CLEVELAND — Who is going to be the next president of the United States? Election results are still pending as the polls recently closed throughout Ohio at 7:30 p.m., and we now have a projected winner of the race in the Buckeye State.
Former President Donald Trump has won the state of Ohio for the third consecutive election, according to The Associated Press. It marks just the latest chapter in Ohio's shift from the ultimate swing state to being reliably red.
Trump was victorious in Ohio in each of the last two elections, and this time bested sitting Vice President Kamala Harris. In 2020, Joe Biden became the first candidate since John F. Kennedy in 1960 to win the presidential election without winning the Buckeye State.
Here's some more Ohio presidential trivia: No Republican has ever been elected to the presidency without winning Ohio. Democrats have been victorious in the presidential election without taking Ohio only eight times, including Kennedy and Biden.
Even without Ohio, Harris could still become the nation's first female president if elected and has promised to work across the aisle to tackle economic worries and other issues without radically departing from the course set by President Joe Biden. Trump has vowed to replace thousands of federal workers with loyalists, impose sweeping tariffs on allies and foes alike, and stage the largest deportation operation in U.S. history.
Harris and Trump entered Election Day focused on seven swing states, five of them carried by Trump in 2016 before they flipped to Biden in 2020: the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin as well as Arizona and Georgia. Nevada and North Carolina, which Democrats and Republicans respectively carried in the last two elections, also were closely contested.
The Associated Press and WBNS 10TV contributed to this story.
