Live Updates: Trump Likely to Win 2024 U.S. Election

ND (2:28 a.m. ET) The AP is also projecting that Donald Trump won Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral college votes, as well as Maine’s second district and its single electoral college vote. The former president is now just three electoral college votes away from securing a second term running the U.S.

ND (1:30 a.m. ET) Decision Desk HQ is projecting that Donald Trump has won Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral college votes. He is also expected to win Alaska (three electoral college votes) and Maine’s second district (one electoral college vote), potentially confirming him to a second term as president of the U.S. The AP has not yet called Pennsylvania, and shows that Trump has a roughly 225,000-vote lead in the state with 92% of votes counted as of press time.

ND (1:15 a.m. ET) Another swath of Fairshake-backed candidates have won their reelection bids, including New Jersey Democrat Josh Gottheimer, Texas Republican Monica De La Cruz, Texas Democrat Julie Johnson, Iowa Republican Zach Nunn, New York Democrat Thomas Suozzi, Wisconsin Republican Bryan Steil, Nebraska Republican Mike Flood and Montana Republican Troy Downing, per the AP. There is still no AP call for Senate candidates Elissa Slotkin (Michigan) or Ruben Gallego (Arizona), both Democrats backed by Fairshake.

As of press time, Republicans hold 184 seats in the House, while Democrats hold 159. Decision Desk HQ projected that Democrats would flip the House, similarly to how Republicans flipped the Senate.

In the presidential contest, Donald Trump holds 247 electoral college votes, winning Georgia and Nebraska’s first district. Kamala Harris holds 214 electoral college votes, winning New Hampshire.

ND (12:18 a.m. ET) The Republican Party has retaken the U.S. Senate after flipping a handful of seats in the evenly held body, raising hopes for comprehensive crypto legislation in the next Congress.

The Senate was composed of 50 Republicans, 47 Democrats and three independents during the last legislative term, though the independents caucused with the Democratic Party. Because the Democrats also controlled the White House during that time, they held the majority, with Vice President Kamala Harris acting as the tie-breaker on evenly split votes.

Republicans were expected to flip the Senate during 2024’s election, with a number of seats – including Montana and Ohio – predicted to turn red. Ohio, where Democrat Sherrod Brown lost his seat, and West Virginia, where Joe Manchin, an Independent who caucused with Democrats, retired.

With the Republican win, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) is likely to become the chair of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Development, letting him steer the agenda for at least some crypto legislation. During a panel talk in August, he floated the idea of a subcommittee focused on digital assets.

Democrats will need to choose a new leader for the committee after current chair Brown lost his reelection fight against challenger (and crypto fan) Bernie Moreno.

ND (12:10 a.m. ET) Democrat Adam Schiff will be the next Senator from California, AP projected earlier Tuesday night. Republicans have 50 Senate seats as of press time, with Wyoming’s John Barrasso keeping his seat. While the AP has not yet called Montana or Nebraska’s Senate races, it’s projecting a narrow Republican win in Nebraska for Debra Fischer, and Republican Tim Sheehy leads against incumbent Democrat Jon Tester in Montana. If either one of these races is called with its current project, Republicans will have an outright majority and flip the Senate.

As of press time, Donald Trump still leads in the electoral college with 230 votes. Kamala Harris has narrowed the lead somewhat, and now has 210 electoral college votes, after winning Colorado and New Mexico. Nebraska’s second district is also being called for Harris, as is Hawaii. Maine’s split electoral college votes have yet to be called by AP, and Nevada has not yet begun reporting. The first candidate to reach 270 electoral college votes will win the presidency.

JH (12:10 a.m. ET) As Election Day has turned into tomorrow, a couple more races went to crypto-backed future members of Congress. At last count, 31 of the Fairshake 58 had won their contests. The latest included Bob Onder, a Missouri Republican, Shomari Figures, a Democrat from Alabama and Representative Angie Craig, a Democrat from Minnesota. Tom Emmer, the Minnesota Republican who served as the House Majority Whip for the last two years, also easily won reelection. But several of the remaining races are close, leaving them more difficult for the Associated Press to declare a winner.

Democrat Brad Sherman, a vocal crypto skeptic, similarly won his reelection bid to represent California for another two years.

MH (11:45 p.m. ET): Polymarket now has 91% odds of Trump winning the popular vote, 95% of winning the election. Bitcoin is up 9% on a 24-hour basis to $74,651.88 after reaching a 24-hour (and all-time) high of $74,977.44.

ND (11:29 p.m. ET) Republican Bernie Moreno, a staunch crypto supporter and former blockchain entrepreneur, unseated Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, bringing the GOP just one seat away from flipping the U.S. Senate, AP projected Tuesday night.

