Kamala Harris Wins CA But Loses U.S. To Trump In Presidential Bid

CALIFORNIA — Although Vice President Kamala Harris slid into an easy victory in California, cinching 54 electoral votes, it wasn't enough to beat out her opponent Donald Trump.

The Associated Press called the race for Kamala Harris in California at 8 p.m.

The outcome in the heavily Democratic state where Harris previously served as a U.S. senator and attorney general was expected. But she trailed in every battleground state to Trump, resulting in a profound loss for the Democratic Party, who once viewed her as their savior.

Harris called Trump on Wednesday to congratulate him on his victory and to concede, according to a senior advisor to the vice president, the AP reported.

On election night, as midnight approached on the East Coast, the Harris campaign turned off its projected broadcasts of CNN at its election watch party at Howard University. Just before 1 a.m., her campaign announced that she would not be speaking tonight but to expect an appearance from her tomorrow.

The cheers in the crowd had become less frequent as more results came in from battleground states showing a tight race or victories for Trump.

Meanwhile, Trump was winning Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, capturing three of the seven heavily contested battlegrounds and came within a few electoral votes of winning the presidency as it neared midnight on the West Coast.

Taking the stage at his own election part in West Palm Beach, Trump declared victory before the race had been called.

He said that he would “not rest until we have delivered the strong safe and prosperous America.”

“Every single day,” Trump said, “I will be fighting for you with every breath in my body.”

Some 22.6 million Californians were poised to cast their ballots through the mail and in person over the past several weeks and on Nov. 5, culminating in the decision to elect the next president of the United States of America.

(Scroll down to see Real-Time results on how California voted)

As the polls closed at 8 p.m., it was not yet clear if Vice President Harris would become the first woman to ever be elected U.S. president or if Trump will return to the White House to serve a second term after he was unseated in 2020 by Joe Biden.

As of 10 p.m., Trump had won the battleground states of Georgia and North Carolina, fending off Harris, who was hoping to flip the states.

Polls were closed in additional battlegrounds — Arizona and Nevada — but the results in all remaining swing states were too early to call.

Follow along below for real-rime election results for how Californians cast their ballots for the office of the president (be sure to refresh the page):

In 2020, 23 counties voted for GOP candidate Trump, garnering some 6.6 million votes statewide. But tipping the scales overwhelmingly were the 35 counties who voted for Democrat Joe Biden, who received more than 11 million votes in California that year.

Going back to 2016, 25 California counties swung red, gathering 31.5% of the state’s votes for Trump, but Hillary Clinton still won the state, grabbing 4,269,978 more votes than Trump, who became the 45th president of the U.S.

Although some California counties tend to flip between red and blue in some years, the state hasn’t handed its electoral votes to a Republican presidential candidate in more than 30 years, when Vice President George H.W. Bush was elected in 1988.

California has long been a democratic stronghold and was likely to back its own Harris, who hails from Oakland and had her uprising in state politics.

Voter Turnout

Voter turnout for the 2024 presidential election was expected to be high in this contentious election. There were 22,595,659 registered California voters as of Oct. 21, according to the Secretary of State.

In 2020, voters turned out in record-shattering numbers during the height of the pandemic. There were 22,047,448 registered voters and 17,785,151 total votes cast — 3,174,642 more votes than the previous record set during the November 2016 General Election, according to the state.

What’s more, there was a 80% turnout of registered voters that year, the highest since 1976. There was also a 70.1% turnout of eligible voting age population, the highest since the 1952 general election.