Harris concedes, telling supporters ‘do not despair;’ Pa. Senate race could head to a recount; Harris campaign pushes back on Philly Dem chair's claims

When New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli went on Fox News in late October Oct. 29 and predicted New Jersey could go for Trump, Democrats in the blue state laughed him off. Most were so sure their state was true blue, they were spending their time volunteering in Pennsylvania.

But on Wednesday, after the state delivered New Jersey’s 14 electoral votes to Kamala Harris, but just barely, it was the state’s Trump supporters who were having the laugh. And making more bold predictions.

“I think New Jersey will be a swing state in 2028,” Matthew Diullio-Jusino, a Trump supporter who attended multiple New Jersey events leading up to election, said Wednesday. He blamed the state’s GOP leaders for not trying harder to win the state. “If they were supportive of President Trump we would have pushed him over the top. They just kind of wrote it off.”

Dressed in all black, Vice President Kamala Harris greeted a crowd at her alma mater of Howard University at 4:25 p.m. Wednesday as her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and her family sat in the crowd.

She walked out to Beyoncé's "Freedom."

"Let me say, I love you back. My heart is full today. Full of gratitude for the trust you've placed in me, full of love for our country, and full of resolve," she said.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign sharply criticized Philadelphia Democratic Party Chairman Bob Brady after he laid blame with them for lower-than-expected turnout in the city.

Brendan McPhillips, a senior adviser to the Harris campaign in Pennsylvania, said in a statement that their team “knocked more than two million doors in the weekend leading up to Election Day, which is two million more doors than Bob Brady’s organization can claim to have knocked during his entire tenure as party chairman.”

McPhillips added: “If there’s any immediate takeaway from Philadelphia’s turnout this cycle, it is that Chairman Brady’s decades-long practice of fleecing campaigns for money to make up for his own lack of fundraising ability or leadership is a worthless endeavor that no future campaign should ever be forced to entertain again.”

A stack of leftover Harris-Waltz signs was still outside Philly Cuts on Walnut Street in University City Wednesday afternoon as the barbers quietly did their jobs underneath a poster of former President Barack Obama.

The Black-owned barbershop has been a Democratic organizing hub since it opened in 1997, mobilizing canvassers from their upstairs office to help elect former Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf, current Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, and — mostly recently— Mayor Cherelle L. Parker.

When Vice President Kamala Harris visited Philly Cuts at the end of October to discuss her plans to create more job and home-buying opportunities, barbershop owner Darryl Thomas said it was “tremendous.”

As votes continued to be counted in Pennsylvania’s too-close-to-call U.S. Senate race, Republican Dave McCormick’s lead over Democratic incumbent Bob Casey Jr. on Wednesday afternoon fell below 0.5%, the trigger for an automatic recount under state law.

McCormick is now ahead by about 30,000 votes, or -.4%. But it’s far from certain that there will be a recount because McCormick could gain votes in future tranches and exceed the 0.5% threshold.

Cambria County, where McCormick is winning 57% of the vote, has only counted about a third of its ballots due to problems with its voting machines on Election Day.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy called Tuesday's results "sobering," including in New Jersey, where Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump by an unexpectedly slim 4.1 percent margin. He said the state would "fight to the death," any actions by the Trump administration "contrary to our values." Joe Biden carried the state by 16 points in 2020.

"It's a sobering moment. including in New Jersey," Murphy said at a news conference Wednesday. "We've been trying to war game this and do a post mortem and we still don't have all the answers."

He said his administration would seek to work cooperatively with Trump, as it had during the first three years of his first term, but said he was was also prepared to battle on issues of abortion rights, gun laws and mass deportations.

Hazleton Republicans are taking a victory lap that's more than a decade in the making.

The party's leader, former president Donald Trump, made significant gains in the majority-Latino city, winning it by 25 percentage points, solidifying a trend of a once reliable voting block for Democrats opting for the Republican options.

Trump only narrowly won the city in 2020 but even then, it was a sign that Republican messaging on the economy was reaching Latino voters— Hillary Clinton had won the city by 5 points only four years prior.