Brown has run the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Development for the last four years, and while he’s held a number of hearings on crypto and crypto-adjacent issues, the lawmaker has not moved any legislation addressing the sector. He faced heavy opposition from the crypto industry, with the Fairshake super political action committee pouring $40 million into unseating him and supporting Moreno.

With his loss, Democrats will need to choose a new leader for their caucus on the committee. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), perhaps the archetype crypto skeptic in the Senate, has the seniority to take Brown’s spot.

In the presidential race, AP projects Donald Trump will win at least 230 electoral college votes, while Kamala Harris will win at least 187. Trump added Idaho and North Carolina to his running total, while Harris won Oregon, Washington and California, as well as Maine’s first district. Maine’s second district (one electoral college vote) and stateside vote (two electoral college votes), as well as Nebraska’s first and second districts (one electoral college vote each) have not yet been called.

JH (11:22 p.m. ET) Of the 58 candidates backed by the industry’s Fairshake PAC, the 24 contests that the Associated Press has called are all in the win column. That’s – so far – 12 Democrats and 12 Republicans. The latest names heading to or returning to the House of Representatives include five Democrats from New York: Timothy Kennedy, George Latimer and incumbents Daniel Goldman, Ritchie Torres and Ryan Patrick. Also in the Democrat column are Brittany Pettersen of Colorado, Johnny Olszewski of Maryland, Suhas Subramanyam of Virginia and Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, who’d won her primary contest by 39 votes after $1.4 million in crypto industry support. The latest Republicans to win were Tim Moore of North Carolina and incumbent Representative Dusty Johnson of South Dakota.

ND (10:45 p.m. ET) Utah has voted in John Curtis for Senate, AP projected. Curtis, a Republican Congressman who ran against Democrat Caroline Gleich, received around $2 million in support from Defend American Jobs, a political action committee affiliated with the Fairshake super PAC. As a congressman, Curtis voted in favor of the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, as well as a resolution that would overturn the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Staff Accounting Bulletin 121.

Rep. French Hill, a Republican on the House Financial Services Committee and the chair of its digital assets subcommittee, won reelection as well, per AP.

MH (10:15 p.m.) Prediction markets have flipped on the popular vote, with both crypto-based offshore platform Polymarket and regulated U.S. exchange Kalshi now calling it for Trump, at odds of 68% and 60% respectively.

ND (10:15 p.m.) Texas Senator Ted Cruz is projected to win reelection, leaving Republicans just three seats away from taking the majority in the Senate. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown remains in a tight race against Republican Bernie Moreno, while results in Montana, where incumbent Democrat Jon Tester faces longshot odds to keep his seat, have only just begun trickling in.

MH (10:10 p.m. ET) Bitcoin is up 8% on a 24-hour basis at $73,415.45 according to CoinDesk data and nearing its previous all-time high just shy of $73,8000, likely reflecting enthusiasm over positive early returns for Trump. Other data sources have BTC already past ATH.

JH (10:00 p.m. ET) The Fairshake 58, as predicted, are so far blazing their way into Congress with no losses yet among the races called by the Associated Press. The House of Representatives will get a lot of new names who received heavy crypto backing, plus the return of several incumbents with records of industry support, such as Representative William Timmons. The South Carolina Republican is a member of the House Financial Services Committee, the committee that’s made the most progress in crypto legislation, and has authored a bill himself. Other newly minted House members will be Wesley Bell, a Missouri Democrat, and Sarah McBridge, a Delaware Democrat. This marks the first dozen wins for Fairshake.

ND (10:00 p.m. ET) Utah and Montana are expected to support Donald Trump, the AP reported.

CL (9:40 p.m. ET) Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has been re-elected in New York. Gillibrand, along with Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) (who is not running for reelection in 2024) introduced a bipartisan stablecoin bill earlier this year and has been a strong supporter of the crypto industry.

ND (9:15 p.m.) The AP called Ohio and Texas for Donald Trump, growing his electoral college lead to 177 votes, versus Kamala Harris’ 99. The Ohio Senate race between Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican Bernie Moreno appears to be too close to call, and has been see-sawing between the two candidates all night. Roughly 51% of votes have been counted, with Moreno seeing a slight lead as of press time, AP said.

JH (9:05 p.m. ET) The wins keep coming in the Fairshake 58, with nine victories so far called by the Associated Press, including the first Democrat: Rob Menendez Jr. from New Jersey, the son of Senator Bob Menendez. The latest wins among Fairshake-backed Republicans include Riley Moore of West Virginia, Craig Goldman of Texas and Tom Cole of Oklahoma.

