There are several ways in which election night shaped up to be significantly different than what last-minute polls had prepared Americans for, but former President Donald Trump's unexpected victories in multiple once-blue bastions of the country have been among the biggest surprises of the race.
As of the time of this article's publication, the Republican candidate is on the cusp of victory with 267 Electoral College votes over his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris's 224. Trump needs only three more Electoral College votes to reach the necessary 270 and emerge victorious. The former president has already made an early victory speech in Palm Beach, Florida, declaring that his return to the White House will bring back "a golden age for America."
At this time, Trump has won Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
While the results are overall positive for the former president, these were the biggest surprises of election night so far.
Starr County, Texas
On election night, Trump became the first Republican to win Starr County since 1892—breaking a stunning record. The former president won the traditionally blue county, which has a big Hispanic population, with 57 percent of the vote, NewsNation reported. In 2016, Trump lost the county to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had won Starr County with 79 percent of the vote; in 2020, Joe Biden won the county by a much smaller margin, with 52 percent of the vote.
The once-Democratic stronghold on the Rio Grande appears to have followed other rural areas of the country in backing Trump in the 2024 presidential race. Trump won Texas with 56.4 percent of the vote.
Carlton County, Minnesota
Trump is also the first Republican presidential candidate to win Carlton County, Minnesota, since 1928 with a +3 margin over Harris. As per data from The New York Times, the Republican candidate obtained 20,746 votes in the county. That's considering that more than 95 percent of all votes have already been counted.
"Another long streak ends tonight in Carlton County, Minnesota. Trump becomes the first Republican since Herbert Hoover in 1928 to win the working-class county in the Arrowhead," Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan analysis group, wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Harris won Minnesota with 51.2 percent of the vote, while Trump got 46.7 percent. The state hasn't backed a Republican candidate in a presidential election since voting for Richard Nixon in 1972.
Berlin, New Hampshire
Trump's victory in Berlin, New Hampshire, with 52 percent of the vote over Harris's 48 percent was also a surprise, with the once-blue town flipping red. In 2020, the county had backed Biden with 52.8 percent of the vote over Trump's 45.6 percent. Four years earlier, Clinton won the county with 49.9 percent of the vote. In the past eight years, Trump has convinced voters in the New Hampshire county to vote for him.
Harris won New Hampshire with 51.1 percent of the vote.
Miami-Dade, Florida
Until Tuesday, Miami-Dade had been a blue bastion in the now solidly red state of Florida, not having backed a Republican candidate in a presidential election since 1988. That changed overnight when Trump emerged as the winner in the county with a significant margin of +11 over his Democratic rival. Trump won 55 percent of the vote in the county over Harris's 44 percent.
The county is the most populous in the state of Florida, which has backed Trump with 56.1 percent of the vote overall, and one of the most populous in the country. In the past eight election cycles, Miami-Dade backed the Democratic candidate over the Republican one—including Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020.
Once again, Trump succeeded in convincing a majority of voters in a county that had previously been reluctant to back him to put him in the White House again.
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