President-elect Donald Trump won Pennsylvania the same way he won much of the rest of the country: he grew his support in rural areas while tamping down on Vice President Kamala Harris’ advantage in urban and suburban Democratic strongholds.

All told on Wednesday morning, Trump was out-performing his 2020 margins in at least 65 of 67 Pennsylvania counties with results still being tabulated. With about 3% of the vote left to count, Trump received more statewide votes than any Republican candidate in history, a performance fueled by working-class voters, including in majority-Latino communities and Rust Belt areas.

He also appeared to be carrying bellwether counties that are closely divided, such as Erie and Northampton, which voted for President Joe Biden in 2020. And as of Wednesday morning, Trump was slightly leading in Bucks County, though thousands of ballots remain outstanding. If he clinches there, Trump would be the first Republican presidential candidate to win the county since 1988.

In East Passyunk Crossing, a neighborhood defined by its diversity, the disbelief, sadness, anger, uncertainty and excitement over the election was on full display.

Strangers comforted each other on the benches at the Singing Fountain park on Passyunk.

Johanna Passarelli, a pediatric nurse at CHOP, sat teary-eyed with her 10-month-old, Julian. Her older son was born through IVF, she said.

Philadelphia Democratic Chair Bob Brady blamed Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign for what looked like the lowest performance by a Democratic presidential candidate in the city in the last two decades and said he felt no responsibility for the red wave that descended on the state.

“They never dealt with us. They didn’t show us any respect. I never talked to the lady, and she’s the candidate,” Brady said of Harris.

As Democrats across the state grappled with the decisive victory for former President Donald Trump here, there was a lot of Wednesday-morning quarterbacking going on.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the former independent presidential candidate who withdrew from the race and threw his support behind Donald Trump in August, spoke with NPR’s Steve Inskeep on Wednesday about fluoride in drinking water and vaccines.

Trump has said that he plans to let Kennedy “go wild on health.” Kennedy is an environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist. In a video leaked in July, the two discussed anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.

Kennedy told Inskeep he didn’t know whether Trump would appoint him to a Senate-confirmed position, but said Trump has given him “instructions” on how to handle regulatory agencies and “the chronic disease epidemic.”

Neil Makhija, chair of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, said the county’s IT department set up a cybersecurity infrastructure that protected the county from over a million intrusion attempts into their network during Tuesday’s election, including 600,000 of those attempts originating from Russia and Bulgaria.

Makhija shared this information during a news conference in Montgomery County Wednesday morning where he applauded local leaders and officials for their efforts in running Tuesday’s election — including the 2,800 poll workers who he said managed the polls “without any major incidents.”

With 10,000 votes left to tabulate, Makhija also said the county is poised to hit a record breaking number of votes — about 518,000 — cast in Tuesday’s election.

In Hazleton's N. Wyoming St. corridor, where businesses with words like “sazon,” “sabrosura,” and other Spanish signage hint at the city's demographic makeup, Latinos rejoiced and chatted away about a Donald Trump victory Wednesday morning — even those who couldn't or didn't vote for him.

People like Carlos Pagan, 73, summed up his mood as being “contento,” the Spanish word for glad, when asked about the results.

Sitting on a stoop with several of his friends, the registered Democrat lamented voting for Vice President Kamala Harris, saying he sympathized with women.

As the U.S. Senate race remained too close to call, Philadelphia and its collar counties began wrapping up the vote-counting process.

Wednesday morning Bucks and Delaware Counties had finished counting the lion’s share of their ballots. Chester County still had about 10,000 ballots to count, Montgomery County had about 10,000 remaining, and Philadelphia had roughly 31,000 ballots outstanding.

Each county expects to finish tabulating ballots by the end of the day Wednesday.

It was the same as any other Wednesday morning at the intersection of Broad Street and Erie Avenue in North Philadelphia. People were still setting up card tables to sell sneakers and hair products along the business corridor, and Max’s Steaks had just turned on the “Open” sign to welcome customers.

