With more than 120 million votes counted, we’re that bit closer to finding out whether it’s Kamala Harris or Donald Trump who will succeed Joe Biden as president in January.
Victories for Mr Trump in the crucial southern battleground states of Georgia and North Carolina – worth 16 electoral votes each – significantly narrowed Ms Harris’s routes to victory.
She needs to win at least three of the five remaining state battlegrounds – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada – to take the presidency. Mr Trump can now win with just two of the larger ones.
The exit poll tells a story of America’s increasing division on party lines and the biggest issues facing the country, but slightly less so in terms of demographic indicators like race and age.
Black and Latino voters look to have backed the Republicans in higher numbers than at other recent elections, while white voters and older voters – particularly women – have moved closer to the Democrats.
The results in the remaining five battlegrounds plus a handful of other states are still outstanding.
Standings in states still to be declared
It’s important not to get too carried away by big leads in battleground states. In 2020 Trump led by almost 400,000 in Georgia with as much as 75% of the vote counted, but ended up losing. A similar reversal happened to Biden in North Carolina.
Results from counties that have finished voting skew heavily towards Mr Trump, however – the vote so far has swung towards him in 90% of counties that have counted more than 95% of their votes.
So far we know of 26 counties which have flipped between parties from their 2020 result. Twenty-three of these have favoured Mr Trump. Eight of these counties had voted Democrat at every election since at least 2000.
What does the exit poll tell us?
The election found the American public in an unforgiving mood.
The exit poll, carried out by Sky’s US partner NBC News, points towards a country that is dissatisfied with its current situation, although still very much divided on what the most important issues are.
Two-thirds of people consider the condition of the nation’s economy to be not so good or poor.
A remarkable three-quarters of people told the exit poll they felt dissatisfied or angry about the way things are going in the country.
And some 60% expressed disapproval of the Supreme Court, while a similar number of people disapproved of the way Joe Biden is handling his job as president.
Harris voters thought “democracy” was the most important issue behind their vote, while Trump supporters rated the economy and immigration higher. On both sides, only a few people made up their decision in the last month.
The exit poll also tells us that Mr Trump has lost support among some of his most reliable groups. Voters aged over 65 backed the Democrats this year, having favoured Mr Trump at the last two elections. He also lost support among white women and white non-college-educated people.
Harris’s polling lead was also down among some groups that had supported Biden most enthusiastically. There was a massive fall among Latino voters, but also among the youngest voters and women.
In a year in which abortion was also on the ballot in 10 states, these groups in particular were expected to be among Harris’s most solid groups of votes.
How are the abortion votes going?
As well as the election, voters in 10 states were also voting on whether there should be a right to abortion enshrined and protected in the local constitution.
Voters in New York, Maryland and Colorado have voted to establish that right.
Voters in Florida, however, narrowly failed to reach the 60% threshold required to pass the measure, although a majority of people did support the right. It was the only state that needed more than a simple majority to pass.
According to the exit poll, 92% of Democrat voters across the country believed that abortion should be legal, contrasted with 38% of Republicans.
As well as abortion, voters were also at odds with the former president on immigration – 56% of people believed that undocumented immigrants should be offered a chance to apply for legal status.
What about the Senate and the House?
The Democrats have lost control of the Senate. They had a 51/49 majority going into the elections and have lost two seats to Republicans so far, in Ohio and West Virginia.
Defending their majority would always have been difficult this year. The seats that were up were ones the party had won six years previously, at the “blue wave” midterm elections in 2018 – halfway through Trump’s first term.
The Republicans have also made one gain in the House, where they already had a majority. In the result of an electoral college tie, the House will pick the president.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