ND (9:05 p.m. ET) The AP has called Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, two of Nebraska’s districts and Louisiana for Donald Trump, bringing him to 120 electoral college votes. Kamala Harris is projected to win the state of New York, bringing her total to 99 EC votes.

ND (8:40 p.m. ET) The AP is projecting Kamala Harris won the states of Illinois, New Jersey and Delaware, adding to her electoral college total with 71 overall EC votes. Donald Trump is projected to win Arkansas, bolstering his electoral college lead by bringing it to 101 total votes.

JH (8:39 p.m. ET) Representative Andy Barr, a Republican from Kentucky, will keep his seat in the House of Representatives, bringing in almost two thirds of the vote in the ongoing tally on election night. That means he’ll likely stay in the running for taking over the gavel in the House Financial Services Committee if Republicans retain the House. Barr had put himself forward to replace the retiring Patrick McHenry to lead the committee that’s been the tip of the spear for crypto legislation in Congress. In this election, Barr had been among the 58 congressional candidates backed by industry PAC Fairshake, so the crypto sector has hopes for him. He’s among at least five early winners among the Fairshake candidates, with no losses on the board, yet.

ND (8:15 p.m. ET) Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, bête noire of the digital assets industry, kept her seat after facing a challenge from Republican (and crypto supporter) John Deaton in Massachusetts.

Warren, one of the most crypto-skeptical members of Congress, ran well ahead of Deaton, a consumer attorney perhaps best-known in crypto circles for his work with XRP holders in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s case against Ripple.

Deaton told CoinDesk in September that he expected the race to be close, though polling through October suggested he never ran less than 20 points behind Warren.

“This race is winnable,” he said at the time. “I believe that we’re going to be pleasantly surprised at how competitive this race is going to be.”

ND (8:10 p.m. ET) The Associated Press is projecting Donald Trump won the states of Oklahoma, Missouri, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina, while Kamala Harris won the states of Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Trump now has 95 electoral votes, to Harris’ 35.

In more local results, Republican Brian Jack will represent Georgia in the House of Representatives for the next two years. Jack received $1.3 million from Defend American Jobs, a political action committee affiliated with the Fairshake super PAC. In New Jersey, Democratic Congressman Andy Kim will succeed Senator Bob Menendez in representing the Garden State in the Congressional body.

Trump’s odds of winning the election have risen to as much as 70 cents on Polymarket, though had dropped slightly to 68.5 cents as of press time.

CL (7:42 p.m. ET) Republican Jim Justice has won a senate seat in West Virginia, replacing outgoing Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. Justice, the current governor of West Virginia, received over $3 million from pro-crypto super PAC Fairshake. He has previously said that he supports a “clear regulatory framework” for digital assets and is against the creation of a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC). His win brings Republicans one step closer to potentially flipping the U.S. Senate from Democrat control.

The Associated Press projected Donald Trump would win West Virginia’s electoral college votes, bringing his total to 23.

TC (7:40 p.m. ET) Bitcoin and Solana rise as Trump Polymarket odds in Georgia and Pennsylvania surge

BTC and SOL are up 1.7% in the last 30 minutes and trading at $70,800 and $170 respectively, possibly because of former President Donald Trump’s rising odds in the swing states of Georgia and Pennsylvania. Bettors on Polymarket now give Trump a 79% chance of winning Georgia, compared to 68% as of 6:25 p.m. ET, and a 58% chance of winning Pennsylvania, compared to 54%.

ND (7:05 p.m. ET) Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) won election to the U.S. Senate, AP reported just past 7:00 p.m. ET, and will succeed Sen. Mike Braun, who successfully ran for governor of the state. Banks, who defeated Democrat Valerie McCray, received $3 million in support from Defend American Jobs, a political action committee affiliated with the Fairshake super PAC.

The AP also said Sen. Bernie Sanders won reelection to represent the state of Vermont; Donald Trump is projected to win the electoral votes from Kentucky and Indiana, while Kamala Harris will win Vermont’s electoral votes.

Mark Messmer, an Indiana state legislator who received $500,000 in backing from Defend American Jobs, won election to the U.S. House representing the state.

TC (6:25 p.m. ET) WHAT’S POLYMARKET SAYING ABOUT THE SWING STATES?

Users of crypto betting site Polymarket seem to think that Trump has the advantage over Harris in a number of swing states.

