All but two of the 46 states declared so far have shifted toward Donald Trump since 2020, according to exit poll data.
Exit polls showed Trump had won 27 states at the time of writing, giving him a total of 277 Electoral College votes to Harris' 224. Exit polls also suggested that Trump was on track to win the popular vote, with the former president on 51 percent of the vote to Harris' 47 percent, according to CNN.
The result is a decisive victory for Trump, who was not predicted to win the popular vote, and was trailing Kamala Harris in the Electoral College odds for much of the period between Harris becoming her party's nominee and Election Day.
The New York Times exit polls showed that at least 44 states had shifted toward Trump since 2020. The biggest shifts for the former president were in two Democratic strongholds, New York and California, where the lead for the Democrats was cut down by 12 points: from 23 points to 11 points in New York, and from 29 to 17 points in California. The result in New York meant the Democrats saw their worst result in the state since 1988.
Maryland, another Democratic stronghold, also saw a large shift toward Trump, with the Democrats' lead cut down by 10 points since 2020, from 33 points to 23 points. Meanwhile, in Florida, where Trump won the last 2 elections by a narrow margin of between 1 and 3 points, the President-elect won by 13 points in a 10-point swing from 2020.
Meanwhile, Connecticut, Illinois and New Jersey, all of which were won by Harris, saw the Democrats' lead reduced by 9 points since 2020, while Massachusetts and Rhode Island saw the leads for the Democrats reduce by 8 and 7 points respectively.
There was more good news for Trump in Texas, a state where some polls showed that the former president was leading his opponent by less than 5 points after winning the state by just 6 points in 2020. Exit polls show that Trump's lead increased by 8 points to 14 points.
The only states that did not shift toward Trump were Washington, where the Democrats increased their lead by 1 point from 19 points to 20 points, and Utah, where Trump's lead stayed the same at 20 points.
Nevada, Alaska, Arizona, Michigan and Maine had not been declared at the time of writing. All those states other than Maine were expected to go to Trump, which would give him 35 extra Electoral College votes. Newsweek has contacted the Harris and Trump campaigns for comment via email.
Trump has already claimed victory in four key swing states: Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, although exit polls indicate narrow wins in each, with margins of just 1 to 3 points. Margins are also tight in the still-undeclared states of Nevada, Arizona, and Michigan, where Trump was leading by 1 to 2 points.
Prior polling showed that the race in all seven swing states was exceptionally close. Trump had been slightly ahead in Georgia, Arizona, and North Carolina, while Harris held a narrow lead in Wisconsin and Michigan. FiveThirtyEight's tracker had put Harris 0.2 points ahead Pennsylvania, while Nate Silver's tracker had shown Trump ahead by 0.1 points. With this win, Trump becomes only the second president in U.S. history to secure two nonconsecutive terms.
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