Donald Trump was elected president, capping a remarkable comeback four years after he was voted out of the White House and ushering in a new American leadership likely to test democratic institutions at home and relations abroad.
Trump, 78, recaptured the White House on Wednesday by securing more than the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency, Edison Research projected, following a campaign of dark rhetoric that deepened the polarization in the country.
The former president’s victory in the swing state of Wisconsin pushed him over the threshold. As of 5:45 a.m. ET (1045 GMT) Trump had won 279 electoral votes to Harris’ 223 with several states yet to be counted.
He also led Harris by about 5 million votes in the popular count.
“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Trump said early on Wednesday to a roaring crowd of supporters at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in Florida.
Trump’s political career had appeared to be over after his false claims of election fraud led a mob of supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a failed bid to overturn his 2020 defeat.
But he swept away challengers inside his Republican Party and then beat Democratic candidate Kamala Harris by capitalizing on voter concerns about high prices and what Trump claimed, without evidence, was a rise in crime due to illegal immigration.
Harris did not speak to supporters who had gathered at her alma mater Howard University. Her campaign co-chair, Cedric Richmond, briefly addressed the crowd after midnight, saying Harris would speak publicly later on Wednesday.
“We still have votes to count,” he said.
Republicans won a U.S. Senate majority, but neither party appeared to have an edge in the fight for control of the House of Representatives where Republicans currently hold a narrow majority.
Jobs and economy
Voters identified jobs and the economy as the country’s most pressing problem, according to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polls. Many Americans remained frustrated by higher prices even amid record-high stock markets, fast-growing wages and low unemployment. With the administration of President Joe Biden taking much of the blame, a majority of voters said they trusted Trump more than Harris to address the issue.
Hispanics, traditionally Democratic voters, and lower-income households hit hardest by inflation helped fuel Trump’s election victory. His loyal base of rural, white and non-college educated voters again showed up in force.
Trump prevailed despite persistently low approval ratings. Impeached twice, he has been criminally indicted four times and found civilly liable for sexual abuse and defamation. In May, Trump was convicted by a New York jury of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star.
His victory will have major implications for U.S. trade and climate change policies, the war in Ukraine, Americans’ taxes and immigration.
His tariff proposals could spark a fiercer trade war with China and U.S. allies, while his pledges to reduce corporate taxes and implement a spate of new cuts could balloon U.S. debt, economists say.
Trump has promised to launch a mass deportation campaign targeting immigrants in the country illegally.
He has said he wants the authority to fire civil servants he views as disloyal. His opponents fear he will turn the Justice Department and other federal law enforcement agencies into political weapons to investigate perceived enemies.
A second Trump presidency could drive a bigger wedge between Democrats and Republicans on issues such as race, gender, what and how children are taught, and reproductive rights.
Harris falls short
Vice President Harris fell short in her 15-week sprint as a candidate, failing to galvanize enough support to defeat Trump, who occupied the White House from 2017-2021, or to allay voters’ concerns about the economy and immigration.
Harris had warned that Trump wanted unchecked presidential power and posed a danger to democracy.
Nearly three-quarters of voters say American democracy is under threat, according to Edison Research exit polls, underscoring the polarization in a nation where divisions have only grown starker during a fiercely competitive race.
Trump ran a campaign characterized by apocalyptic language. He called the United States a “garbage can” for immigrants, pledged to save the economy from “obliteration” and cast some rivals as the “enemy within.”
His diatribes were often aimed at migrants, who he said were “poisoning the blood of the country,” or Harris, whom he frequently derided as unintelligent.
Despite legal woes and controversies, Trump is only the second former president to win a second term after leaving the White House. The first was Grover Cleveland, who served two four-year terms starting in 1885 and 1893.
Unprecedented Campaign
In May, Trump was convicted by a New York jury of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star. Two months later, a would-be assassin’s bullet grazed his right ear during a campaign rally, exacerbating fears about political violence. Another assassination attempt was thwarted in September at his Florida golf course. Trump blamed both attempts on what he claimed was the heated rhetoric of Democrats including Harris.
