinois, CNN projects.

There are 20 electoral votes at stake in Illinois. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the state, and President Trump won the general election.

President Trump will win Missouri, CNN projects.

There are 10 electoral votes at stake in Missouri. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

Milwaukee officials said that, while tallies of in-person Election Day votes from the city will likely be released within the next hour and a half, all results of early votes won’t be released until early tomorrow morning.

All of the early votes, mail and in-person, will be reported separately in one batch once counting is complete.

The city expects a total of about 169,000 absentee ballots, and as of 7:50 p.m. CT (8:50 p.m. ET), Mayor Tom Barrett said they’ve processed about 103,000 of them – just over 60%. He’s now projecting the count will be done by 4 a.m. CT (5 a.m. ET). Over 100 staffers have committed to stay as long as it takes to finish counting.

After the counting is complete, those results must be reported to Milwaukee County, which makes them public. The county’s elections director Julietta Henry is predicting they will be done by 5 a.m. CT (6 a.m. ET), according to a spokesperson.

Meanwhile, in-person Election Day votes are being counted at individual polling places and results are sent to the county directly for release. That will likely be in the next hour and a half, Barrett said.

Officials don’t know the total number of in-person Election Day votes yet.

Overall, voting went well. “Everything has been very smooth,” city Election Commission executive director Claire Woodall-Vogg said.

Joe Biden will win New Hampshire, CNN projects.

There are four electoral votes at stake in New Hampshire. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the state, and President Trump won the general election.

President Trump will win Utah, CNN projects.

There are six electoral votes at stake in Utah. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

Despite President Trump currently leading in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, CNN’s John King warns, “we cannot emphasize enough, we’re nowhere close to the finish line in any of those states.”

“We need to count votes and some of those counts could take until tomorrow,” King said.

In each of the “blue wall” states, a majority of early votes still need to be counted.

President Trump will win at least three electoral votes in Nebraska, CNN projects.

There are five total electoral votes at stake in Nebraska. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Nebraska allows electoral votes to be split. In Nebraska, two of five electoral votes go to the winner of the statewide vote. One electoral vote goes to the winner in each of Nebraska’s three congressional districts.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

President Trump will win Kansas, CNN projects.

There are six electoral votes at stake in Kansas. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

Joe Biden will win New Mexico, CNN projects.

There are five electoral votes at stake in New Mexico. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the state, and President Trump won the general election.

Based on CNN’s current projections, this is how the balance of power in Congress is shaping up:

Democrats have 40 seats in the Senate so far. Republicans have 38. Either side needs 51 seats to have a majority.

In the House, Democrats have 84 seats. Republicans have 119.

You can follow live updates on the congressional race here.

Because of unprecedented levels of mail-in ballots and early voting due to the coronavirus pandemic, it still may take some time until we get results tonight and final results may look different to what early results are showing.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, supporters of Democratic nominee Joe Biden have shown a strong preference for mail-in voting. Most of President Trump’s supporters said they wanted to vote on Election Day. States count these different types of votes in very different ways.

As a result, in some of the most competitive states – including Texas — early results may look too rosy for former Vice President Joe Biden, before falling back down to earth and becoming more representative of the true outcome. In other states — particularly Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — Trump could see early leads that slowly narrow as more ballots are counted.

This won’t be a sign of fraud or irregularities. Rather, it’s just a reflection of how states count votes. Some states process early ballots first, and will report those early in the night, while others save them for last.

Based on CNN’s current projections, Biden has 89 electoral college votes, and Trump has 72 electoral college votes.

Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votes to win the presidency.

CNN’s Dana Bash said the close race in Florida was an early harbinger that tonight would likely not be the landslide Democrats had hoped for.

“There is no landslide that we are looking at,” she said. “No way given the numbers that we’ve seen particularly when you start the night in Florida when it’s as tight as Florida tends to be.”

Bash went on to explain that the Biden campaign appears to have underperformed with Latino voters because of the Trump campaign’s work to paint Biden as a socialist had been effective.

“I’ll tell you what [the Biden campaign] thinks went wrong is that the Trump attacks have worked,” said Bash. “Calling the Democrats socialist worked with people in that area, in particular.”

CNN’s Abby Phillip concurred, saying turnout among Latino voters will likely be the area of study for Democrats, once the election is settled.

“What is happening in Florida, I can tell you, Democrats are not happy about it,” said Phillip. “At the end of the day, the situation in Miami-Dade is something that in the autopsy of this election they will be looking back at and trying to figure out what went wrong.”

