Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump completed an extraordinary comeback early Wednesday morning.
He has become the first president to win non consecutive terms in more than a century by defeating Democratic opponent Vice President Kamala Harris.
Analysts say that Trump’s comeback is remarkable for a host of reasons.
The 45th president’s political career seemed to be over after he sought to overturn his 2020 election defeat and spurred his supporters to march on the Capitol. The January 6, 2021, insurrection led to a riot and the evacuation of Congress. Trump became the first U.S. president to be twice impeached. He was charged in four separate criminal cases; found liable for sexual abuse in a civil case, and was convicted in criminal court of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
However, Trump was buoyed by a fervently loyal support base. Most of his supporters believe his narrative that he has been unfairly victimized by a corrupt political, legal and media establishment.
In his victory speech early Wednesday morning, Trump told supporters in West Palm Beach, Florida, “We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible.” He also called his win “a magnificent victory for the American people.”
Here are the main takeaways.
The writing was on the wall from early in the evening for Harris.
The first warning sign was a very early call that Trump would win Florida. Trump was winning by roughly double the 6-point edge that polling averages had predicted.
The pro-Trump pattern continued for much of the night.
Supposedly safe Democratic states such as Virginia and even New Jersey hung undecided for uncomfortably long stretches for Team Harris, while Trump jumped into early leads in every swing state.
Harris left her event at Washington’s historic Howard University without speaking publicly.
Much media coverage in advance of Election Day had focused on whether Trump would make inroads with Black voters, especially Black men, or with younger voters. Changes within those demographic groups were modest — at least according to the exit polls.
Latino men did shift toward Trump by a breathtaking margin, according to CNN exit polls. In 2020, those exit polls showed Latino men voting for Biden over Trump by a 23-point margin, 59% to 36%.
Democratic hopes were riding on the idea that women would come out in unprecedented numbers to elect the nation’s first female president, just two years after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. It didn’t happen. Women went for Biden over Trump by 15 points in 2020, according to the CNN exit polls. So far this year, the exit polls show Harris carrying female voters by just 10 points.
Trump will have a Republican majority in the Senate — and quite possibly in the House, as well. In the House, the picture remained unclear in Wednesday’s early hours, and may take several days to be settled. But it remains possible that the Republicans could retain a narrow majority.
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