US Election: Trump projected to win Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia; Harris winning Vermont

Washington: The first results are coming in for the US presidential election with Republican leader Donald Trump projected to notch up wins in Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia and Vice President Kamala Harris winning Vermont.

Voting in these states ended hours earlier. Though projections are emerging from many other states, what everyone is eagerly waiting for is possible trends from the seven battleground states which will effectively determine who will become the next American president.

Trump is projected to win Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee as well while Harris is racing to emerge victorious in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Massachusetts.

Even if projections are coming in from some states, voting is still going on in certain other states.

The US has 50 states and most of them vote for the same party in every election except the swing states.

Generally, there is not much surprise over the candidates picking up victories in states other than the pivotal battleground ones.

Overall a total of 538 electoral college votes are up for grabs. A candidate with 270 or more electoral votes is declared winner in the election.

If both candidates register victory in all the states that historically support the same party, then it will leave Harris 44 electoral college votes short of victory and Trump 51 votes short.

In that situation, the 93 votes of the swing states will decide who the next American president will be.

The swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, known as part of the ‘Rust Belt’, have been traditionally the strongholds of the Democratic Party. However, Trump won the three of them in 2016. The states returned to the Democratic fold in the 2020 election.

Political experts said Harris will be the next US president if she wins the Rust Belt swing states.

The four swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina are called ‘Sun Belt’ with a total electoral college vote of 49.

The Republicans have a stronger support base in the Sun Belt states. Even if Trump wins all the four Sun Belt states, he will still require to win one more in Rust Belt.

If Harris wins the race, she will make history by becoming the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to become the US President.