On Election Night at the White House, the Trump campaign is running the show inside the White House grounds, even at the President’s election night party — further blurring the lines between political activity and official government business.

Ahead of an expected appearance from President Trump around an election night watch party, the campaign is also setting the guest list – including which journalists can attend.

Rather than inviting the White House press corps, the list was limited to a handful of favored conservative outlets, including Fox News, One America News, Newsmax, Daily Caller, Washington Examiner, JustTheNews.com, and Breitbart. Reporters from Washington Post, Univision, USA Today, and McClatchy were also invited.

As of 9:30 p.m. ET, those reporters have not yet been told when they will be taken inside and are told to expect to see the President.

Members of CNN’s technical staff were part of a production pool to facilitate video transmission.

White House spokesperson Judd Deere defended the event, claiming the White House was merely the venue and not the host. “Just like convention it’s a campaign event. White House is the venue,” Deere said.

The campaign was responsible for that guest list, and not the White House, though the journalists were administered Covid-19 tests by White House doctors.

Former Trump aide Kellyanne Conway said Tuesday that the President is expected to “address the nation later from the East Room,” which is one of the rooms being used for the event.

Approximately 400 people were invited to the White House watch party, though only about 200 to 250 are expected to attend the indoor event, which will be held in the East Wing. And over in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, steps away from the West Wing, the campaign has set up a war room with aides monitoring results. CNN reporter earlier that  war room at the White House is being funded by the Trump campaign.

Here’s where polls are closing at 10 p.m. ET:

Follow along here and CNN’s Election Center for full coverage.

Trump will win South Carolina, CNN projects.

There are nine electoral votes at stake in South Carolina. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

President Trump will win Alabama, CNN projects.

There are nine electoral votes at stake in Alabama. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

As Joe Biden’s lead in North Carolina narrows, CNN’s John King said that North Carolina may be the “most competitive” state.

Biden’s lead in the state was based on early voting, which skews Democratic, King explained, while President Trump has encouraged his supporters to vote in person.

Biden is leading in the cities, while Trump is currently getting “shellacked” in the Raleigh-Durham urban area, King said.

Joe Biden is currently leading President Trump in North Carolina with 80% of the estimated vote in, but in some big Democratic counties, it is mostly early votes, CNN’s David Chalian said.

“Of this 80% of the vote that’s in, 90% of it right now in North Carolina statewide is early vote,” he said.

Chalian added that by the end of the night only 75% of the total North Carolina vote could be early vote.

“So, right now, the early vote is helping Joe Biden, but as more Election Day vote comes in North Carolina, Donald Trump may be able to benefit from that,” he said.

An estimated 45% of votes have been counted in Georgia, with President Trump currently leading by a healthy margin. The majority of votes in the state, however, come from Atlanta and its neighboring suburban areas where Biden seems to have a comfortable lead, CNN’s John King observed.

“The question is what is still to come in this night that’s a little different than previous election nights because of mail-in voting, early in-person voting and election day voting,” King said.

Some background: Georgia is a key state to watch this election. It is one of three states in the Southeast — along with Florida and North Carolina — that are all crucial for President Trump’s path to 270 electoral votes. The Biden campaign has also dispatched its top surrogates to the state, including former President Barack Obama.

Its diversifying electorate, suburban swings in Democrats’ favor and a series of close calls there during Trump’s presidency have put Georgia into play.

Biden is currently leading in Fulton County where Atlanta is located as well as Dekalb County, close to Atlanta.

The vote count is very much in the preliminary stage but based on the reporting so far, Biden also seems to be outperforming Hillary Clinton in 2016. This also stands for Chatham County.

Biden also has a healthy lead so far in Cobb County with about 30% of the vote in, and in Gwinnett County with about 15% votes counted.

CNN projects Joe Biden will win easily in Colorado, which has been turning bluer and bluer with each passing election cycle.

This year, Democrats not only had the presidential race to excite them, but an opportunity to flip a seat in the Senate, where incumbent Republican Cory Gardner is facing a tough challenge from former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. It would be a surprise if Gardner holds on to the seat. (Jury’s still out on that one.)

That Biden walked away so quickly with the Centennial State could bode well for him elsewhere. The expectation going into Election Day was that, with full results from the big cities are likely to come in later, the early arrows could point in Republicans’ direction.

But the expectation of, at the least, a “red mirage” has mostly dissipated. Biden is cruising and Hickenlooper looks to be in good shape in his bid to unseat Gardner.

President Trump will win North Dakota, CNN projects.