Barely eight days after the July shooting, Biden, 81, dropped out of the race, finally bowing to weeks of pressure from his fellow Democrats after a poor performance during his debate with Trump called into question his mental acuity and the viability of his reelection bid.
Biden’s decision to step aside turned the contest into a sprint, as Harris raced to mount her own campaign in a matter of weeks, rather than the typical months. Her rise to the top of the ticket reenergized despondent Democrats, and she raised more than $1 billion in less than three months while erasing what had been a solid Trump lead in opinion polls.
Harris’ financial advantage was partly countered by the intervention of the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who poured more than $100 million into a super PAC mobilizing Trump voters and used his social media site X to amplify pro-Trump messaging.
As the campaign drew to a close, Harris increasingly focused on warning Americans about the perils of reelecting Trump and offered an olive branch to disaffected Republicans.
She highlighted remarks from several former Trump officials, including his former chief of staff and retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, who described Trump as a “fascist.”
Trump’s victory will broaden the fissures in American society, given his false claims of election fraud, anti-immigrant rhetoric and demonization of his political opponents, said Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University who studies voter behavior and party politics.
A Trump Second Term
Trump has vowed to reshape the executive branch, including firing civil servants he views as disloyal and using federal law enforcement agencies to investigate his political enemies, violating what has been a longstanding policy of keeping such agencies independent.
During his first term, Trump’s most extreme demands were sometimes stymied by his own cabinet members, most notably when Vice President Mike Pence refused to block Congress from accepting the 2020 election results.
Once the 2024 vote is certified by Congress on Jan. 6, 2025, Trump and his vice president, U.S. Senator JD Vance, are due to take office on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20. Throughout his two-year-long campaign, Trump has signaled he will prioritize personal fealty in staffing his administration. He promised roles in his administration to Musk and former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., both avid supporters.
SOURCE: Reuters
Sanity has returned to American politics.
Of course 75% of Caribbean people and 100% of our elites will lament the victory of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States. But that was expected.
The collective dissonance of our people in the face of our support for progressive, liberal woke policies over the past 50 years is frightening.
We as nations are doomed to be one step away from a Haitian type nightmare because of the support of pandering Left wing policies that have left us with creaky economics, broken families, excuse making for failures, rampant corruption, poor work ethic, some of the highest murder rates in the world, a drugged young male population and elites with no answer to any of our massive problems.
All the conservative answers required to make our societies great are rejected outright by our Leftist politicians because to do so would require them to actually think, developed plans , work, face hard choices rather than just hand back taxpayers money while helping themselves, family and friends with the most.
The irony is that in the next four years we will reap the benefits of a Trump Presidency even as we rail against his taking up of office and continue to wallow in the mediocre low grade Far Left economies and intellectual void that have perpetuated in the Caribbean for the past 50 years.
The criminal conman has won again, such a shame. Lots of smooth brains incoming.
@Oh Really
YOu sure got the ball rolling repeating this garbage.
@Anonymous November 6, 2024 At 9:29 am
Applause to you. Human Civilization was built on conservative leaning values: family, enforcement of rules, freedoms of conscience, discipline. Yet this woke cancer was allowed to develop and metastasize. Kids have become wind socks and are being groomed into this contrarian view of humanity. Defund the police and let society descend into anarchy. Embrace censorship and let our government nannies overtake out lives. This is the crap the Americans voted against. Kudos to them.
Looking back, in 2016 he went up against a woman ( Hilary Clinton) and won.
He ran against a man in 2020 (Joe Binden) and lost.
In 2024 he ran against a woman (Kamala Harris) and won.
He will automatically win when it is a woman he is running up against.
@Allan you a$$****, please find and show me at least one case where Kamala Harris has been investigated for a crime. Trump has been investigated and charged dozens of times in his lifetime, you can repeat that bullshit that the system is out to get him but where there is smoke there is fire.
Stupid Christian Americans voted for a man who cheated on his current wife while she was pregnant with a p0rnstar. They chose to learn a lesson the hard way yesterday and I hope he implements every demented idea he has in mind come January, every single thing.
Give Israel the bombs to continue killing innocent people.
Tell Ukraine to give Russia a large part of their country after killing so many of their citizens, see how that will go.
