Image source, Reuters

High-profile Republican Senator Ted Cruz looks set to retain his seat in Texas, according a projection by the BBC's US partner CBS News.

The Democrats had targeted this as a possible gain and the race was more competitive than many had expected, but Cruz appears to have held on.

He spoke to supporters a short while ago, where he said it was an "incredible night" and a "decisive victory".

Carl Nasman
Reporting from Wisconsin

Image source, BBC News

We are at Democratic senator Tammy Baldwin’s election night party in Madison, Wisconsin.

A cheer went up in the room when early results flashed on the large TV screen here, showing Baldwin leading against her Republican challenger Eric Hovde. Similar early tallies have Harris narrowly leading statewide.

But moments later the state’s Lieutenant Governor, Sara Rodriguez took the stage with a bit of a reality check.

"Let me level with you: we likely won’t see (final) results until much later," she said. "This is normal. This is what we expect in Wisconsin."

Rodriguez further noted that there are still people waiting to vote in Wisconsin.

The Baldwin campaign tells me they are settling in for a long night - with final vote counts potentially arriving past midnight.

Let's give you an update on how things are shaping up in the battleground states of North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Both states closed polls in the last few hours - here Christian Fraser drills in to the latest data and how it compares to previous US presidential elections.

John Sudworth
Reporting from Georgia

With more than 90% of the vote in, it's increasingly looking like a tough challenge for Kamala Harris to hang onto Georgia.

With Donald Trump still three percentage points ahead, she'll need to do very well with the remaining urban votes yet.

We may be some way yet from this state being called, but excitement is building at this GOP watch party and there's a strong feeling it's going their way.

Kansas, the Sunflower State, is mostly made up of vast and flat prairie, though the suburban eastern part of the state is slightly more hilly.

It is reliably Republican in presidential contests but has a Democratic governor. It was the first state to enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution via ballot referendum after the right was struck down nationally in 2022.

Nadine Yousif
Reporting from Washington, DC

We're now checking in with Pennsylvania, where more than half of ballots have been counted so far.

Donald Trump is currently leading in the votes already counted, with Kamala Harris trailing slightly behind.

With a total of 19 electoral college votes - the largest of all battleground states - Pennsylvania is seen by some pundits as the one of the larger prizes for this election.

Trump won the state by a narrow margin of 0.72% in 2016. Joe Biden reclaimed the state four years later in 2020 by a small margin of 1.17%.

The state is still too close to call. Counting in Pennsylvania tends to be slower, in part due to laws that don't allow processing of mail-in ballots until Election Day. Determining a winner in this highly-competitive state could take several days, as it did in the 2020 election.

Iowa’s iconic State Fair gets a lot of political attention - the Democratic and Republican parties tend to hold their first primary contests in this overwhelmingly white Midwestern state, where the film Field of Dreams is set.

Nadine Yousif
Reporting from Washington, DC

Right now, Donald Trump looks to be ahead in three out of six battleground states where results are being reported so far: Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris is ahead in Michigan, though only 19% of the votes in that state have been counted so far, and Arizona, where half of the votes have been counted. She is also ahead in Wisconsin.

Trump won North Carolina in both 2016 and 2020, while Joe Biden had picked up the rest of the battleground states in 2020, albeit by narrow margins.

None of the battleground states have been projected so far, meaning it is still too close to call, and these leads are rapidly changing by the minute.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from Pennsylvania

I'm currently at a Republican Party watch party in Allentown, a majority Latino city in Pennsylvania.

The attendees at the party - which was organised by House candidate Ryan Mackenzie and his campaign - are going into election night feeling extremely confident, bolstered by early results in Donald Trump's favour. It's all smiles from the quickly growing crowd as they sip on gin and tonics and beer.

Among those who like Trump's odds are Chadd Horton, a resident of Lehigh County who actively campaigns on behalf of Republican candidates in the state.

"I think you're going to see, locally (in Pennsylvania) and nationally, a red wave," he tells me. "I'm pretty confident. It's because the economy has been so bad over these four years."

The next few days, he expects, may be messy across Pennsylvania and other battleground states.

"We're going to see a lot of contested results," he adds. "But overall, we're doing well."