There are three electoral votes at stake in North Dakota. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

Joe Biden will win Colorado, CNN projects.

There are nine electoral votes at stake in Colorado. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the state, and President Trump won the general election.

Trump campaign officials are concerned about the crucial battleground states of Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin — but are feeling better about Florida, a senior Trump adviser said.

“Georgia could be an issue,” the adviser said, pointing to huge vote totals from urban voters in the state. Michigan may be gone, the adviser said. Wisconsin is “TBD,” according to the adviser.

The adviser went on to say North Carolina, so far, looks like a “jump ball.” But the adviser said GOP officials in the state believe Trump will win the state.

The adviser summed up the problem for Trump this way: If Trump loses Georgia, he can’t lose Wisconsin. If he loses both of those states, the President could be in trouble, the adviser said.

Voters under 30 years old across the Midwest are swinging toward Joe Biden, according to preliminary exit polling.

Biden earned support from around 6 in 10 voters under 30 years old in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump earned support from about 1 in 3 voters under 30 years old, the early exit polls show.

Hillary Clinton won young voters in all three states by single digits in 2016, while Biden currently leads by significantly more than that.

White voters with a college degree are also shifting slightly toward Biden, according to the early exit polls. Biden captured a double-digit lead with the group in Michigan and Pennsylvania; Clinton didn’t win this group in either state in 2016.

About this year’s exit polls: CNN’s exit polls this year incorporate in-person interviews at early voting locations and telephone interviews to target by-mail voters. Those surveys are in addition to the in-person interviews with voters on Tuesday. In every state where exit poll results are available on election night, there will be a combined result to reflect a complete picture of voters across the country.

Read more about exit polls during a pandemic here.

Joe Biden will win Connecticut, CNN projects.

There are seven electoral votes at stake in Connecticut. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the state, and President Trump won the general election.

President Trump will win South Dakota, CNN projects.

There are three electoral votes at stake in South Dakota. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

Joe Biden is currently leading President Trump in North Carolina with 78% of the vote from the state in. CNN’s John King says Trump needs to narrow the gap in the following counties:

The Nevada Supreme Court denied an emergency request by the Trump campaign to block early vote counting in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, based on its use of a signature-matching computer software and rules governing the observation of vote counting.

A seven panel of judges gave the Trump campaign and Nevada Republican Party until Thursday to file additional briefings.

Some background: Earlier Tuesday, the campaign filed an emergency appeal of a district judge order dismissing its lawsuit against the Clark County Registrar alleging GOP observers were not given enough access to all aspects of the ballot counting process — from opening the ballots, to machine and manual signature checking and duplicating spoiled ballots.

Michigan was the perfect storm for Democrats in 2016 — a surge in rural turnout, White union voters flipping to Donald Trump and depressed turnout among Black voters — leading the President to break through the so-called “blue wall” on his way to an unexpected victory.

Joe Biden needs to take back the state to have almost any shot of winning in 2020 and polls show he is on his way to do that: A CNN survey released in late October found Biden with a 12-percentage point lead in the state.

The former vice president committed his campaign to re-building that blue wall in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Republicans admitted when Biden was nominated that his appeal with White working-class voters made him far more formidable in states like Michigan, and the former vice president has focused his campaign on making that come true.

The Biden campaign is clearly taking nothing for granted in Michigan, however. Former President Barack Obama joined Biden for two events in the state on the final weekend of the campaign, aiming squarely to turnout young and Black voters who stayed home in 2016.

Based on CNN’s current projections, Biden has 73 electoral college votes, and Trump has 48 electoral college votes.

Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votes to win the presidency.

Joe Biden will win New Jersey, CNN projects.

There are 14 electoral votes at stake in New Jersey. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the state, and President Trump won the general election.

President Trump will win Arkansas CNN projects.

There are six electoral votes at stake in Arkansas. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

Here’s where polls are closing at 9 p.m. ET:

Follow along here and CNN’s Election Center for full coverage.

Based on the votes counted so far, this is where each candidate currently has the lead.

Joe Biden:

Donald Trump:

It’s still early and these numbers could change as more votes are counted.

Joe Biden will win New York, CNN projects.

There are 29 electoral votes at stake in New York. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the state, and President Trump won the general election.

By most forecasters’ estimates, there is no state more crucial to either candidates’ path than Pennsylvania, with its 20 electoral votes.

Donald Trump won it in 2016 as he barreled through the Democrats’ “Blue Wall,” taking Michigan and Wisconsin, too. But Joe Biden, who was born in Scranton, maintained a modest lead in most 2020 pre-election polling.