Go ahead, enjoy the victory and all of the progress over the last 4 years.
The morally corrupt brainwashing of our people by self serving mainstream media and the clueless acceptance of that ‘washing of the brain’ by our people is a sight to behold.
The Biden/Harris corrupt administration with the full support of the evil elite bureaucracy (DC Swamp) politicised the DOJ , the FBI, CIA and judiciary to go after Trump.
All Americans know that. The good Americans were appalled which is one if the reasons they voted for him. The deluded Leftists cheered ans applauded this gutting of these institutions for political reasons.
This is a perfect example of why under Leftists, progressives, woke administrations that the integrity of all our institutions get broken down.
As in St Lucia with our internal security, health system, civil service and family structure.
We are now aware of the fraud and are leaving the primitive Neanderthals behind.
Oh really you really showing off your ignorance. Zionists have been killing Palestinians for a very long time. Long before Trump was president. Biden has sent billions in weapons to Israel to continue this genocide.
In 1990 the US promised the USSR they would not expand NATO one inch eastward on the dissolution of the USSR. They violated that time and again (https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/wgtgma5kj69pbpndjr4wf6aayhrszm). Furthermore Biden and his son are deep in the Ukraine corruption (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA–dj2-CY) and under the cookie monster Victoria Nuland instigated a coup, overthrowing their elected leader and setting in motion the events going on today (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV9J6sxCs5k). Most of the lands annexed by Russia have a majority Russian speaking population and have always been allied with Russia. They merely sought independence after the coup and the desire to rejoin with Russia. That was denied to them. They were massacred (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eBFyYLvrrk)
There is an old proverb: “If you have nothing valuable to say be quiet”. Now shut up and stop highlighting to the entire world the ridiculously low IQ of some people in this country.
Money, dictatorship, lack of education, lack of moral values, history of sexual assaults, adultery, ripping of the US IRS by not paying the appropriate taxes due-while average citizens who earn peanuts are required to pay along with penalties, indictments, attacking immigrants (while hiring them for cheap labor to build, garden, etc.) current wife an immigrant unable to speak proper English, attacking Haitians, attacking Puerto Ricans, naming islands as shit holes etc. etc. etc. will certainly get you an expeditious one way ticket into the White House….SERIOUSLY time will certainly tell.
The same China which he accused of stealing American jobs printed thousand of copies of HIS so called (God bless the USA bible) which he has sold and made millions, while unable to quote 2 basic bible verses when interviewed about his own bible (you can fact check). I will sit back and watch how this is going to play out…let the SHIT show BEGIN. – by the way Karma knows all our addresses and God is neither democrat nor republican.
Galations 6:7-8
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. Amen – he has sold many copies of his bible – hopefully he will get the message at least in this one verse. Amen and Amen.
Oh Really. The American people have spoken resoundingly. They saw through all the BS the democrats spewed. The Russiagate hoax. The Lawfare. They even tried to ASSASSINATE the guy. Yet somehow they convinced people like you Trump is the bad game even after the attempts on his life. Wow!
@Allan or should I call you Nudge, time will tell. Just make sure you buckle up for the ride and make sure you lubricate your a****** since you love trump so much.
Anon/James/Anonymous/Archie Bunker….let the games begin I hope your ole’ ass will be around to see the end….. you see Quincy and all of those ole’ heads each month dropping like flies watch your back and worry less about Trump Disgraceful Christian Values. What America has become when you can have a thirty four CONVICTIONS, RACIS,FASCIST, elected to the highest office in the country ? What does this say about the moral decay of America or the likes of you that has embraced his philosophies and ideals as estuaries for normalcy ? SICKENING is the word…..I can’t imagine in any other times since becoming and American Citizen the bar been set this low to become an American President….you could not have a unpaired parking ticket much less 34 CONVICTIONS plus a slew of SUCCESSFUL SEXUAL LAWSUITS… this is laughable and Ludacris…..it’s any wonder when the Queen was around she did not want to meet with him the only American President she has ever refused to greet. The world has become a much dangerous place on November 6 with Donald Trump been elected to office, but this is all written in the Book of Revelations so we are right on course as to what will come next and I hope you will be around to witness it.