By Michael Wilner, Max Greenwood
The Charlotte Observer
Donald Trump has reclaimed the presidency, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in an election that sharply divided the nation after four years of Democratic control of the White House.
Trump’s victory marked a remarkable return from political exile — a result that was once dismissed as a remote possibility after the Republican standard-bearer lost the presidency in 2020.
Four years later, Trump improved upon his 2020 performance, reaching beyond his traditional base of support and winning over Latino men and some college-educated voters who previously backed President Joe Biden.
“This will forever be remembered as the day the American people regained control of their country,” Trump told supporters gathered on Election Night in West Palm Beach. “It’s time to put the divisions of the last four years behind us. It’s time to unite.”
Polls showed a statistically tied race entering Election Day. But Trump secured the White House with definitive victories in Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with other battleground states yet to be called — Michigan, Nevada and Arizona — all trending in his favor. Early Wednesday morning, Wisconsin tipped the balance in Trump’s favor, pushing his tally of electoral votes to 277 — more than the 270 needed to win the presidency.
Exit polls showed that economic discontent was a major factor in voter support for Trump. Two-thirds of voters said the economy was in bad shape. And the percentage of voters who said their financial situation was worse now than it was four years ago was higher than that of 2008, during the Great Recession.
One of the central tenets of Harris’ campaign against Trump was that he would pose a fundamental threat to American democracy. That messaging resonated with many, but a divided electorate also listed immigration, crime and reproductive rights as top concerns.
Gayle Trotter, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney and political analyst, argued that public polls had likely failed to capture Trump’s true popularity and missed the stronger-than-expected showing for the former president.
“I’m confident, I’m very excited, I think Trump is going to over-perform all the polls as he’s done in the past,” Trotter said. “I think they under-represent the support that he has.”
Harris had planned to address supporters from Howard University in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday but instead sent a top campaign aide out to do so in her place.
“We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not been called yet. We will continue to fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken,” Cedric Richmond, Harris’ campaign co-chair, told the dwindling crowd on The Yard.
Richmond said Harris would return to Howard on Wednesday “not only to address her supporters but to address the nation.”
Trump, 78, is now the oldest person ever elected president. He will also be the second to serve two non-consecutive terms in the White House, after Grover Cleveland’s return to the Oval Office in 1892.