The only indication an election had ever happened was a left over sign taped to a pole across from Erie Station. It had Vice President Kamala Harris lined up next to former President Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr., predicting Harris was about to join a legacy of groundbreaking Black leaders.

Some of the neighborhood’s Black men, however, were divided on whether the vice president was fit to take over the Oval Office.

In Philly’s Centro de Oro, there were mixed feelings the morning after the election. The people in the heavily Latino neighborhood expressed dismay, happiness and indifference.

Rafael Seda, 61, said he and his wife were shocked that Donald Trump had won. They both voted for Kamala Harris, and he said he was surprised that so many Latino voters cast their ballots for Trump.

“I don’t believe it,” he said. “I’m surprised.”

Vice President Kamala Harris called President-elect Donald Trump Wednesday to concede the race and congratulate him on his sweeping victory in Pennsylvania and across the country.

“President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke by phone earlier today where she congratulated him on his historic victory," Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement. "President Trump acknowledged Vice President Harris on her strength, professionalism, and tenacity throughout the campaign, and both leaders agreed on the importance of unifying the country.”

Harris is expected to speak later Wednesday around 4 p.m., according to the Washington Post. The campaign has not officially announced a time.

Here's a quick look at where key races stand as of early Wednesday morning.

President: The Associated Press has declared Donald Trump the winner of the presidential election. Trump's decisive victory in Pennsylvania ushered in a red wave across the state.

U.S. Senate: Republicans won control of the Senate. The Pennsylvania contest between incumbent Democrat Bob Casey and Republican challenger Dave McCormick remains too close to call.

In London, it was already late into the night when election results began coming in. As American eyes focused on Pennsylvania returns, Americans in London packed a Philadelphia-themed bar.

The Standard, a London-based news organization, reported from Passyunk Avenue bar in London, where Americans tuned into the results on Tuesday night into early Wednesday. The crowd included some with Philadelphia ties.

Philadelphian Harley Berry, 20, told The Standard she had voted for the first time. She said she saw Harris as “the lesser of two evils” and as someone who would “protect our democracy as well as minority rights.”

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) is narrowly trailing his Republican challenger Dave McCormick, but his campaign says he still has a path to victory.

“There are more votes that need to be counted in areas like Philadelphia and it’s important that every legal ballot will be counted,” Casey spokesperson Maddy McDaniels said. “When that happens we are confident the Senator will be re-elected.”

Casey is seeking a fourth term. McCormick, a veteran and former hedge fund CEO, is making his second run for office after losing in the GOP primary for Pennsylvania’s 2022 Senate race.

Republicans held on to their majority in the Pennsylvania Senate, fending off Democrats in several competitive races across the state to maintain control of the 50-seat upper chamber of the state legislature.

Democrats had been hoping for a "blue wave" to carry them to a voting tie with the GOP in the Senate.

The last time Democrats controlled the state Senate was in 1994.

Incumbent U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, who represents parts of the Lehigh Valley, has conceded to Republican challenger and state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie.

“There is no sugarcoating it: this is a bitterly disappointing outcome,” Wild wrote in a statement shared on social media. “I congratulate my opponent on winning this seat, and I am going to do everything to ensure a smooth transition, because the people of this district deserve nothing less.”

As of 9:20 a.m. Wednesday, the AP has yet to call the race for Mackenzie.

Ashley Ehasz, who lost her attempt to unseat U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (D., Pa) in Pennsylvania's 1st Congressional District, said in a statement Wednesday morning that "it's a dark morning in America," calling on Fitzpatrick to "stand up for our democracy and the hundreds of thousands of women he represents to protect our freedom."

Fitzpatrick has received 55.9% of the vote to Ehasz's 43.1% as of Wednesday morning. This was Ehasz's second consecutive bid to oust Fitzpatrick from his seat, which represents all of Bucks County and parts of Montgomery County.

Fitzpatrick, who has branded himself as a moderate Republican, ran a quiet campaign, avoiding the media and questions about whether he supporters Trump. In her rematch against the former FBI agent, Ehasz once again centered her platform on reproductive rights and tying Fitzpatrick to Trump, who won Pennsylvania early Wednesday morning, thanks in part to his lead in Bucks County.

