Trump has been elected the 47th president of the United States, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who refused to accept defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts.
The Republican comfortably defeated Democrat Kamala Harris in what polls had suggested would be a very tight election, after he swept several key battleground states and won a commanding lead in the national popular vote. He becomes the first former president to return to the White House in more than 130 years and, at 78, the oldest man elected to America’s highest office. Claiming victory at a rally in Florida on Wednesday morning, Trump told supporters that he would usher in “a new golden age” and “restore America to greatness”.
Following the announcement by Democratic campaign co-chairman Cedric Richmond, the crowd all but disappeared from Harris HQ at the historically black college. CBS exit poll data suggests Vice-President Harris – who was hoping to become America’s first woman president and campaigned heavily for abortion rights – may have under-performed with women. Some 54% of female voters cast their ballots for her, the numbers indicate. But Joe Biden won the support of 57% of women in 2020.
Black and Latino voters also appeared slightly less likely to support Harris than they were to back Biden four years ago, according to Associated Press exit poll data. Instead, Trump swept the key battleground states and smashed the Democrats’ once vaunted “Blue Wall” of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, with Michigan also leaning his way. He becomes the oldest man to take the presidency. The Republican has refused to release his medical records, despite spending much of his early campaign attacking President Joe Biden’s advancing age.
In what would be a major boost for a Trump presidency, Republicans have won control of the Senate after wresting two seats in West Virginia and Ohio from the Democrats and seeing off a competitive challenger in Texas. Neither party seemed to have an overall edge in the House, which Republicans narrowly control. However, control of Congress would allow Trump a relatively easy path to pass his key proposals through the legislature – including his pledges to enforce mass deportations of illegal migrants and to enact sweeping tax cuts. He has also vowed to drastically reshape the federal government – pledging to dismiss thousands of career civil servants and replace them with political appointees. At his rally in Florida, Trump said he had won “an unprecedented and powerful mandate” to impose that agenda.
Around 86 million voters cast their ballots early amid one of the most turbulent campaigns in recent American history. Harris, 60, only became the Democratic Party candidate in July, after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race under pressure from within the party. Trump’s victory marks a dramatic reversal in fortunes for the billionaire. He left office in 2021 with plummeting approval ratings and the country reeling following the Capitol riot – which saw his supporters attempt to violently block to certification of his loss to Joe Biden.
Trump Media’s stock, which trades under the ticker symbol “DJT,” spiked 35% in premarket trading, implying an astounding market value of about $9 billion. Trump is the dominant shareholder in the conservative social media company, which has scant revenue and is losing money. The president-elect’s 114.75 million shares are worth about $5.3 billion based on premarket trading, up from $3.9 billion when trading ended on Election Day. Of course, those are only paper gains and in practice it would be difficult for Trump to sell much of those shares without tanking the price.