As polls close across the US, millions await the outcome of one of the most closely watched presidential elections in recent history.
In the first declarations of this year’s election, Kamala Harris has officially been projected to win Vermont, which holds three electoral college votes.
Meanwhile Donald Trump has won Kentucky with seven electoral college votes and Indiana with 11 electoral college votes.
He has also won West Virginia which has four electoral college votes.
Results are rolling in from the East Coast and working their way westward.
The polls have closed in six states so far, including battleground Georgia, which has 16 electoral college votes.
But not all states have finished counting enough votes to declare who has won.
How does a candidate win the US Presidential election?
To win the White House, a presidential candidate must secure 270 Electoral College votes.
These votes are allocated to US states based on their representation in Congress, which varies based on their population size.
Often a clear winner is known within hours of the polls closing, but it can also take weeks for an official tally to be released, as each state is left to carry out their own counting procedures.
Kamala Harris can count on 226 Electoral votes this election from states that reliably vote Democratic or lean Democratic, while Trump can count on 219 Electoral votes to go his way, according to Al Jazeera.
That means Harris needs to pick up 44 more votes to reach the 270 threshold, while Trump needs 51 more.
It’s important to remember the impact of swing states in this election and what that could mean for the results. The seven ‘swing states’ together hold 93 Electoral votes.
What are swing states and why are they important?
‘Swing states’ are those of the 50 United States where both major political parties have a genuine chance of winning over the majority of voters in a .
For this election, the seven states that both the Democrats and Republicans agreed meet the criteria for being swing states, are:
These are the key races that could change the outcome of the election:
What is an Electoral College and why is it important in the election?
When it comes to voting in America, what’s commonly thought of as “Election Day” is actually the first step in a two-part process.
In the first step—known as the presidential general election—voters cast their ballots for the candidates they want to become president and vice president.
Then comes the second step, which doesn’t involve the general public but instead relies on the Electoral College to cast the decisive votes.
What is the Electoral College?
The Electoral College is a unique system used in the United States to elect the president and vice president. Rather than deciding the winner by popular vote alone, the Electoral College assigns a set number of “electors” to each state, and these electors ultimately cast the votes that determine the election’s outcome.
It can be quite tricky to get your head around what this means, so let’s break it down.
Imagine a voter in Texas—which has 40 electors—casts their ballot for Trump. Technically, they aren’t directly voting for Trump himself; they’re voting for a group of 40 electors who will then cast their votes for Trump.
In other words, that Texan is essentially choosing the electors who will go on to elect the president.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.