Holly Honderich
Reporting from Kamala Harris's watch party in Washington, DC

Image source, Reuters

Jerry Patterson walked into the Howard Yard watch party with his eyes glued to his cell phone, watching a live stream of the election results as they trickled in.

"I’m really anxious," he said. "But cautiously optimistic."

Patterson, dressed in an all-green track suit covered in Kamala Harris pins, joined an enthusiastic crowd packed into the Yard for the vice-president’s watch party. Supporters danced and sang to songs by Uber and Beyoncé as CNN’s election night feed played out on massive screens around the field.

Music blasting from the speakers was momentarily drowned out by deafening cheers as the feed showed Harris up in early returns from battleground states Michigan and Pennsylvania.

"I know there's been a lot of work on the ground, and it’s so good to see it pay off," said Harris supporter Danielle Sydnor.

"We hope that things turn out well," Patterson said, naming democracy and women’s reproductive rights as his two most important issues. And he said Harris had earned the country’s top job, after three months making her case and laying out her agenda. "If people don’t understand it, that’s because they don’t want to hear."

Colorado - where the majestic Rocky Mountains are located - had been considered a so-called “purple” swing state for decades, but has become solidly blue for the Democrats in recent cycles. It was the first state to legalise recreational marijuana in 2012.

The BBC's US partner CBS News has projected that the Senate race in Montana is leaning Republican, and at this time favouring Tim Sheehy against his Democratic opponent Senator John Tester.

This result would give Republicans their second flip of the night, potentially handing them a majority in the Senate - if they do not lose any seats they currently hold.

Earlier in the night, Republican Jim Justice won the Senate race in West Virginia.

Democrats are still defending a handful of other seats tonight.

Correction: this post earlier incorrectly stated that the race had been projected as a win for Sheehy.

The BBC's US news partner CBS has projected Donald Trump will win the state of Mississippi, which has six electoral votes.

The Mississippi Delta - the northwest part of the state - is known as the birthplace for blues music. The southern state reliably votes Republican.

It's just after 22:00 EST (03:00 GMT), and polls are now officially closed in three more states: Montana, Utah, and the final battleground state of Nevada.

We're checking back in with Georgia, where nearly 80% of the votes have been counted so far.

The gap between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris is narrowing, though Trump is still ahead with 51.9% of the vote.

Results in Georgia are coming in quickly compared to other states because their law allows election officials to begin counting mail ballots at 07:00 local time on election day, well before polls close. These mail-in ballots have traditionally favoured Democrats, though Trump appears to have had a favourable showing so far.

All in all, the state remains too soon to call. It's good to remember that in 2020, Biden won Georgia by a narrow margin of just 0.23%.

Katty Kay
US special correspondent

Democratic strategists I’ve been hearing from are – much like all of us – watching and waiting for any possible signs of breakthrough in the key swing states.

People in the Harris team are still showing signs of confidence, though some are gearing up for a long night.

Some advisors acknowledge that even as we wait for results from the key states of North Carolina and Georgia, Harris's best path to victory still lies in the blue wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania — where we may not have results for hours (if not days).

Nadine Yousif
Reporting from Washington, DC

We’re nearing the finish line now, with polls closed in more than 40 states (and the District of Columbia) out of 50.

Projections will come quickly in the next hour, but some states will take longer to count than others.

Nevada, in particular, could take days before it reports its final results. Elections there are primarily conducted by mail, and counting will continue until Saturday for ballots that have arrived late but were postmarked by Election Day. The state also does not release any vote results until the last voter in line casts their ballot.

In the meantime, we’re getting a clearer picture of how Americans have voted on abortion-related questions in 10 states across the country.

In Florida, a ballot to protect abortion rights has failed, while votes are still being counted in Nebraska, where two competing abortion-related measures are on the ballot (one enshrining access until the first trimester, while another for longer until foetal viability).

Besides abortion, watch out for some key House of Representatives races in Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska and New York that could reshape who holds control of the lower chamber of Congress. The House is currently narrowly held by Republicans, and all 435 seats are up for re-election.

Coming up at 22:00 EST (03:00 GMT), polls will close in three more states, including the final battleground state of Nevada.