MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace whined "you can feel the hopes and the dreams of our viewers falling down" as Donald Trump won Florida.

The Sunshine State was widely considered a must-win for the president its 29 Electoral college votes are seen as pivotal in the too-close-to call contest.

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Wallace, hosting the network's Election Day coverage, earlier expressed fears things weren't going to plan for Joe Biden – tipped by some pollsters to win the overall race by a landslide.

Florida is a state "that has been increasingly difficult for Democrats to win in statewide,” she told the station's assembled political experts.

“You can feel the hopes and the dreams of our viewers falling down, and you can hear liquor cabinets opening all across this great land," Wallace added. 

She then said: "But Florida wasn’t a state the Biden campaign was counting on…Florida wasn’t a state essential to a Biden win.”

What we know so far:

• Joe Biden campaign says he will win today as Democrats take lead in Wisconsin and Michigan
• Trump baselessly claims election hit by "major fraud" in national address and "surprise ballot dumps" on Twitter
• President says "as far as I’m concerned, we already have won it" and suggests he will go to Supreme Court
• Biden team condemns comments as "outrageous, unprecedented and incorrect"
• Both candidates still have path to the White House hinged on Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin
• Pollsters wrong again as Trump defies expectations winning battleground states Ohio and Florida
• Ugly scenes as BLM & Antifa mobs clash with cops outside White House

On NBC News, correspondent Andrea Mitchell hinted Biden's defeat was due to Trump branding him a "socialist." 

"The real problem, I think, early on is labeling Joe Biden as a socialist," Mitchell said.

"And the fact that the Biden campaign was very slow to respond to that. Also [the Biden campaign] didn't canvass because of COVID, they were not canvassing.

"The Trump campaign has been canvasing Florida for three years. The Biden campaign only came in recently.

"That's why they sent Barack Obama twice in just the past couple of weeks. And, in fact, it may not be enough to overcome that advantage at all."

Trump led Biden by 51.2 per cent to 47.8 per cent with 96 per cent of the expected votes counted.

The Democrats made Florida a key 2020 battleground, and opinion polls had shown Biden edging level or ahead.

But the Trump campaign claimed victory there after reports showed him capturing swaths of the Latino vote which had previously been loyal to Democrats.

"President Trump wins Florida," the campaign tweeted in the early hours.

For months there were complaints from Democratic Latino activists that Biden was ignoring Hispanic voters while favoring Black voters in big Midwestern cities.

Biden's campaign team disputed this but in the weeks leading up to the election, opinion polls in key states showed him underperforming with Latinos.

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