The key for Biden is juicing turnout in Philadelphia, especially among Black and Latino votes, and its surrounding suburbs. For Trump, it’s a trickier proposition. He needs to keep or grow his winning margins in rural parts of the state, mostly in the central and west, and hope his popularity there isn’t overwhelmed by a backlash in suburban areas and urban centers.

Then there is the question of the ballots, which has the potential to turn into a national flashpoint.

Pennsylvania is one of the handful of states that expects to take a while to count all its votes. Expect the early returns to favor Trump, but the race to move in Biden’s direction as mail-in ballot results come in. But that could take some time. Election officials cannot begin processing early ballots until Election Day and some counties might not begin until after the polls close. A few won’t start until Wednesday – meaning there will be no final result out of Pennsylvania tonight.

The Biden campaign is realistic about Florida tonight, with advisers saying the state seems to be moving out of reach. But advisers argue that Florida is unique, not the beginning of a trend.

They are still confident about their standing in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin – and advisers are optimistic about what they are seeing in North Carolina.

But for Biden world, a Trump Florida win ensures one thing: This race will be dramatically close and they do not foresee any type of landslide tonight.

No Democratic presidential candidate has won Duval County since fellow Southerner Jimmy Carter carried the Jacksonville area in 1976. Joe Biden is on track to break that streak.

This could be critical to Democrats in Florida because in order to make up for the former vice president underperforming where Hillary Clinton was four years ago in populous Miami-Dade County, he needs formerly red population centers like Duval to tilt his way to have a shot at carrying the state.

The former vice president leads President Donald Trump in the county with 91% of the vote in.

Duval County is central for two key themes playing out in the 2020 general election — the suburbs revolting against a Republican Party led by Trump and the work Democrats have put in to turn out Black voters who did not turn out for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Both have turned the one-time Republican stronghold into the largest swing county in the largest swing state.

“There is an argument to be made it may be the single most important county in the single most important state in the most important election in a century,” Dean Black, chair of the county’s Republican Party, said before Election Day.

Democrats, after losing Duval narrowly in 2016, carried the county in the 2018 general election, leading many in the party to grow more confident that they could do it again this year. The party also has 6% more registered Democrats than Republicans in Duval.

There were signs in October that Trump’s hold on some voters in Duval County was slipping.

After voting for Trump in 2016, Danielle Wade went to the ballot box undecided but eventually voted for Biden.

“Quite frankly, I am just over Trump’s antics,” Wade said. “I don’t believe he will be the cure-all,” she said after voting for Biden, the first Democrat she had ever backed in her 35-year-long life. “But the country needs some relief.”

President Trump visited a number of “Trump super counties” in the final days before Election Day to energize the electorate and turn out the vote, said CNN’s John King, pointing to Catawba County in North Carolina where Trump campaigned on Monday.

“The President had a deliberately travel plan,” added King. “He went to certain places where they knew their voters were.”

For Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to win the competitive state of Ohio, which leans a little Republican, he needs to “run it up in urban areas,” CNN’s John King said as the votes come in.

“That would be Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Akron, Toledo and Youngstown,” King said.

The suburbs are the big challenge, where the candidates will battle for the American presidency, King said.

“Donald Trump carried the suburbs 2017. That’s why he’s President of the United States. It is part of the coalition Trump put together,” King said. “If Joe Biden can hold Lake County, hold the suburbs west of Cleveland, that’s part of the building blocks, at least get you close.”

President Trump will win West Virginia, CNN projects.

There are five electoral votes at stake in West Virginia. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

CNN’s John King underscored that Ohio may be a crucial state for the President to win reelection.

With about a third of the vote in, Biden is ahead in Ohio’s cities and surrounding suburbs, while Trump is ahead in the more rural areas. But King outlined that those rural areas could add up for the Trump campaign.

“We know [Biden is] competitive in Ohio. Win or lose Ohio, there is a lesson in this: that Joe Biden is competitive than Hillary Clinton in these industrial states,” King said.

“No matter how this ends, this tells you that this is a different campaign than we had four years ago, and that Joe Biden is more competitive than Hillary Clinton,” he added.

As polls close in Florida, an early exit survey of voters in the state shows a big decrease in support for Democrat Joe Biden among Latinos compared to 2016.

Slightly more than half of the group is backing the former vice president, according to the early exit polls, compared to the 62% that went for Clinton four years ago. President Donald Trump’s support among the group has increased significantly, as well.

