It’s Trump’s country now: America swings to the right in emphatic win for Trump
Thursday, 7 November 2024
Andrea Vance is National Affairs Editor for The Post and Sunday Star-Times.
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WASHINGTON DC | Donald Trump has pulled off a remarkable victory ‒ once again defying the polls, his critics and political norms to seize the White House for a second time.
As election day faded into night, the former president flipped first North Carolina, and then Georgia, two sun belt swing states that rejected him in 2020.
All eyes then turned to the Blue Wall, the northern seats that have decided the last three presidential races. Shortly after 1am, news networks began calling Pennsylvania for Trump, cutting off Kamala Harris’ path to 270 electoral college votes.
With pollsters claiming the race was razor-tight, Americans had expected to wait days for votes to be counted.
Instead, Trump’s motorcade was on his way to declare victory shortly after 2am.
Emerging to address the party faithful, Trump told them: “We made history for a reason tonight” and promised a new “golden age of America”.
“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate.”
The night was a disaster for the Democrats, with the Republicans seizing control of the Senate and House of Representatives.
A majority in the Senate allows the GOP to dictate legislative priorities and the incoming president’s ability to pick a Cabinet.
Tensions were high in Washington DC, and around polling booths in battleground state.
Harris gave her own election watch party a swerve.
Top aide Cedric Richmond told a subdued crowd that the vice president would address the nation the following day.
That echoed scenes at Hillary Clinton’s 2016 event, when hope turned to shock and supporters began leaving hours before the race was called.
The Democrats expected to perform well in urban areas, but their numbers were not enough to counter Trump’s strong performance in rural areas.
A gender divide worked in Trump’s favour, his strategy of lasering in on disenfranchised young men, paying dividends.
At Mar-a-lago, Trump’s Florida home, the ultra-rich mingled with business leaders and sports heroes, downing champagne as the results rolled in.
MAGA excitement climbed through the night at his official watch party as the electoral map began to turn red.
For weeks pollsters declared the race neck and neck, scouring for a microscopic shift in voting patterns.
But the signs were evident. It is unheard of for an incumbent party to win another term when the electorate believes the country is heading in the wrong direction.
Poll after poll showed voters trusted Trump ahead of Harris on the two top issues: the economy and border security.
The former prosecutor tried to convince the American people she was a change candidate, but Trump campaigned aggressively on her record, indelibly tying her to the unpopular Joe Biden administration.
It was a campaign that had all the toxicity and chaos of 2016. But in other ways it broke new ground.
Victory would have seen Kamala Harris as the first woman to serve as US president, as well as the first woman and person of South Asian heritage to take the office.
The 60-year-old would also have been the first sitting vice president to win the White House in 36 years.
Instead, at 78, Donald Trump will now be the oldest president ever elected. He is also the first defeated president in over a century to return to the Oval Office.
More significantly, he will be the first leader of the free world to be convicted of a felony.
The campaign was marred by his criminal conviction, two assassination attempts and the unseating of sitting president Joe Biden as a candidate.
Harris — who rose through political and law enforcement ranks to become the first female vice president — secured the Democratic nomination without a vote. She is the first woman of colour to lead a major party ticket.
Biden stepped down less than four months before the election after facing massive pressure off the back of a disastrous television debate performance.
Voters faced a stark but unexpected choice. Startling reversals of fortunes led both to the campaign trail.
Neither candidate - an erratic billionaire property mogul and a low-profile sidekick to a cautious, centrist president - was considered a realistic candidate.
Trump was twice impeached and voted out of the White House in 2020, his presidency ending in violence and shame as supporters stormed the Capitol. In May, a jury found him guilty of falsifying business records over hush money payments to a porn star.
Many thought the Republican party were finished with the 45th president.
Likewise, former rising star Harris had disappointed the Democrats with her unremarkable spell in office. Many pundits were openly considering if Biden’s re-election team should replace her as his running mate when he sought a second term.
The campaign had a tumultuous backdrop: conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East, allegations of interference by Russia and the entry of some unlikely characters like the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and deceased paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The pair criss-crossed the country, finding a country drowning in negativity and desperate for a change.
Trump capitalised on anger over soaring prices and frustration about illegal immigration. Harris promised to restore abortion rights, under threat after the Supreme Court overturned the nationwide right to abortion enshrined by Roe v. Wade, and use tax breaks to support families and small businesses.
Trump stuck with his signature slogan: Make America Great Again.
We are not going back, Harris insisted in rally after rally.
A sharply divided America decided otherwise.
National Affairs Editor Andrea Vance travelled to America with financial assistance from the US Embassy in New Zealand.
Corrected Nov 8, 2024: Kamala Harris would have been the first sitting vice president to win the White House in 36 years, not 60 as originally reported.