Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States on Wednesday, fulfilling his promise to shatter America’s political status quo after he refused to accept his loss to President Biden four years ago and inspired a mob of supporters to violently storm the U.S. Capitol.
The former president’s decisive victory over Vice President Kamala Harris — after an extraordinary campaign in which he was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts — was confirmed shortly after 5:30 a.m. EST when he secured more than 270 electoral votes after picking up the key battleground states of Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Trump, who won the electoral college in 2016 but not a majority of votes, was also on track to win the popular vote.
“This will forever be remembered as the day the American people regained control of their country,” Trump told a crowd at around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday from a stage adorned with star spangled banners at his campaign headquarters in West Palm Beach, Fla.
The former president declared himself the winner before most news outlets had called the race.
Trump said the election, which saw more than 137 million Americans cast ballots, represented a “historic realignment” of American interests and was a “massive victory for democracy and for freedom.”
“I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve,” he added. “This will truly be the golden age of America.”
Trump built his third campaign for the White House on the issues of immigration and economy, appealing to Americans who were weary of liberal elites and the status quo. He promised to secure the Southern border and deport millions of people living in the country illegally, impose tariffs that would revive the economy and restore American manufacturing, and withdraw the nation from the international stage.
He also threatened to use the U.S. military after the election against “radical-left lunatics,” including Democrats, who he has dubbed the “enemy from within.”
His closing campaign slogan — “Kamala Broke It. Trump Will Fix It” — emphasized Harris’ role in the Biden administration and positioned himself as the candidate of change.
Harris, who sought to make history not only as the first female president but also as the first Black and Asian American female president, became the second female candidate in eight years to become the Democrats’ presidential nominee only to fail to secure enough votes to win.
The Harris team has yet to comment on Trump’s win. Before 11 p.m. Tuesday, Jen O’Malley Dillon, the chair of Harris’ campaign, sent staff a memo noting it was a “razor thin race.”
“We feel good about what we’re seeing,” she wrote to staff, noting they had exceeded turnout expectations in Philadelphia. “Let’s finish up what we have in front of us tonight, get some sleep, and get ready to close out strong tomorrow.”
It turned out to be a devastating night for Democrats.
Trump flipped Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin — states Democrats won in 2020 — winning by clear margins of several percentage points. He kept hold of North Carolina. On Friday morning, he was several percentage points ahead in Arizona, Michigan and Nevada, but the races were not called.
Republicans also secured control of the Senate after Tim Sheehy in Montana, Deb Fischer in Nebraska, Bernie Moreno in Ohio, and Jim Justice in West Virginia secured a number of contested seats.
The House remains up for grabs as election officials continue to count votes. Republicans hope to hold their House majority. Early Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that Rep. Mike Lawler, who holds a suburban New York seat, managed to eke out a second term.
On abortion — a key issue after Trump appointed Supreme Court justices who in 2022 helped overturn the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision — there were some bright spots for Democrats. Seven of 10 states, including Arizona, passed measures to protect abortion rights, according to the Associated Press. Abortion restrictions will remain in place in Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota.
Early Wednesday, morning cable TV shows and social media offered dueling interpretations of Trump’s victory: Liberals argued the American people had delivered a death blow to democracy while conservatives celebrated Trump’s victory as the people’s revolt against technocratic elites.
Hakeem Jefferson, an assistant professor of political science at Stanford University, said on X, “I hardly have the words to express what a dark and scary moment this is for American democracy.”
On Fox and Friends, there was much gloating as commentators argued the liberal establishment — not just politicians, but news outlets — had misread the will of the American people.
“This is the end of the legacy media,” said Ainsley Earhardt, one of the show’s hosts.
Nancy Northup, president and chief executive of the Center for Reproductive Rights, called Trump’s win “a deadly threat to the democratic values of liberty and equality, the rule of law, and reproductive health, rights, and justice in the United States and around the globe.”
The second Trump administration, Northup warned, would likely work to stop the provision of medication abortion by mail, push a national abortion ban, and embolden conservative states to lead more prosecutions and investigations against providers and patients who sought to cross state lines.
“The Center for Reproductive Rights is ready for this next fight,” she said. “We will vigorously oppose any and all attempts to roll back progress.”
Conservatives pushed back against liberal commentators and activists’ narrative of a dark, vengeful Trump presidency. Some argued liberals had misread the will of the American people.
Scott Jennings, a conservative political strategist, said on CNN he saw the results as a “revenge of just the regular old working class American, the anonymous American who has been crushed, insulted, condescended.”
The American political and media class, Jennings argued, had ignored the fundamentals of inflation and “people feeling like they were barely able to tread water.”
“The Democrats thought there were enough people who hated Trump or were willing to fear him to win the race,” Jennings said. “And it turns out, there’s more to being president than simply not being Donald Trump, in the eyes of the American people.”
Some political observers urged Democrats to examine closely the failure of Harris’ campaign.
“It’s time for the Democrats to take a good, long hard look at how this happened,” said Joe Scarborough, the host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, as he opened up the show. “And if they just say ‘Trump bad, Democrats virtuous,’ they’re going to keep losing.”