As of around 23:40 UTC, the market is giving Trump 54% odds of winning Pennsylvania, a 68% chance in Georgia and in North Carolina, 56% in Nevada, and 82% in Arizona. Harris, meanwhile, is leading in Michigan with 61% odds of winning. The two candidates are tied in Wisconsin. At the time of writing, these markets each have between $9 million and $25 million in bets.

Polling aggregates from FiveThirtyEight show Harris and Trump neck-to-neck in Pennsylvania and Nevada, with Trump leading Harris in Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona. Harris has the advantage in Michigan and Wisconsin.

The Super Model’s analysis of top-performing Polymarket traders’ state-level bets has flipped. It now favors Trump to win the electoral college 281-257. Polymarket as a whole sees him winning 297-241.

The reversal “suggests early bits of data are good for Trump but not yet understood by the broader market,” where the signal has mainly stagnated, says trader Flip Pidot. “The battlegrounds have gone from showing Harris undervalued in 7/7 states to now just 4/7 (with Trump undervalued in Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania).”

CRYPTO LOOKING FOR A LIFT

Crypto is hoping for an post-election lift, because it’s been an ugly year for most major crypto assets so far. The CoinDesk 20 — an index of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, excluding stablecoins and exchange tokens — is up 12% on the year, that’s mostly thanks to bitcoin (BTC), which has gained 59%. Bitcoin is weighed at 31% in the index, while ether (ETH) is worth 20%. The fact that these two assets are up year-to-date means that the bloodbath suffered by most of the other cryptocurrencies in the index has been somewhat concealed.

Polygon (MATIC) has plunged 71% since the start of the year, despite the breakout success of betting website Polymarket, which is hosted on the blockchain. Cosmos (ATOM), polkadot (DOT) and avalanche (AVAX) — smart contract platforms that rose to prominence in 2021 — also performed badly, down 64%, 55%, and 41% each. Ether, of course, has disappointed expectations despite gaining its own spot exchange-traded funds, but at least the coin is up 6%.

The real winner of the year is dogecoin (DOGE), up 76% since December. It’s worth noting that the original memecoin put in most of that performance in the last couple of months; the coin began rising in early September alongside bitcoin and former President Donald Trump’s odds on Polymarket, just as Tesla creator Elon Musk ramped up his efforts to help Trump get re-elected.

JH (4:30 p.m. ET) FAIRSHAKE HAS MOVED ON TO 2026

If the crypto sector enjoys what Fairshake did with its mountain of money, the firms will probably like 2026, too. Of the $169 million raised in this cycle, officials of those affiliated political action committees said about $30 million was left over for the next congressional elections.

That $30 million paired with another $25 million promised from Coinbase Inc. (COIN) and a $23 million commitment from a16z — both said to be planned for the opening of the next cycle — will start the industry PAC off with a whopping $78 million for an election cycle that doesn’t even include a presidential race. The campaign-finance dominance from the crypto industry is only just beginning with Fairshake’s 2024 performance, it seems. Starting with the GMI PAC in 2022, the sector has a definite strategy toward a crypto-friendly U.S. Congress.

WHAT THE BIGGEST TRADERS ON POLYMARKET SAY

Flip Pidot, co-founder and CEO of American Civics Exchange, an over-the-counter dealer in political futures contracts … “curated a list of the top performing traders on Polymarket and built an electoral college forecast based on their bets alone. As of mid-afternoon Tuesday in New York, this “elite” model projects Harris will win 276-251, whereas Polymarket as a whole sees Trump winning 287-262.

DIVIDED CONGRESS MAY BE … GOOD?

The best way to get a good crypto bill at this point — meaning one that will last and stand up to party politics — would be if the chambers of Congress remained divided, as they are now, argued Jaret Seiberg, a longtime financial policy analyst in Washington.

“Divided government is likely the most important outcome for crypto as we believe that is what produces a bipartisan regulatory structure that will remain intact regardless of what happens in future elections,” he wrote in a note for TD Cowen clients. In this session that’s winding down, the Senate has been controlled (barely) by Democrats, and the House had a very narrow majority in the House of Representatives, leaving the two chambers in divided hands. Crypto legislation did manage to wind its way through the House for the first time, but it made no real progress in the Senate. If it had, it would have required a carefully negotiated compromise.

“That matters as we see policy stability as critical to the further development of the crypto sector,” Seiberg argued. A bill driven entirely by one side of the aisle becomes an easy target when the tables turn.

FINAL OUTCOME OF 2024 POLLING IS A SHRUG

Two of the most prominent U.S. polling-analysis operations – 538 and Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin — based in similar statistical and political modeling, both concluded after careful study that the outcome of the presidential election is … a total mystery. Both operations suggested Vice President Kamala Harris has an advantage so slight that it’s laughably unhelpful in the polling world, in which margins of error knock any meaning out of such a tight conclusion.

