Donald John Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States Wednesday, defeating Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Trump’s victory — called by AP at 5:37 a.m. after Wisconsin brought the Republican candidate's electoral vote count to 277 — concluded a heated election cycle where both major candidates asserted that the country’s future was on the line. The final result was released just over 11 hours after the first polls closed, in stark contrast to 2020’s presidential race, which took nearly four days to call.
“I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president — and your 45th president,” Trump said around 2:30 a.m. at a watch party in West Palm Beach, Florida, leading Harris 267-214 in the Electoral College at the time, per the Associated Press. “Every single day I will be fighting for you. I will not rest until I deliver the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve and what you deserve. This will truly be the golden age of America.”
The president-elect will begin his second term Jan. 20 after a four-year hiatus since his initial tenure as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021. Trump was first elected in 2016, defeating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. However, he came up short in his second presidential bid against President Joe Biden in 2020, earning just 232 electoral votes in a race he continues to claim he did not lose.
No president has won two nonconsecutive terms since 22nd and 24th President Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892. The 78-year-old Trump will beat out Biden by just a few months for the title of oldest inaugurated president in U.S. history.
Trump also will become the first president to be elected after being impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. He was charged with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in December 2019, then was impeached again in January 2021 on the grounds of inciting an insurrection. He is the only U.S. president and federal official to be impeached twice.
Trump led Harris for much of election night, notably including a projected sweep of several battleground “blue wall” states by late Tuesday evening. At the time the race was called, he had already secured three crucial swing states: North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania.
The 2024 general election marked Trump’s third consecutive victory in North Carolina, securing the battleground state’s 16 electoral votes. Despite a Republican presidential victory, Democrat Josh Stein secured North Carolina’s gubernatorial seat early Tuesday evening.
Following CNN’s bombshell report alleging N.C. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s connection to lewd, explicit and racist comments on a pornography website, Trump distanced himself from the Republican gubernatorial candidate, saying in October that he was “not familiar with the state of the race.” His comments came after the then-Republican presidential nominee endorsed Robinson and made a number of appearances with him on the campaign trail.
Trump will take office with plans to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, impose heavily restrictive immigration laws, cut taxes and reduce government spending, in addition to implementing a tough-on-crime agenda. In his third attempt to secure the presidency, Trump ran once again on the “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan and plans to roll back the Biden administration’s “radical left” agenda.
His running mate is Ohio Sen. JD Vance. Vance’s selection in July sparked controversy, as the senator had infamously blasted the president-elect in the past. In a 2016 New York Times op-ed, Vance wrote that Trump was “unfit for our nation’s highest office,” though he has since walked back such remarks.
“Well, Mr. President, I appreciate you allowing me to join you on this incredible journey. I thank you for the trust that you placed in me,” Vance said. “I think that we just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America.”
The GOP also secured control of the U.S. Senate, with 51 seats to Democrats’ 42 as of 4:15 a.m. Wednesday. The U.S. House of Representatives had not yet been called when Trump’s victory was announced, though Republicans had claimed 197 seats to Democrats’ 179.
If the GOP maintains its hold on the House, the results of this week’s election will leave Republicans with effective control of all three branches of the federal government, given the Supreme Court’s current 6-3 conservative majority.
Polls stayed tight between Trump and Harris in the weeks leading up to Election Day. The presidential race remained under a five-point margin since mid-October, according to 538. Decision Desk HQ’s predictions fell within a similarly narrow margin, with Trump on top starting Oct. 20.
Trump’s ultimate win came after a hectic election cycle defined by a series of legal battles — many of which are still ongoing — a post-primary switch-up at the top of the Democratic ticket and two reported assassination attempts against the now president-elect.
To learn more about Trump’s plans while in office, check out The Chronicle’s Presidential Previews series, where we broke down his campaign platform and political record across a range of policy issues.
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Zoe Kolenovsky is a Trinity junior and news editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.
Abby Spiller is a Trinity junior and editor-in-chief of The Chronicle's 120th volume.