WASHINGTON, United States
Republican Donald Trump claimed victory in the 2024 presidential contest after Fox News projected that he had defeated Democrat Kamala Harris, which would cap a stunning political comeback four years after he left the White House.
Other news outlets had yet to
call the race for Trump, but he appeared on the verge of winning after
capturing the battleground states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia
and holding leads in the other four, according to Edison Research.
Meanwhile it was reported that
Vice President Kamala Harris sent an official to tell supporters to go home.
Polls closed in all 50 states
early Wednesday as Trump headed to Palm Beach convention center in Flordia to
address his supoorters.
Trump won Florida, a one-time
battleground that has shifted heavily to Republicans in recent elections. He
also notched early wins in reliably Republican states such as Texas, South
Carolina and Indiana, while Harris took Democratic strongholds like New York,
Massachusetts and Illinois.
Speaking at the Palm Beach
convention center in Flordia, Trump told his supporters they achieved a victory
that will allow us to make America great again.
"America has given us a
powerful mandate, we have taken back control of the senate," he said.
He also vowed to make the US
military strong and stop wars.
"God saved my life for a
reason, and that was to save our country," he added.
Vice President JD Vance said
they have witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of America
"We will lead the
greatest economic comeback in history under Donald Trump's presidency," he
said.
The fate of democracy appeared
to be a primary driver for Harris’ supporters, a sign that the Democratic
nominee’s persistent messaging in her campaign’s closing days accusing Trump of
being a fascist may have broken through, according to AP VoteCast. The
expansive survey of more
than 110,000 voters nationwide
also found a country mired in negativity and desperate for change. Trump’s
supporters were largely focused on immigration and inflation — two issues that
the former Republican president has been hammering since the start of his
campaign.
Those casting Election Day
ballots mostly encountered a smooth process, with isolated reports of hiccups
that regularly happen, including long lines, technical issues and ballot
printing errors.
Harris has promised to work
across the aisle to tackle economic worries and other issues without radically
departing from the course set by President Joe Biden. Trump has vowed to
replace thousands of federal workers with loyalists, impose sweeping tariffs on
allies and foes alike, and stage the largest deportation operation in US
history.
Harris and Trump entered
Election Day focused on seven swing states, five of them carried by Trump in
2016 before they flipped to Biden in 2020: the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania,
Michigan and Wisconsin as well as Arizona and Georgia. Nevada and North Carolina,
which Democrats and Republicans respectively carried in the last two elections,
also were closely contested.
Trump voted in Palm Beach,
Florida, near his Mar-a-Lago club. He called into a Wisconsin radio station
Tuesday night to say: “I’m watching these results. So far so good.”
Harris, the Democratic vice
president, did phone interviews with radio stations in the battleground states,
then visited Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington carrying
a box of Doritos — her go-to snack.
“This truly represents the
best of who we are,” Harris told a room of cheering staffers. She was handed a
cellphone by supporters doing phone banking, and when asked by reporters how
she was feeling, the vice president held up a phone and responded, “Gotta talk
to voters.”
The closeness of the race and
the number of states in play raised the likelihood that, once again, a victor
might not be known on election night.
Trump said Tuesday that he had
no plans to tell his supporters to refrain from violence if Harris wins,
because they “are not violent people.” His angry supporters stormed the US
Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after Trump tried to overturn his loss in 2020. Asked
Tuesday about accepting the 2024 race’s results, he said, “If it’s a fair
election, I’d be the first one to acknowledge it.” He visited a nearby campaign
office to thank staffers before a party at a nearby convention center.
After her DNC stop, Harris
planned to attend a party at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington.
Federal, state and local
officials have expressed confidence in the integrity of the nation’s election
systems. They nonetheless were braced to contend with what they say is an
unprecedented level of foreign disinformation — particularly from Russia and Iran
— as well as the possibility of physical violence or cyberattacks.
In Georgia’s Fulton County, a
Democratic stronghold that includes most of the city of Atlanta, 32 of the 177
polling places received bomb threats Tuesday, prompting brief evacuations at
five locations, county Police Chief W. Wade Yates said. The threats were
determined to be non-credible but voting hours were extended at those five
locations.
Bomb threats also forced an
extension of voting hours in at least two Pennsylvania counties — Clearfield,
in central Pennsylvania, and Chester, near Philadelphia.
Both sides have armies of
lawyers in anticipation of legal challenges on and after Election Day. And law
enforcement agencies nationwide are on high alert for potential violence.
Harris, 60, would be the first
woman, Black woman and person of South Asian descent to serve as president. She
also would be the first sitting vice president to win the White House in 36
years.
Trump, 78, would be the oldest
president ever elected. He would also be the first defeated president in 132
years to win another term in the White House, and the first person convicted of
a felony to take over the Oval Office.
He survived one assassination
attempt by millimeters at a July rally. Secret Service agents foiled a second
attempt in September.
Harris, pointing to the
warnings of Trump’s former aides, has labeled him a “fascist” and blamed Trump
for putting women’s lives in danger by nominating three of the justices who
overturned Roe v. Wade. In the closing hours of the campaign, she tried to strike
a more positive tone and went all of Monday without saying her Republican
opponent’s name.
Voters nationwide also were
deciding thousands of other races that will decide everything from control of
Congress to state ballot measures on abortion access in response to the Supreme
Court’s vote in 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade.
In Florida, a ballot measure
that would have protected abortion rights in the state constitution failed
after not meeting the 60 percent threshold to pass, marking the first time a
measure protecting abortion rights failed since Roe was overturned. Earlier
Tuesday, Trump refused to say how he voted on the measure and snapped at a
reporter, saying, “You should stop talking about that.”
In reliably Democratic New
York and Maryland, voters approved ballot measures aimed at protecting abortion
rights in their state constitutions.
JD Jorgensen, an independent
voter in Black Mountain, North Carolina, which was hit hard by Hurricane
Helene, said voters should have made up their minds before Tuesday.
“I think that the candidates,
both being in the public eye as long as they both have been, if you’re on the
fence, you hadn’t really been paying attention,” said Jorgensen, 35.
