President Donald Trump snatched the biggest electoral prizes of the night in the closing minutes of Tuesday, as he took Ohio and Fox News declared him the winner in Florida and Texas.
But Democrat Joe Biden scored the first takeaway of the evening as he was also given Arizona by Fox News, making the western battleground the first state to change hands from 2016.
The gain provided Biden a precarious path to victory even if he were to lose one of three Midwestern states with tight races that are part of his battle plan.
But that means the election now hinges on results which are certain to take well into Wednesday and probably even longer to be determined.
Keeping Ohio, Florida and Texas also suggested that polls had badly underestimated Trump’s support in the key battlegrounds – with some giving Biden double-digit leads with days to go, only for it to evaporate.
Ohio, with its 18 Electoral Votes, is a state Trump carried in 2016, but it represented an opportunity for Biden. He made a quick visit to Cleveland one of his final trips of the campaign.
Biden also eyed Florida as a prime electoral prize, but it was only a part of several electoral vote scenarios his team prepared to execute.
Having Florida and Ohio in his column handed the president key pieces of his 2016 successful electoral map – depriving Joe Biden of an early prize that would have sent a powerful signal had he won it.
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However, the AP and other networks stopped short of calling Florida for Trump, given the close margin, outstanding vote, and the state’s history of close and contested elections.
A Trump loss in Florida had been potentially devastating. Instead, he was on track to keep a state where public polls had Biden with a narrow lead. Trump made Florida, a regular battleground, his official residence after moving it from New York.
With three quarters of the vote in, Biden was leading Trump 54 to 45 in Arizona.
The projected victory means he can take away the state’s 11 electoral votes from the 306-vote coalition Trump assembled four years ago.
That means Biden now needs to win two of the three Midwestern states which Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 to get to 270 electoral college votes. But with Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin all saying that mail-in ballot counting is going to run into Wednesday and even later, that means there is no rapid resolution in sight.
Biden made Arizona a top target, hoping to bank on demographic changes there. He got another boost when Cindy McCain, widow of the late Arizona Senator John McCain, endorsed him and campaigned with him. John McCain has been a regular Trump target, and his vote in the Senate helped kill a GOP effort to repeal Obamacare.
With Florida out of reach, Biden could still look to North Carolina, but he was trailing Trump there with 95 per cent of the vote in. Trump also held a narrow lead in Iowa with 84% of precincts reporting. In Georgia, Trump was leading 53 to 45, with 80% of precincts reporting.
Adding to the confusion and drama of the evening, each state counted its votes differently – with some running through early votes quickly, and others starting with Election Day votes, and mail-in ballots continuing to be the wild card.
The first sign of trouble for the Democrat began with disappointing vote totals coming in from Miami-Dade County in Florida. Biden ran ahead of President Trump there – but was only up 53 to 46% with 95% of precincts reporting.
That wasn’t enough to match Hillary Clinton’s totals, and didn’t appear to be enough to offset Trump advantages in other rural parts of the state. It was a sign that Biden hadn’t done what he needed to do to lock down support among the state’s many Cuban-American, Venezuelan-American, and other Hispanic voters.