WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump was on the verge of clinching the presidency after winning Pennsylvania on Wednesday, leaving him just three electoral votes short of defeating Kamala Harris to secure his return to the White House.

Trump has 267 of the 270 delegate votes needed to win the Oval Office. A victory in Alaska or any of the battleground states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona or Nevada) would send the Republican former president back to the Oval Office.

Trump is ahead in Michigan and Wisconsin, where the two clearest paths to victory depend on Harris not getting enough votes in Wayne and Milwaukee counties. The Associated Press is awaiting updates from both districts to determine whether Harris has a path to beat Trump in either state.

Pennsylvania, part of a once reliable Democratic stronghold known as the “blue wall” along with Michigan and Wisconsin, was carried by Trump when he first won the White House in 2016 and then flipped back to Democrats in 2020. Trump also flipped Georgia, which voted Democratic four years ago and holds the closely contested state of North Carolina.

Trump’s gains sharply limited Harris’ path to victory.

“Every citizen, I will fight for you, for your family, for your future,” Trump told supporters at his campaign watch party in Florida early Wednesday.

Trump added that he would make people “very happy” and “very proud” with their votes.

“We have a country that needs help, and it needs help badly,” Trump said. “We will fix our borders. We will fix everything about our country.”

Trump will be the first former president to return to power since Grover Cleveland regained the White House in the 1892 election. He will also be the first person convicted of a serious crime to be elected president, and at 78, he will be the oldest person elected to the office. Vice presidential candidate 40-year-old Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance would be the highest-ranking millennial in the U.S. government.

Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in July by millimeters. Secret Service agents foiled a second attempt in September.

If elected, Trump will be subject to much less scrutiny in the White House as he plans to quickly implement a sweeping agenda that will change nearly every aspect of American government. The GOP’s onetime critics in Congress have largely been defeated or retired. Federal courts are now filled with judges he appointed. The U.S. Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-appointed justices, issued a decision earlier this year granting presidents broad immunity.

Harris, 60, will be the first black woman and person of South Asian descent to serve as president. He will also be the first vice president to win the White House in 36 years.

The crowd at the viewing party at Harris’ alma mater, Howard University in Washington, began to disperse after midnight after a top Harris ally sent her supporters home with no plans for the Democratic vice president’s speech.

“We will continue to fight throughout the night to make sure every vote is counted. “Everyone’s saying that,” said Cedric Richmond, co-chairman of the Harris campaign. “So you won’t hear from the vice president tonight, but you will hear from him tomorrow. He’ll be back here tomorrow.”

Trump also won Florida, a one-time battleground state that had shifted heavily to Republicans in recent elections. He also scored early victories in reliably Republican states like Texas, South Carolina and Indiana. Harris won Virginia, a state Trump visited in the final days of the campaign, and captured Democratic strongholds such as New York, New Mexico and California.

Trump’s campaign argued that this would diminish Democrats’ traditional strength with Black and Latino voters, with the former president releasing male-centered podcasts and making overtly racist appeals to both groups. Nationally, Black and Latino voters appeared slightly less likely to support Harris than they were to support Joe Biden four years ago, and Trump’s support among those voters is up slightly from 2020, according to AP VoteCast.

The fate of democracy appeared to be the primary driver for Harris’ supporters, according to the sweeping poll of more than 110,000 voters nationwide; It was a sign that the Democratic candidate’s persistent messaging accusing Trump of being a fascist in the closing days of his campaign may have succeeded. . It also resulted in a country mired in negativity and desperate for change. Trump’s supporters were largely focused on immigration and inflation; two issues the former Republican president has focused on since the start of his campaign.

In another positive sign for the GOP, the party took control of the Senate after Trump-backed Bernie Moreno unseated the seat in Ohio that Democrat Sherrod Brown had held since 2007. Republican Jim Justice picked up another seat when he won the open seat in West Virginia. It’s about Senator Joe Manchin’s retirement.

Those who cast ballots on Election Day experienced a mostly smooth process; There were regular reports of isolated disruptions, including long queues, technical issues and ballot printing errors. Federal election security officials said there were minor disruptions throughout the day but there was no evidence of any impact on the election system. Authorities determined that none of the bomb threats reported in multiple states were credible and did not affect voters’ ability to vote.

Voters across the country are also considering whether the Supreme Court will decide Roe v. in 2022. In response to the decision to overturn the Wade case, Congress was also deciding thousands of other races that would decide everything from control to state ballot measures on abortion access.

In Florida, a ballot measure protecting abortion rights in the state constitution failed because it failed to pass the 60% threshold; This marks the first time a measure protecting abortion rights has failed since Roe was overturned. Earlier Tuesday, Trump refused to say how he voted for the measure and lashed out at a reporter, saying, “You’ve got to stop talking about this.”

In reliably democratic New York, Colorado, Nevada and Maryland, voters approved ballot measures to protect abortion rights in their state constitutions.

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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in Palm Beach, Florida, Darlene Superville and Eric Tucker in Washington, Manuel Valdes in Las Vegas and Marc Levy in Allentown, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.

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