Donald Trump Elected 47th President of the United States
Associated Press - November 6, 2024 6:11 am
WASHINGTON (TNND) — Donald Trump will be the 47th president of the United States, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in a closely divided election to get back to the White House after losing the 2020 race to President Joe Biden.
Wisconsin was the state that pushed Trump over the 270 electoral vote threshold to secure a second, nonconsecutive term in the White House. He is the first president since Grover Cleveland became the 22nd and 24th president in 1885 and 1893.
He flipped Georgia back to Republicans, kept North Carolina red in the presidential race and shattered the “blue wall,” winning Pennsylvania in a final crushing blow to Harris’ path to victory.
Trump basked in his victory with a crowded stage of family, campaign staff and other allies as the race started to be called by news organizations. He claimed Americans gave him a “powerful mandate” in electing him to serve another term along with a Republican Senate.
“I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president — and your 45th president,” he said. “Every citizen, I will fight for you, your family and your future. Every single day I will be fighting for you, and with every breath in my body. I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve. This will truly be the golden age of America.”
Trump is also setting records for being the oldest president elected at 78 and is the first person who has been convicted of a felony to win the Oval Office. His rise back to the White House comes after a whirlwind four years that included criminal charges, two assassination attempts and an upheaval on the Democratic ticket opposing him.
Trump’s electoral victory brings an end to a divisive and tumultuous presidential campaign that presented Americans with a stark contrast in choice between candidates that do not agree on essentially any of the major issues facing the country. A record 84 million Americans voted early in this year’s election that included new benchmarks being set in pivotal swing states like Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan.
He did not mention Harris during his speech early Wednesday morning, and Harris did not speak to supporters at all Tuesday night. Her campaign said she would address supporters until Wednesday.
Trump centered his campaign around immigration and the economy, frequently tying Harris to unpopular President Joe Biden and his administration’s handling of both the issues. He has proposed enacting strict immigration laws, including deporting thousands of immigrants in the country without legal permission and overhauling the nation’s asylum laws, frequently highlighting crimes committed against Americans by people in the U.S. illegally.
On the economy, Trump has frequently harped on inflation that has pinched wallets and vowed to remake the economy and revitalize the nation’s manufacturing industry through tax cuts and expansive tariffs on foreign goods that economists say could have a detrimental impact on inflation.
The economy is traditionally the No. 1 issue for voters when casting a ballot, a tendency that continued this year, according to exit polls and public opinion surveys leading into Election Day. Republicans are generally favored by voters when it comes to which party would do a better job of handling the economy, and Trump regularly performed better on the issue than Harris in surveys leading up to Nov. 5.
Dissatisfaction with the economy was a nagging problem for Harris and Biden while he was in the race. Despite low unemployment, inflation nearing a return to 2% year-over-year, and steady economic growth, Americans have remained frustrated with the state of the economy and have aimed that irritation at the Democratic presidential ticket.
Trump was also able to eat away in some of Democrats’ key voting blocs, Black men, Latinos and voters under 30, to secure another four years in the White House. AP VoteCast data shows that Harris lost ground with all those groups compared to Biden in 2020.
The shift in Latino voters being less Democratic has been noted in recent years and was thought to be potentially at risk after an off-color comment made by a comedian at a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden shortly before Election Day. Democrats thought the remarks may cut into Trump’s support from Puerto Rican voters, a shift that did not come to fruition once results were tabulated.
Trump also beat his performance in the 2020 election in multiple parts of the country while further running up margins in Republican-leaning areas. He also improved his margins in Democratic-leaning states across the country, cutting into Democratic leads when compared to 2020 when Biden trampled Trump in blue states like California and New York.
Winning a second term in the White House wraps up a marked political comeback to Trump, who left office in 2020 with many doubting his future in Republican politics in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. The party underperformed expectations in the 2022 midterms and he was also slapped with four criminal cases against him, making history as the first former president to be convicted of a crime.
Yet Trump still glided to the Republican nomination for the third consecutive cycle, batting away primary challenges from other high-profile figures in the party like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley.
While the race was close headed into the summer, momentum noticeably shifted in Trump’s favor after the June 27 debate with President Joe Biden, whose poor performance exacerbated concerns about his age and mental acuity and sparked a political crisis in the White House as Democrats started to go public with calls on him to drop out of the race for someone new.
While that political crisis was playing out, the country was hit with another one when a shooter opened fired at Trump during a July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, hitting the former president and killing one person in the crowd.
Harris was suddenly vaulted to the top of the ticket with difficult tasks of overcoming momentum in Trump’s favor and only a few months to build a coalition big enough to win the White House.
Her campaign tried to capitalize on the political momentum the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade for Democrats and sought to contrast herself with Trump on personality and policy. She campaigned trying to create as wide of a net as possible, reaching out to Republicans and independents along with trying to motivate Democrats to cast a ballot.