Latino voters have also shifted in Georgia. In 2016, Latino voters in the state went for Hillary Clinton by 40 points; they are voting for Joe Biden by around 25 points.

Trump has a small lead among seniors in Florida, garnering just over half of the vote there, a decrease in his performance from in 2016 when he won 57% of the group in Florida.

More than half of independent voters in the Sunshine State are backing Biden, a better performance than Clinton in 2016, when Trump won independents 47% to 43%.

CNN’s exit polls this year incorporate in-person interviews at early voting locations and telephone interviews to target by-mail voters. Those surveys are in addition to the in-person interviews with voters on Tuesday. In every state where exit poll results are available on election night, there will be a combined result to reflect a complete picture of voters across the country.

There are 11 electoral votes at stake in Tennessee. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

Maine allocates two of its four electoral votes to the statewide winner – a Democrat in every race since 1988. The other two are split between its two congressional districts.

Maine’s 2nd is the wild card.

Democratic Rep. Jared Golden flipped the district in a tight 2018 contest and is expected to retain it this year. The presidential race, though, is a toss-up.

Though it covers a lot more ground, the 2nd district’s population is smaller than in the 1st, which is home to the state’s biggest city in Portland. Trump won the 2nd in 2016, a victory emblematic of his strength with rural voters.

Maine also presents Democrats with one of their first opportunities of the night to cut into the GOP Senate majority. Incumbent Sen. Susan Collins is in the fight of her political life with Democratic challenger Sara Gideon, who has benefited from a nationwide liberal backlash over Collins’ vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.

Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire in 2016, but it was a very, very close race. In the end, she beat Donald Trump by fewer than 3,000 votes.

New Hampshire has only four electoral votes, but if this race is close and both campaigns are trying to build out scenarios to get them to 270, it could be decisive. It might also be instructive. If Joe Biden and Trump are neck-and-neck as the count takes shape, that could be a promising sign for the President as the campaigns begin to eyeball the Midwestern swing states.

That’s in part because the polls suggest that Biden is the favorite here. Trump’s team has projected confidence, pointing to their ground game.

The state’s most famous newspaper, the New Hampshire Union Leader, with its conservative editorial board, endorsed Biden this time around, after effectively ducking the question in 2016 by throwing its support to Libertarian Gary Johnson.

There’s little evidence that newspaper endorsements in big races like this move many voters, but in battleground states they are often a reflection of where the electorate is – or, on Election Day, where it’s going.

CNN has projected Joe Biden will win Delaware, DC, Maryland, Massachusetts and Vermont.

Donald Trump will win Kentucky and Oklahoma.

Based on these projections, this is where the race to 270 currently stands.

Biden has 30 electoral college votes. Trump has 26 electoral college votes.

Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votes to win the presidency.

Nevada state District Court Judge Joe Hardy is extending the hours for about two dozens polling sites in Clark County until 8 p.m. PT.

That will delay the announcement of results in Nevada’s election by an hour. The Trump campaign filed suit in Clark County for the extension.

Earlier in the day there were reports that many of the 125 polling sites in Clark County had to delay their 7 a.m. opening because of technical problems.

Clark County is the home of 70% of all voters in Nevada. It is a heavily Democratic County. No results in any county can be released until the last poll is closed.

Democrats asked for their own list of polling sites to remain open on top of the Republican list. The judge granted that list.

President Trump will win Kentucky, CNN projects.

There are eight electoral votes at stake in Kentucky. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

Here’s where polls are closing at 8 p.m. ET:

Follow along here and at CNN’s Election Center for full coverage.

Joe Biden will win Massachusetts, CNN projects.

There are 11 electoral votes at stake in Massachusetts. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the state, and President Trump won the general election.

Joe Biden will win Delaware, CNN projects.

There are three electoral votes at stake in Delaware. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the state, and President Trump won the general election.

Joe Biden will win the District of Columbia, CNN projects.

There are three electoral votes at stake in DC. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the district, and President Trump won the general election.

Joe Biden will win Maryland, CNN projects.

There are 10 electoral votes at stake in Maryland. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the state, and President Trump won the general election.

President Trump will win Oklahoma, CNN projects.

There are seven electoral votes at stake in Oklahoma. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

Absentee ballot processing in Fulton County, Georgia, has been delayed due to a burst pipe, county spokesperson Regina Waller said.

According to Waller, a pipe burst at State Farm Arena above the processing room for all absentee ballots in Fulton County, but no ballots were damaged.

