Former President Donald Trump holds a slight lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race and appears to be closing in on a second term in the White House.
US media projected Trump having secured victories in 26 states, including Texas, Florida and Ohio as well as several other Republican-leaning states.
Harris has secured victories in 19 states, including the big states of California, New York and Washington.
So far, Trump has won 267 electoral votes and Harris 224. All results are unofficial until local election officials across the country verify the outcome in the coming days.
A candidate also needs 270 electoral votes to secure the presidency.
Addressing supporters at the West Palm Beach Convention Center in Florida on Wednesday morning, Trump declared victory but Harris has yet to concede.
In his typical rambling speech, Trump pulled on some of the themes he used in his campaign, saying he is going to make the economy and the country great again.
“I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president,” he said.
“We’re going to help our country heal,” Trump said. “We’re going to fix everything about our country.”
The 2024 US presidential campaign has been a particularly volatile one. Security has been ramped up to unprecedented levels given concerns over possible civil unrest, election chicanery, or violence against election workers.
The states of Oregon, Washington and Nevada have activated the National Guard, with the Pentagon saying at least 17 states have placed a total of 600 National Guard troops on standby if needed.
Nineteen states have enacted election security enhancement laws since 2020, the National Conference of State Legislatures says.
In Washington, high metal fencing has been erected around the vice president’s residence and the White House, and some shopfronts have been boarded up.
The emergency measures follow the election chaos from 2020, particularly after Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021 aiming to halt certification of the election results that confirmed Joe Biden as the winner.
Under the complex American political system, the overall result is not decided by the national popular vote but the electoral college in which each state’s number of electors is weighed roughly by the size of its population.
Each candidate needs 270 votes in the electoral college to clinch victory, and the battleground is formed of those states where polls indicate a state could go either way.
If the previous election is anything to go by, it could take several days for the overall result to be announced.
Harris had faced criticism over her foreign policy experience. A draft of the Democratic Party platform for 2024 had also failed to provide answers on how she would deal with a raft of issues.
While Trump is a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of Israel, few expected a Harris administration to turn away from Israel.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not wait for the final results to be released, congratulating Trump and praising what he called “history’s greatest comeback” and a new beginning in the US-Israel alliance.
As for US-Iran relations, both Harris and Trump have expressed hardline views on the Islamic Republic, with Harris calling it the US’ “greatest adversary”.
In Europe, the prospect of a second Trump term has proved to be deeply unsettling for some, with the Republican repeatedly threatening to withdraw from NATO.
Reacting to the emerging results, the French government spokeswoman said Europe must be willing to take charge of its own destiny.
“We must not ask ourselves what the United States will do, but what Europe is capable of doing. In a number a key sectors — defense, industrial recovery, decarbonisation — we must take charge of our own destiny,” Maud Bregeon told the RTL broadcaster.
