To win the American presidential election, a candidate must have 270 electors. This is the threshold to exceed to win in this indirect vote. If Donald Trump has not yet crossed this fateful threshold, the Republican candidate is at this stage clearly in the lead with 262 voters, compared to 194 for Kamala Harris, according to the AFP count. L’Express takes stock of the November 5 ballot.
Trump takes away North Carolina…
Donald Trump has taken away the key state of North Carolina, according to the media NBC, ABC and CNN, enough to fuel the optimism which is winning over his camp. It is the first of the seven decisive states in this tense election to be judged by the American media. North Carolina brings 16 additional electors into the hands of the 78-year-old Republican tribune.
North Carolina is not a “swing state” strictly speaking, a state that changes sides from one election to another, since Donald Trump won it in 2016 and 2020, but his Democratic rival hoped to do so. delight him. The wait continues in other states likely to change the outcome of the election, these so-called pivotal states.
And wins the key state of Georgia
Donald Trump won the state of Georgia, one of the most contested in the race for the White House, according to NBC and CNN media. Georgia, which has a large African-American population, was narrowly won by Joe Biden in 2020. This state brings 16 voters to Donald Trump. The Republican thus inflicts a new setback on his rival Kamala Harris after having already won North Carolina.
The key and highly contested state of Pennsylvania also won by Trump
Donald Trump then won a crucial victory this Wednesday in the key state of Pennsylvania, a big prize in terms of voters and one of the most contested in the presidential race, according to projections by American media CNN and NBC. The Republican won there by a whisker in 2016, and Joe Biden took him back to the wire in 2020. His rival this year, Kamala Harris, had ended her campaign in this state, without which his chances of election are greatly diminishing.
Kamala Harris will not speak overnight
Vice-President Kamala Harris will not speak overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, one of her advisors, Cedric Richmond, announced this Wednesday, assuring that she would address “the nation” during the day. “There are still votes to be counted,” he justified in a very short and sober statement, while the supporters of the Democratic candidate gathered since the early evening at the historically black Howard University had already started to leave the premises, in an atmosphere that became increasingly dark as the hours went by.
The Harris camp focuses its hopes on the three key “blue wall” states
A little earlier, Kamala Harris’ campaign manager had recognized that the “clearest path” to win went through Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, only three key states out of the seven at stake, according to a message to his teams obtained by AFP. “This is an extremely close race,” wrote Jen O’Malley Dillon, who did not mention Georgia or North Carolina, noting that we had to wait to learn more about Arizona and Nevada, where the polling stations closed a few hours ago.
There remains therefore the “blue wall”, the color of the Democratic Party, namely Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, states located in the northeast of the country and in the Great Lakes region. “We have always known that our clearest path to the 270 voters goes through the blue wall states. We are happy with what we see there,” assured Jen O’Malley Dillon.
In 2020, Joe Biden won over Donald Trump by winning in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, but also in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. The Republican, on the other hand, won the famous “blue wall” in 2016, when he defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Harris wins (unsurprisingly) California
Kamala Harris unsurprisingly won California and its 54 electors, as well as Oregon, while Donald Trump won in two other states, Idaho and Iowa, according to American media projections.
In the other States which have also already delivered their final results, no surprises are to be noted. According to the media, the two candidates won a series of states that were promised to them: Texas, Kentucky, West Virginia, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Louisiana for the former Republican president. , while the Democratic vice-president won New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Colorado and the capital Washington.
Republicans regain control of the Senate
American voters don’t just vote for their president. Some notably submitted a ballot to choose their senator. Thirty-four out of 100 senatorial seats were up for grabs on November 5, including a majority held by Democrats. According to Fox News and NBC media projections, the Republicans regained control of the US Senate this Wednesday, until now in the hands of the Democrats, by winning a majority of at least 51 seats out of 100.
Republican Bernie Moreno won a Senate election in Ohio, according to Fox News and NBC News, flipping a previously Democratic seat. After a particularly close race, Bernie Moreno, a 57-year-old former car dealer born in Colombia, narrowly beat Democrat Sherrod Brown, in office since 2007.
Control of the Senate, with that of the House of Representatives not yet known, is a major issue in the legislative elections organized in parallel with the presidential election. The next president’s room for maneuver will largely depend on the laws he can or cannot pass in Congress.
Bomb threats blamed on Russia briefly disrupt vote
False bomb threats attributed to Russian destabilization operations targeted dozens of polling stations in the United States, notably in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona, three states where the presidential election is being played out, American authorities announced. The FBI, the American federal police, indicated in a press release “that it is aware of bomb threats at polling stations in several states, several of which appear to emanate from Russian Internet domain names.” “None of these threats have so far been considered credible,” underlines the FBI without specifying the states concerned and calling on the population to report any suspicious activity to law enforcement.
The head of elections in Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, for his part affirmed that the source of the false bomb threats in his state “had been identified” and that “it was Russia”. Late in the evening, Brad Raffensperger said that Georgia counties had been the target of “60 bomb threats” in total.
In Fulton County alone, which includes the immense metropolis of Atlanta, police counted 32 bomb threats, 27 of which were quickly deemed false and five resulting in brief closures of polling stations. In neighboring DeKalb County, alerts targeted seven locations, including five polling places closed as a precaution. A judge consequently extended voting hours in the offices concerned. In Pennsylvania (northeast), another key state in the presidential election, Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro told the press that numerous bomb threats had been made against polling stations and public buildings throughout the state. , but none seemed credible.