Donald J. Trump rode a promise to smash the American status quo to win the presidency for a second time, surviving a criminal conviction, indictments, an assassin’s bullet, accusations of authoritarianism and an unprecedented switch of his opponent to complete a remarkable return to power.
Mr. Trump’s victory caps the astonishing political comeback of a man who was charged with plotting to overturn the last election but who tapped into frustrations and fears about the economy and illegal immigration to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris.
His defiant plans to upend the country’s political system held appeal to tens of millions of voters who feared that the American dream was drifting further from reach and who turned to Mr. Trump as a battering ram against the ruling establishment and the expert class of elites.
In a deeply divided nation, voters embraced Mr. Trump’s pledge to seal the southern border by almost any means, to revive the economy with 19th-century-style tariffs that would restore American manufacturing and to lead a retreat from international entanglements and global conflict.
Now, Mr. Trump will serve as the 47th president four years after reluctantly leaving office as the 45th, the first politician since Grover Cleveland in the late 1800s to lose re-election to the White House and later mount a successful run. At the age of 78, Mr. Trump has become the oldest man ever elected president, breaking a record held by President Biden, whose mental competence Mr. Trump has savaged.
His win ushers in an era of uncertainty for the nation.
To roughly half the country, Mr. Trump’s rise portends a dark turn for American democracy, whose future will now depend on a man who has openly talked about undermining the rule of law. Mr. Trump helped inspire an assault on the Capitol in 2021, has threatened to imprison political adversaries and was denounced as a fascist by former aides. But for his supporters, Mr. Trump’s provocations became selling points rather than pitfalls.
On Wednesday, the results showed Mr. Trump improving on his 2020 showing in a red wave of counties all across America with only limited exceptions. Mr. Trump had flipped Georgia and held North Carolina in the Sun Belt, while sweeping the so-called Blue Wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The victories vaulted him far past the 270 Electoral College votes he needed to win the White House.
Mr. Trump was leading in the tally of two other swing states — Arizona and Nevada — leaving open the possibility of a clean sweep. He also held an early edge in the popular vote, which he had lost in 2016 even while winning the White House.
Republicans also picked up at least three Senate seats, in Ohio, Montana and West Virginia, to give the party a majority in the Senate. Control of the House of Representatives was still too close to call.
In a victory speech in West Palm Beach, Fla., Mr. Trump declared that he was the leader of “the greatest political movement of all time.”
“We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible,” he said, adding that he would take office with an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.”
Ms. Harris called Mr. Trump to concede on Wednesday and an aide said they discussed the peaceful transfer of power. She is set to deliver a concession speech at Howard University in Washington in the evening.
Mr. Trump seemingly had to win two races this year.
First, he overcame Mr. Biden, who quit the race after a halting debate performance raised questions about the president’s fitness to serve four more years. Then, he defeated Ms. Harris in a caustic 107-day crucible of a campaign that was ugly, insult-filled and bitter. Mr. Trump questioned Ms. Harris’s racial identity at one point and frequently denigrated her intelligence. They clashed over wildly divergent views of not just the issues facing the country but also the nature of democracy itself.
Mr. Trump has systematically sought to undercut some of the country’s foundational principles, eroding trust in an independent press and the judicial system and sowing doubts about free and fair elections. He has refused to accept his loss four years ago, falsely claiming to this day that a second term was stolen from him in 2020. Instead of hindering his rise, his denial took hold across a Republican Party he remade.
Now, Mr. Trump has vowed a radical reshaping of American government, animated by his promises of “retribution” and of rooting out domestic opponents he casts as “the enemy within.” He has pledged to oversee the biggest wave of deportations in U.S. history, suggested deploying troops domestically, proposed sweeping tariffs and largely advocated the greatest consolidation of power in the history of the American presidency.
Pointing to the mob of Trump supporters who sacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, violently trying to prevent the certification of his defeat, Ms. Harris’s campaign loudly cautioned that Mr. Trump in a second term would be “unhinged, unstable and unchecked.” But voters heeded neither her warnings nor those of some of the most senior former Trump administration officials and military advisers who testified to his autocratic instincts.
New York Times
