WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — Former President Donald Trump has defeated Vice President Kamala Harris after early and decisive wins in North Carolina, Georgia, and the 2024 electoral prize of Pennsylvania before taking Wisconsin early Wednesday.
The former president, speaking at his campaign headquarters just after 2:30 a.m. EST on Wednesday, declared a “magnificent victory” that will “allow us to make America great again.”
“It’s a political victory that our country has never seen before,” Trump said. “I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president.”
“I will fight for you, for 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,” he added. “This will truly be the golden age of America.”
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Trump’s running mate, called election night the culmination of the “greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America.”
Trump also specifically thanked billionaire Elon Musk for lending political and financial support to the campaign.
The writing was on the wall earlier in the evening for Harris. In a scene that echoed 2016, Harris campaign co-chairman Cedric Richmond told supporters at her election night party at Howard University in Washington, D.C., to head home after the double defeats in North Carolina and Georgia.
“We still have states that have not been called yet,” Richmond said. “We will continue overnight to fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken. So, you won’t hear from the vice president tonight, but you will hear from her tomorrow.”
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In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s chairman, John Podesta, performed the same role, delivering a similar speech to a despondent crowd at New York City’s Javits Center.
“It’s been a long night, and it’s been a long campaign. But I can say we can wait a little longer, can’t we?” he said. “Everybody should head home. You should get some sleep.”
Earlier Tuesday, Harris campaign officials, in a grim memo emailed to staff before it was shared with the Washington Examiner, dismissed Trump’s election night momentum and cited the delayed results from the 2020 general election as evidence that Harris might still catch Trump.
“Let’s finish up what we have in front of us tonight, get some sleep, and get ready to close out strong tomorrow,” Harris campaign Chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon wrote.
Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser was seen commiserating with Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), while Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-CA) was spotted comforting a child.
Cassie Biagas, 70, who was departing with her husband, Terrell, 71, said her mood as “somber” and that her “heart is hurting.”
Washington students Madeline Bist, 20, and Oreamo Belleh, 19, were also on their way out, with Belleh saying she was optimistic “in the beginning, but seeing, like, triple digits for Trump and the double digits for Vice President Harris kind of just made it a reality that it’s gonna be such a close race.”
“The numbers are really scary, seeing how people will vote for Donald Trump and seeing the comparison of that with how many people will show up for Vice President Harris,” Belleh said.
Days ago, Democrats had been optimistic that Harris might actually pick up traditionally Republican states, such as Texas or Iowa. A poll published over the weekend by the Des Moines Register found Harris leading Trump in Iowa, but the former president won the state by more than 10 percentage points on Tuesday. Harris opened a slight lead in Texas based on initial results, but Trump eventually won by more than 15 points with 77% of the vote counted.
Trump also won the popular vote with almost 71 million votes compared to the vice president’s 66 million votes, becoming the first Republican since former President George W. Bush in 2004 to win the popular vote.
“Against all odds, Donald Trump has not only pulled off the greatest comeback in political history, but may be one of the greatest comebacks in American history,” Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist, told the Washington Examiner.
Early Tuesday evening, Trump won Florida, his adopted home state, as the Associated Press called Florida for the former president. While he also won the state in 2020, Trump bested President Joe Biden by just 4 points in that cycle. This time around, Trump held a lead of roughly 13%, with about 90% of the vote called.
Sunshine State voters at Trump’s election party at the Palm Beach Convention Center were jubilant.
Diana Wise, 66, a retiree from North Palm Beach, said Trump’s business acumen can help turn the country around.
“I just have the feeling that God wants to clean up this country again,” Wise said about a Trump win. “He wants to rebalance our morality. He wants us to be taking care of our people and not the millions of people crashing our border.”
Harris’s watch party at Howard University in Washington, D.C., the vice president’s alma mater, started the evening with good vibes.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, Charlamagne tha God, and former U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn were part of the crowd that, at times earlier Tuesday night, included attendees dancing. But that “joy,” a Harris campaign theme, had dissipated by 10 p.m.
With a break in the event programming of speeches and music, those gathered at the historically black university were mostly quiet, watching CNN.
John Chambers, 39, himself a Howard graduate, described “a lot of tenuous hopefulness in the air,” Chambers said. “It could always be better, but I think we’re good.”
Trump supporters at his election party repeatedly cheered as election returns played on television, which showed Trump beating Harris or narrowing her lead.
“But right now, it looks very good, and I would be shocked if he doesn’t win just nearly every one of the swing states,” said Trisha Hope, 61, a Houston, Texas, realtor.
It’s the end of a very long campaign that has stretched out for almost two years for Trump.
After securing the Republican nomination, Trump held a polling lead over Biden for most of this year before Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate led to his exit from the race.
Harris replaced Biden on July 21 and flipped the race upside down, erasing Trump’s advantage for much of the fall before the national polls evened up in the final weeks.
Both campaigns spent almost all of their time in the swing states of Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
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Harris spent her final day of campaigning with four separate events in Pennsylvania, while Trump stumped in North Carolina, held two rallies in Pennsylvania, and then finished the day in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the same city where he ended his 2016 and 2020 runs.
Trump focused most of his campaign on the economy and illegal immigration, saying both were superior under his leadership than under the Biden-Harris administration. Harris focused on abortion access and Trump’s actions following the 2020 election, saying he is a threat to democracy and promising to “turn the page.”
States called for Trump so far
Georgia
Indiana
Kentucky
South Carolina
North Carolina
Ohio
West Virginia
Alabama
Florida
Mississippi
Missouri
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Arkansas
Iowa
Kansas
Louisiana
Nebraska
North Dakota
South Dakota
Texas
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Montana
Utah
Idaho
States called for Harris so far
Vermont
Virginia
Connecticut
Delaware
District of Columbia
Illinois
Maryland
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
New Jersey
Rhode Island
Colorado
Minnesota
New Mexico
New York
California
Oregon
Washington
Hawaii