“The matter caused the start of work today to be delayed by four hours,” Waller said.

“The team is prepared to continue working to complete processing of absentee ballots,” Waller added.

Trump voters heavily favored the economy as the most important issue to their vote, with around 3 in 5 saying so, according to early exit polls. The issue of crime and safety followed at a distance for those voters.

One-third of voters who back Joe Biden, meanwhile, said racial inequality was their most important issue, followed by almost 3 in 10 who said it was coronavirus, 1 in 10 who said health care policy, and 1 in 10 who said the economy.

About this year’s exit polls: CNN’s exit polls this year incorporate in-person interviews at early voting locations and telephone interviews to target by-mail voters. Those surveys are in addition to the in-person interviews with voters on Tuesday. In every state where exit poll results are available on election night, there will be a combined result to reflect a complete picture of voters across the country.

To account for the large share of early in-person voters in critical states such as North Carolina, Florida and Texas, Edison Research has spent the past month conducting the same type of in-person interviewing that it does on Election Day at a random selection of early voting locations around eight states.

Read more about exit polls during a pandemic here.

Joe Biden will win Vermont, CNN projects.

There are three electoral votes at stake in Vermont. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the state, and President Trump won the general election.

As ballot counts from Florida are quickly coming in, the tight margins for both President Trump and Joe Biden compared to 2016 results are making this a race to watch.

Joe Biden is currently underperforming Hillary Clinton’s 2016 results in Miami-Dade County. “If you’re looking for trouble signs in the Biden campaign, it is right here in Miami-Dade,” CNN’s John King said. Hillary Clinton had a wider margin in the county in 2016 and still lost the state. Biden will have to make it up in other counties, King added.

President Trump is underperforming in Duval County, which includes all of Jacksonville, a population center Trump won in 2016, but swung back to Democrats two years later when the party’s gubernatorial candidate carried the county.

The area around Tampa is also central to a Trump win: The President unexpectedly carried Pinellas County in 2016, a swing that signified it would be a tough night for Democrats.

King said that Trump’s performance among suburban voters will be significant overall.

Deocratic operatives are keeping a close eye on Latino voters tonight in Florida, one of the first states with a significant Latino population to report results.

A key concern for Democrats heading into Election Day was Joe Biden’s ability to court Latinos, a diverse and growing demographic in a number of key states, including Florida, Texas and Arizona. Democratic organizers in those states had raised concerns about Biden’s outreach to Latino voters early in the campaign, leading Biden’s operation to pour manpower and money into turning out Latinos, but the concerns persisted.

The problem is acute in Florida — particularly in populous Miami-Dade County — because of the large number of Cuban and Venezuelan immigrants, two groups that tend to be more conservative than others.

Early results out of Miami-Dade, Florida’s most populous county, show a closer race between Biden and Donald Trump in 2020 than when Clinton faced Trump in 2016.

Trump’s campaign was intensely focused on Miami-Dade County, crafting an entire messaging campaign around painting Biden as a socialist in an attempt to appeal to the county’s Cuban- and Venezuelan-American populations

“If Biden wins Florida with that margin in Dade (and lets assume it gets 1 point or so better with eday), it will be amazing and unprecedented,” said Florida-based Democratic data analyst Matthew Isbell tweeted as the early results from the county came in.

The question for Democrats will be can Biden outperform Clinton in places like Duval and Hillsborough County, two other populous metropolitan centers in the state, to offset him possibly underperforming in the Miami area.

Statewide results in Nevada’s election could be delayed by at least an hour – to 8 p.m. local time/11 p.m. ET – if a judge rules in favor of the Trump campaign. The campaign filed a lawsuit in Clark County to keep the polls open an additional hour for 22 locations.

There were reports earlier in the day that many of the 125 polling sites in Clark County had to delay their 7 a.m. local openings because of technical problems. Clark County is the home of 70% of all voters in Nevada. It is a heavily Democratic County.

No results in any county can be released until the last poll is closed.

On election night, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer announces that the network has projected this or that candidate will win a particular race.

The process that leads to Blitzer saying those words is careful and complicated. It involves both real-time results and information from exit polls. CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS work with the polling firm Edison Research in what is known as the National Election Pool for results and exit polling data. Fox News and the Associated Press have a separate arrangement.

CNN’s polling director Jennifer Agiesta explains:

Read here for more from Agiesta and Washington Bureau Chief Sam Feist.

Four years after Hillary Clinton lost North Carolina by over 3 percentage points, Democrats are growing more confident that the state is moving away from its red neighbors to the South and closer to its bluer neighbors to the north.

