WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is projected by multiple U.S. media outlets early Wednesday morning to win North Carolina and Georgia -- two of the seven key swing states, as votes continue to be counted across the country.
With 16 Electoral College votes, North Carolina is the first of seven battleground states with a clear outcome. At least 270 Electoral College votes are needed to win the presidency.
North Carolina has been a red state in recent years, except in 2008, when Barack Obama narrowly flipped it. Trump won the state both in 2016 and 2020.
Trump won Georgia's 16 Electoral College votes in 2016 before the state narrowly shifted to Joe Biden in 2020.
With Trump on track to take North Carolina and Georgia, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris will probably need to secure all three "Blue Wall" states -- Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin -- to clinch victory. Trump flipped these three states in 2016, while Biden reclaimed them in 2020. Votes in these three states are still being counted.
Meanwhile, Trump has been projected to win traditionally red states such as Ohio, Texas and Florida, while Harris has been projected to win traditionally blue states such as California and Colorado.
Forty-eight states and Washington, D.C., allocate all their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the state's popular vote. Nebraska and Maine, however, distribute two electoral votes to the statewide winner and one electoral vote to the winner of the popular vote in each congressional district.
Several U.S. media outlets projected that the Republican Party would regain control of the U.S. Senate early Wednesday after flipping two seats from the Democratic Party. The Republicans won seats in Ohio, where Bernie Moreno triumphed, and West Virginia, where Jim Justice emerged victorious.
This election is widely regarded as one of the most divisive in American history. According to an annual survey recently released by the American Psychological Association, over 70 percent of U.S. adults expressed concern that the election results could lead to violence.
Earlier on Tuesday, U.S. Capitol Police reported that officers arrested a man who attempted to enter the Capitol building, reeking of fuel and carrying potentially dangerous devices.
U.S. federal and local officials also confirmed Tuesday that none of the multiple bomb threats sent to polling sites in several states were credible. Local media reports indicated that fake bomb threats were received in swing states such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin -- states whose results have the potential to influence the final outcome of the presidential election. ■