Fox News projected that Republican Donald Trump has won the U.S. presidency, defeating Democrat Kamala Harris and capping a stunning political comeback four years after he left the White House.
In West Palm Beach, Florida, where Trump was expected to speak to his supporters at a convention center, the crowd cheered and chanted, “USA! USA! USA!” when Fox News declared him the winner.
Trump has already won the swing states of North Carolina and Georgia and holds leads in several others, according to Edison Research.
The former president was showing strength across broad swaths of the country, improving on his 2020 performance everywhere from rural areas to urban centers.
Republicans won a U.S. Senate majority after flipping Democratic seats in West Virginia and Ohio. Neither party appeared to have an edge in the fight for control of the House of Representatives where Republicans currently hold a narrow majority.
Trump went into Election Day with a 50-50 chance of reclaiming the White House, a remarkable turnaround from Jan. 6, 2021, when many pundits pronounced his political career to be over.
Trump picked up more support from Hispanics, traditionally Democratic voters, and among lower-income households that have keenly felt the sting of price rises since the last presidential election in 2020, according to exit polls from Edison.
Trump won 45% of Hispanic voters nationwide, trailing Harris with 53% but up 13 percentage points from 2020.
About 31% of voters said the economy was their top issue, and they voted for Trump by a 79%-to-20% margin, according to exit polls. Some 45% of voters across the country said their family’s financial situation was worse off today than four years ago, and they favored Trump 80% to 17%.
Global investors were increasingly pricing in a Trump win late on Tuesday. U.S. stock futures and the dollar pushed higher, while Treasury yields climbed and bitcoin rose – all flagged by analysts and investors as trades that favor a Trump victory.
At Howard University, where a large watch party was being held for Harris, supporters were leaving in droves, anticipating that the vice president would not address the crowd on Tuesday night.
Cedric Richmond, a co-chair of the Harris campaign, briefly addressed the crowd and said Harris would not speak. “We still have votes to count,” he said. “We still have states that haven’t been called yet.”
Trump was earning a bigger share of the vote than he did four years ago in nearly every corner of the country.
Trump voted earlier near his home in Palm Beach, Florida.
“If I lose an election, if it’s a fair election, I’m gonna be the first one to acknowledge it,” Trump told reporters.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a prominent Trump backer, watched the results at Mar-a-Lago with Trump.
Millions of Americans waited in orderly lines to cast ballots, with only sporadic disruptions reported across a handful of states, including several non-credible bomb threats that the FBI said appeared to originate from Russian email domains.
Tuesday’s vote capped a dizzying race churned by unprecedented events, including two assassination attempts against Trump, Biden’s surprise withdrawal and Harris’ rapid rise.
No matter who wins, history will be made.
Source : Reuters
