Election 2024 live updates: Trump begins transition; three charged in alleged Iranian plot to kill the president-elect

The combined support of celebrities such as George Clooney, Taylor Swift, Beyonce and more couldn’t help Kamala Harris secure the presidency in Tuesday’s election.

A stream of A-listers from Hollywood and the music world all threw their weight behind the Democrat during the bitterly-fought campaign, in the hope that their millions of supporters and followers would move the needle.

But not even the endorsement of Swift seemed to make any difference. Nor did the backing of Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, or Ariana Grande. Harrison Ford warned of the threat to democracy to no avail.

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The lawsuit of Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick challenging provisional ballots in Philadelphia has been thrown out.

It’s a win for incumbent Democrat Bob Casey as he tries to catch up to McCormick.

The Associated Press has called the race for the Republican but Casey hasn’t conceded while he waits for thousands of ballots to be counted, including military/overseas and contested provisional ballots.

The election of Donald Trump was, despite everything, a sign of the health of the American democratic process. The Electoral College did not differ from the popular vote in any substantial way. The outcome will be the first since 2012 that won’t be disputed.

Everybody knows who won. The result clearly and unambiguously represented the will of the American people. Unfortunately, the American people have clearly and unambiguously chosen antagonism. They have voted for their own division. While Trump won the popular vote and the electoral college there is still a large part of the country who is appalled by their choice.

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Far-right Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has insisted that Donald Trump’s victory proves that she’s not a “fringe extremist” but instead part of “mainstream America.”

Elected to the House in 2020, Greene has made a name for herself as a conspiracy theorist backing the QAnon movement and farcically claiming that wildfires in California were caused by a “Jewish space laser.”

More recently, she has been lambasted for tweeting “Yes, they can control the weather ... Anyone who says they don’t, or makes fun of this, is lying to you.”

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The pundit’s much-watched Iowa poll, which showed Kamala Harris heading into Election Day with a surprise three-point lead, was one of numerous 2024 election forecasts that ultimately failed to predict the result.

In a post-mortem on Thursday, Selzer explained how she’s thinking through the discrepancy between what actually happened and what was forecast in the Des Moines Register/Mediacom survey of voting intentions in the Hawkeye State.

Josh Marcus has the story.

Margaret Atwood’s novel from 1985, recently filmed as a prestige TV series with Elisabeth Moss, presents a near-future dystopian society in which women are reared for the sole purpose of bearing children.

Sales of the book are now reportedly spiking in response to Trump’s election, as copies of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four were said to have done in reaction to his first term.

Maira Butt has more.

The bookmakers are already looking ahead to the next presidential election and see Trump’s running mate as his natural heir on the Republican ticket.

Perhaps less obviously, the consensus suggests that California Governor Gavin Newsom will be the man to mount the fightback next time around.

Kelly Rissman reports.