The reason is demographics: The number of Hispanic and Asian voters is growing; North Carolina’s cities and suburbs are booming with growth from people moving from more liberal northern states; and seniors, a demographic moving away from a Trump-led Republican party, have been flocking to the state’s coast.

All of this is coupled with a troubling trend for Republicans: The state’s reliably conservative rural areas are shrinking.

This has led Democrats to believe North Carolina is in reach for them this year, creating a key chance for Joe Biden and the party to take another state Trump won in 2016. North Carolina’s polls are closing at 7:30 p.m. ET, so if this scenario plays out for Democrats, the state could be an early signal for how the night is going for each party.

The presidential is far from the only competitive race in a state that has seemed to be the center of the political universe for much of the year: The state also has a competitive Senate race between Republican incumbent Thom Tillis and Democrat Cal Cunningham, as well as a less competitive race for governor between incumbent Democrat Roy Cooper and Republican Dan Forest.

After Donald Trump’s 8-point win in Ohio in 2016 and GOP Gov. Mike DeWine’s win in 2018, what was once the quintessential swing state appeared to have shifted solidly into Republican hands — part of a long-term realignment that was unlikely to reverse itself anytime soon.

But polls for months showed Joe Biden and Trump locked in a close race. Biden’s campaign invested in the state late, pumping millions of dollars into TV ads in the closing weeks while sending Biden through the eastern portion of the state on a whistle-stop Amtrak tour.

A final indicator that Biden believes it is within reach came Monday morning, when he made a last-minute campaign stop in Cleveland.

Ohio is a must-win for Trump. No Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio. If Trump doesn’t win, it’s almost certainly a fatal blow to his chances of winning re-election. And if the race there is neck-and-neck, it’s a problematic sign for Trump’s performance in other key states, including neighboring Pennsylvania and Michigan and fellow Midwestern battleground Wisconsin.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said that she was pleased with an earlier federal decision mandating the United States Postal Service to sweep certain processing facilities by 3 p.m. ET for election mail.

Update: The US Postal Service said later this evening, however, that it wasn’t able to meet the court ordered deadline.

The postal service had done previous morning sweeps for ballots in recent days, including Tuesday, with personnel reporting data to the court by about 10 a.m.

Postal officials, however, reported to the judge that they were unable to make it happen.

“Given the time constraints set by this Court’s order, and the fact that Postal Inspectors operate on a nationwide basis, Defendants were unable to accelerate the daily review process to run from 12:30pm to 3:00pm without significantly disrupting preexisting activities on the day of the Election,” the Postal Service wrote to the judge.

Polls have closed in Georgia and an early exit survey of voters there show around 4 in 5 White voters without a college degree went for Donald Trump.

Slightly over half of White voters with a college degree also backed Trump, the early exit polls show. The slim lead marks a big difference from 2016, when Trump won White college graduates in Georgia 69% to 28%.

Trump leads among another key group in Georgia this year, with more than half of seniors backing the President. He won seniors in 2016, 67% to 31%.

Joe Biden leads strongly among voters under the age of 30 in the state, with around 3 in 5 of those voters backing the former vice president.

Voters in Georgia who say they want a candidate who is a strong leader voted strongly for Trump, with around three-quarters of voters doing so. Another three-quarters of voters who want a candidate who can unite the country voted for Biden.

About this year’s exit polls: CNN’s exit polls this year incorporate in-person interviews at early voting locations and telephone interviews to target by-mail voters. Those surveys are in addition to the in-person interviews with voters on Tuesday. In every state where exit poll results are available on election night, there will be a combined result to reflect a complete picture of voters across the country.

To account for the large share of early in-person voters in critical states such as North Carolina, Florida and Texas, Edison Research has spent the past month conducting the same type of in-person interviewing that it does on Election Day at a random selection of early voting locations around eight states.

Read more about exit polls during a pandemic here.

Polls are closing in some states tonight. Here’s where polls are closing at 7:30 p.m. ET:

Remember: North Carolina’s election results will be delayed by at least 45 minutes after the board of elections extended voting at some locations that were having problems this morning.

Follow along here and see CNN’s Election Center for full coverage.

Suburbs are at the center of the 2020 presidential race, with Joe Biden’s path to 270 electoral votes dependent on turning in a stronger performance there than Hillary Clinton did in 2016.