In a hundred election simulations run by 538, stirring in the witches brew of battleground analysis and economic conditions, she wins 50 matchups to former President Donald Trump’s 49. The other goes to an electoral-college tie, which favors Trump. In most scenarios, Harris easily wins the popular vote — an outcome without political meaning, thanks to the U.S.’s electoral-college approach to the election.

Nate Silver’s own secret sauce, he needed to stretch the decimal places to indicate the distinction: Of 80,000 final simulations run by his site, Harris won 50.015% of the time, to Trump’s 49.985%.

All seven battleground states have been so close that they’re within the polling’s margins of error, as well, leaving this closely examined contest a genuine coin toss, according to the analytical gurus.

FAIRSHAKE SET UP FOR A HAPPY ELECTION NIGHT

Crypto’s campaign-finance arm Fairshake drew so much attention in the 2024 elections, and for good reason, since the industry dominated the political donations scene with its $169 million war chest. But the Fairshake political action committee and its affiliate PACs — backed mostly by crypto firms including Coinbase, Ripple and a16z — devoted their spending to congressional races only, choosing not to get into the presidential contest. The outcome: The effort is almost guaranteed to pay off with at least a couple of dozen new members of Congress that crypto dollars helped into Washington.

And Fairshake made a careful division of its party giving (managing to anger both sides in the process). Its final list of 58 congressional candidates the groups supported included 30 Democrats and 28 Republicans. Many of those were already incumbents and crypto allies, but the PACs pursued a strategy during the primaries to help elevate crypto-friendly winners in districts in which their candidate’s party was strongly favored to win in the general. That way, the general election is meant to be a night of victorious news.

The same strategy worked for its earlier iteration, GMI, in the 2022 congressional elections.

CRYPTO’S OHIO RISK

Crypto PAC Fairshake’s biggest focus was in Ohio, where the PACs dedicated tens of millions to sink crypto skeptic Sherrod Brown, the state’s longtime Democratic senator, and lift blockchain entrepreneur Bernie Moreno, a Republican.

The industry arm took a controversial risk with this one. Sherrod Brown is the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, which will likely have a major hand in whatever crypto legislation clears Congress. If the Republican challenger doesn’t manage to knock Brown off, the crypto industry has cemented its antagonistic relationship with Brown as he keeps walking the Senate halls — a possibility that has some in crypto lobbying circles nervous.

However, this chess is definitely three-dimensional. Because the Senate is statistically more likely to swing into Republican hands in this cycle, the committee chair may be Senator Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina. And he’s recently come out as super excited about crypto. So, the industry might be able to clear a Senate bill without Brown’s support if the crypto industry fails to get Moreno into that chamber.

The U.S. crypto industry is waiting with bated breath for the results of the 2024 election.

Nearly $200 million from crypto-aligned political action committees has gone into supporting favored candidates, but some of the biggest races remain too close to guess who may win.

CoinDesk will cover the election results live over the coming day (or days, depending on how things go), with market commentary and up-to-the-minute alerts on major races we’re following – and how they may affect the crypto industry’s chances for legislation, regulatory updates and more across the coming months. The biggest race is obviously the U.S. presidential election, with Kamala Harris facing off against Donald Trump.

Polls begin closing on the east coast at 7:00 p.m. EST, but due to the tight nature of some of the races we’re following, we may not learn results immediately. Significant lawmakers running for reelection include Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democrat who runs the Senate Banking Committee, Elizabeth Warren, Jon Tester and Debra Fischer.

Read more: Here’s Why Today’s U.S. Election Matters for Crypto

The electoral map favors Republicans regaining the majority in the Senate. Similarly, Democrats are expected to regain the majority in the House of Representatives.

In the House, there’s an open question as to who will succeed retiring Congressman Patrick McHenry, who chairs the powerful House Financial Services Committee. A handful of Republican lawmakers are running to lead their party on the committee.

Crypto political action committees, including the Fairshake super PAC and its affiliated entities, Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress, have supported dozens of candidates across the House and Senate.

We’ll also be keeping an eye on the prediction markets, especially crypto-based betting site Polymarket. For the last few months, these markets have mostly favored Trump winning, although Polymarket has given him higher odds than U.S.-regulated exchange Kalshi and other platforms.

Right now, Trump is ahead by 23.4 points at 61.7% on Polymarket. An aggregate of eight prediction markets (plus Nate Silver’s forecast) built by trader Flip Pidot of American Civics Exchange gives Trump a more modest the lead with 16 points at 58.1%