Trump Elected President in Unprecedented Comeback
Historic election keeps glass ceiling out of reach for Harris.
Former President Donald Trump with a decisive 277 Electoral College votes defeated Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris to return to the White House as the 47th president of the United States on Wednesday and told the nation he would “help the country heal.”
The remarkable political feat comes even though the former president after his loss against President Joe Biden in 2020 refused to accept the defeat, sparking a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. And this year, he was convicted on felony charges and the target of two assassination attempts.
At about 2:30 a.m. EST, Mr. Trump, joined by his family—including daughter and son-in-law Ivanka and Jared Kushner—in West Palm Beach, Florida, told supporters: “We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible … It’s a political victory that our country has never seen.”
Trump went on to say he would fight for the American people promising a “Golden Age.” He also noted he was ahead in the popular vote at the time, something he lost in the 2016 race against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, although he won the Electoral College votes.
“Winning the popular vote is very nice,” he said.
Trump passed the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes with a win in Wisconsin, making him the second president to return to the White House in nonconsecutive terms. The first was Grover Cleveland from 1885-1889 and 1893-1897. Harris currently sits at 224 Electoral College votes.
Driving voters to the polls were issues including the economy, immigration, a women’s right for reproductive freedom, democracy, wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, gun regulation, healthcare, sex and gender, and drugs.
As votes were still being counted in key battleground states, Harris’s path to victory continued to narrow. Harris Campaign Co-chair Cedric Richmond told supporters gathered at Howard University in Washington, D.C. that the campaign would “continue to make sure that every vote is counted” and that the vice president would address supporters later on Wednesday.
On stage, Mr. Trump turned and thanked his wife, former First Lady Melania Trump, “who has the No. 1 bestseller in the country. Can you believe it? She’s done a great job. She works very hard to help people,” he said, referring to her memoir.
Donald Trump’s candidacy was littered with unprecedented events including several legal entanglements, many of which are unresolved. In one case (the Hush Money case) out of Manhattan, Trump was found guilty on May 30 of 34 counts of falsifying business records, making him the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes. His sentencing has been scheduled for Nov. 26. Trump has asked the judge in the case to overturn the conviction claiming presidential immunity. The judge is set to rule on the request on Nov. 12, according to The Associated Press.
In July, Donald Trump was the target of two assassination attempts. The first occurred in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, at a Trump campaign rally where a man fired multiple shots with one bullet grazing the upper part of his right ear. One rally attendee was killed and two were critically injured. U.S. Secret Service agents killed the shooter shortly after the shots were fired.
The second assassination attempt took place on Sept. 15, 2024, at Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, Florida. While Trump was golfing, the Secret Service identified and fired upon a man hidden in the shrubbery holding a firearm. The man fled the scene and was apprehended by Florida law enforcement. Nobody was injured.
READ MORE ABOUT THE REELECTION OF DONALD TRUMP
Trump’s reelection also marks former First Lady Melania Trump’s return to the White House. Mrs. Trump has been rarely seen on the campaign trail. She made appearances at the Republican National Convention, the Al Smith dinner and on FOX News to promote the release of her memoir.
Mrs. Trump in recent days has stated that she is not anxious about returning to the White House because she now has a better understanding of the role.
“She has said she has learned a lot and will be more conscious of the staff she selects to support her in her goals,” Anita McBride, former chief of staff to former First Lady Laura Bush and co-author of Remember the First Ladies: The Legacies of America’s History-Making Women, told East Wing Magazine.
When asked in interviews, Mrs. Trump has said she would revive her White House work on her Be Best initiative and the foster children program she launched after leaving the White House, according to McBride, who also believes life at the White House would be different this time around for Mrs. Trump with their son, Barron, now attending college.
“We can expect that Mrs. Trump will do things her way—as she has done in the past—and not be defined or limited by anyone else’s expectations of her role,” McBride said.
Because Mrs. Trump was less active as first lady while in the White House and because she has not been frequently seen during the campaign, some scholars believe that pattern could be more of the same when she returns to the White House.
“I can’t see her really doing things differently,” said Myra Gutin, past president of First Ladies Association for Research and Education and author of The President’s Partner: The First Lady in the Twentieth Century and Barbara Bush: Presidential Matriarch.
The first lady also revealed in her new memoir where she split with her husband on the issue of abortion, stating that she was pro-choice, a galvanizing issue for many pro-choice voters.
“It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government,” she writes. “Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?”
She has carried this belief, she adds, her entire adult life. The right to make an independent decision involving a woman’s body also includes the right to choose life, she writes, stressing her overall support for “personal freedom.”
Just how Mrs. Trump will shape her second term as first lady is hard to say, according to Elizabeth J. Natalle, a professor emerita in communication from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro who is currently co-writing an essay on Melania Trump that analyzes her new memoir.
But for now, what the former and now prospective first lady has demonstrated during her time in the White House and shared in her book provides the most clues.
“Her memoir reinforces her independent thinking and decision-making,” Natalle said.