The suburban shift toward Democrats is the biggest change to the political landscape during Donald Trump’s presidency. In 2017, the northern Virginia suburbs handed Democrats a big win in a closely watched governor’s race. Then, in 2018, suburban congressional districts were at the center of a Democratic wave that handed the party control of the US House of Representatives for the first time in eight years.

Trump’s 2016 win was rooted in big margins of victory in working-class suburbs. He has sought to galvanize those voters again by warning that violence that has accompanied protests against racial injustice would spread to the suburbs. However, Biden’s stronger performance in polls among well-educated voters and with White women, in particular, have positioned him to build on Democratic gains in recent years.

That is a central thought in the minds of Biden aides as they have been studying data throughout the day – they are seeing far more Democrats (and presumably Biden supporters) turning out in rural areas.

They don’t see blow outs they did four years ago. There’s no doubt that President Trump will carry the rural swaths of so many battleground states, but they believe Biden will hold his own far more than Clinton did.

The entire campaign, comparisons have been drawn to 2016 — but one Biden adviser said this map could be more like 2012, the last time Biden was on a ballot as the vice president, with Barack Obama at the top of the ticket.

With an hour to go until polls close, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf cautioned voters to “remain calm.”

He released a video message calling for patience as every vote is set to be counted in the crucial battleground state.

Polls in the Keystone State are set to close at 8 p.m. ET.

Georgia is a must-win state for President Donald Trump, and — with a relatively quick vote count expected there —it could offer an early window into how Election Night will unfold.

Like Florida and North Carolina, it’s a state Joe Biden has invested heavily in, and a place where his campaign is bullish. But unlike those states, it has not voted for Democrats in recent presidential elections.

Georgia has long been a Republican stronghold, with the GOP currently controlling every statewide office and the state legislature. Democrats haven’t won a major statewide race in the last two decades, but have had a series of close calls —a 2017 special election for a House seat; the 2018 governor’s race — in Georgia during Trump’s presidency.

This year in Georgia, the stakes are especially high: Two Senate seats are up for grabs in “jungle primaries,” which go to one-on-one runoffs if no candidate finishes above 50% of the vote. Jon Ossoff is challenging Republican Sen. David Perdue, while Rev. Raphael Warnock is the leading Democratic candidate against Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, GOP Rep. Doug Collins and other contenders in a special election that’s almost certain to head to a runoff.

Biden chose Georgia to deliver what his campaign billed as its closing argument with a speech last Tuesday. His running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, campaigned there Sunday. And Biden dispatched former President Barack Obama to Atlanta on Monday. Trump, meanwhile, campaigned in Georgia on Sunday night, underscoring his campaign’s recognition of its competitiveness.

If Donald Trump has any chance of winning the presidency, he can’t stand to lose his home state of Florida.

The President carried the state in 2016 by just over 1 percentage point, but recent polls have found a narrow race in the state, with a series of surveys showing the race between Trump and Joe Biden within the margin of error. Both candidates have blanked the state of late, with both Trump and Biden headlining events in the state on the Thursday before the election.

Florida is a remarkably diverse state with a series of key areas. Trump and his campaign have hopes of cutting into Biden’s expected margin in Miami-Dade and Broward County with a stronger than expected showing with Latinos, particularly Cubans, in South Florida.

The area around Tampa is also central to a Trump win: The President unexpectedly carried Pinellas County in 2016, a swing that signified it would be a tough night for Democrats. And then there was Duval County, which includes all of Jacksonville, a population center Trump won in 2016, but swung back to Democrats two years later when the party’s gubernatorial candidate carried the county.

Turnout will be key for Biden in Florida. A surge of rural voters propelled Trump to victory in 2016, an outpouring that was strengthened by a lack of turnout among Black and Latino voters four years ago. Democrats saw warning signs in early vote numbers from areas with large Black and Latino populations, so the ability for the party to get both key demographics out on Tuesday could prove critical.

As exit polls trickled in early on Election Night, viewers who support either candidate should be prepared for both ups and downs, CNN political commentator Van Jones warned

“We are on a little bit of a roller coaster here, a little bit of a seesaw,” said Jones, acknowledging some of the early exit polls had worried him, while he’d found other data points encouraging.

Former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, a CNN senior political commentator, expressed the same sentiment moments later, suggesting he had already experienced multiple emotions.

“I’m gonna agree with Van that I was feeling much more confident with these early exits,” he said.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who was moderating the exchange, then predicted in jest that both commentators might be “basket cases” by the end of the night.

President Trump will win Indiana, CNN projects.

There are 11 electoral votes at stake in Indiana. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.