Donald Trump has promised sweeping action in a second administration. Here's a look at what Trump has proposed:

Immigration

“Build the wall!” from his 2016 campaign has become creating “the largest mass deportation program in history.” Trump has called for using the National Guard and empowering domestic police forces in the effort. Still, Trump has been scant on details of what the program would look like and how he would ensure that it targeted only people in the U.S. illegally. He’s pitched “ideological screening” for would-be entrants, ending birth-right citizenship (which almost certainly would require a constitutional change), and said he’d reinstitute first-term policies such as “Remain in Mexico,” limiting migrants on public health grounds and severely limiting or banning entrants from certain majority-Muslim nations. Altogether, the approach would not just crack down on illegal migration, but curtail immigration overall.

While The Associated Press and other news outlets have declared Republican Donald Trump the winner of the presidential election, it will be a couple months before he officially takes office.

Once states certify their election results, electors will vote in their respective states on Dec. 17. Congress will meet to count those electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2025, a date now famous due to the assault on the U.S. Capitol in 2021 in an attempt to prevent this process from being completed.

Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, will be inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2025, and officially take office.

While Republicans have won both the White House and U.S. Senate, control over the House of Representatives has yet to be decided, with at least 57 races yet to be called.

To win a majority, either Republicans or Democrats would need to hold 218 seats. Five seats remain uncalled in California, while there are more key uncalled races in Michigan, Oregon, Arizona, Washington, and Alaska.

"House Republicans are playing a lot of defense here," wrote Punchbowl News reporters Andrew Desiderio and Max Cohen. "There’s still a lot of counting to go, so remain patient. But the trends are good for the GOP."

Former President Donald Trump will become the first presidential nominee in 132 years to regain the office after having been defeated for re-election.

The last person to earn that distinction was Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, who won the 1892 election over incumbent Republican Benjamin Harrison, who had ousted Cleveland four years earlier.

Cleveland actually won the popular votes — albeit very narrowly — in the 1884, 1888, and 1892 campaigns, but came up short in the electoral college in 1888.

Donald J. Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States, elevating one of the most polarizing political figures in modern political history back to the Oval Office.

Trump’s election follows his unprecedented felony conviction in a New York hush money trial and his survival of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump, the only president to face two impeachments, will return to office just four years after a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol.

The former — and future — president was projected as the winner in Pennsylvania and the nation, surpassing the 270 Electoral College votes needed to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris after a campaign in which Trump railed against an “enemy from within,” floated pardons for Jan. 6 rioters, and promised to conduct mass deportations.

Republicans on Tuesday rode a Donald Trump-marshaled red wave across Pennsylvania.

After months of pundits signaling the presidential contest could be the closest in years, the former and likely future president looked poised to win the state by largest margin in the last three elections.

He pulled more votes out of Philadelphia and the state than he had in 2020 and flipped two counties, bellwether Northampton and Monroe back to Republicans.

As of early Wednesday morning, Pennsylvania’s nationally watched U.S. Senate race between Democratic incumbent Bob Casey Jr. and Republican challenger Dave McCormick was still too close to call.

While Casey held a lead for much of the campaign, the race tightened in the final days.

Shortly after 11:30 p.m., Allegheny Republican Committee Chair Sam DeMarco told McCormick supporters gathered in Pittsburgh that he was “very encouraged” by the early results.

At the end of a campaign that may have set records for spending, irritating robocalls, text messages, and emails, and inescapable political commercials, it was understandable that some who cast ballots Tuesday expressed a certain electoral fatigue.

But on a balmy day that felt like it wandered in from late May, energized voters showed up early and in sizable numbers at polling places throughout the region, and in interviews left no ambiguity about why they were willing to endure the lines and compete for parking spaces.

They were choosing between presidential nominees Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, and former President Donald Trump, a Republican, both of whom were vying to make history: Harris as the first woman of color to be chief executive, Trump as the first former president in 132 years to regain the office after losing a bid for reelection.