TEHRAN, Nov. 06 (MNA) –Donald Trump won the battleground state of North Carolina on Tuesday, fending off a challenge from Kamala Harris, who was looking to flip the state and expand her pathways to 270 electoral votes.

The former Republican president had made stops to the state in each of the last three days of the campaign to deprive Harris of the pickup.

The Democratic vice president’s campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, told staff in a memo after polls closed that the “blue wall” of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin was now the Democrat’s “clearest path” to victory, according to a copy obtained by The Associated Press.

Polls were closed in additional battlegrounds — Georgia, Arizona and Nevada — but the results in all remaining swing states were too early to call.

A divided America was faced with a stark choice for the nation’s future Tuesday. Tens of millions of Americans added their ballots to the 84 million cast early as they chose between two candidates with drastically different temperaments and visions for the country.

Trump won Florida, a one-time battleground that has shifted heavily to Republicans in recent elections. He also notched early wins in reliably Republican states such as Texas, South Carolina, and Indiana. Harris won Virginia, a state Trump visited in the final days of the campaign, and took Democratic strongholds like New York, New Mexico, and California. Harris also won an Electoral College vote in Nebraska that was contested by Republicans.

SD/