 "6 takeaways as Donald trumps Kamala Harris in US presidential elections")
Election Day is usually a day of shocks. And this one didn’t disappoint. Donald Trump won the presidential race over Kamala Harris, scoring a historic win and marking his return to the White House.
With this, Trump will become the second person in American history to serve non-consecutive terms as president, after Grover Cleveland in the late 19th Century. In a victory speech to supporters in Florida, Trump claimed that America will be “bigger, better, bolder” in his second term in the White House and promised to “fight for you, for your family, and your future”.
“We have been through so much together and today you showed up and in record numbers to deliver a victory like probably no other, this is something special,” he said, adding, “We are going to pay you back, we are going to do the best job, we are going to turn it around and it will be turned around fast.”
His win is also punctuated by a return of the Republican majority to the Senate , which will ease his path to confirming his choices for key government posts. It’s not yet clear which party will control the House.
**Catch all the live updates from the US presidential election HERE**The results also leave the Democrats facing an urgent and immediate reckoning, with no obvious leader to unite the anti-Trump coalition and no clear plan to rebuild as an emboldened Trump prepares to re-take Washington.
Breaking the Blue Wall
On his way to winning the US presidential election, Donald Trump broke the Blue Wall . The blue wall refers to the collection of states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — that had reliably voted Democrat in recent presidential elections through 2012.
Trump and the Latino, Black vote
The Trump campaign put a great deal of effort into persuading Black and Latino voters to defect from the Democratic Party – and there were some indications those efforts paid off.
In North Carolina, exit polls showed Trump boosting his share of the Black vote to 12 per cent, from five per cent in 2020. He garnered the support of 20 per cent of Black male voters, the poll said.
According to the Edison national poll, Trump’s support among Latino male voters jumped 18 percentage points from four years ago.
Trump was up 11 percentage points with Latino voters in Nevada, according to the poll, and up four points in Arizona from four years ago. He was on track to do as well or better than Republican President George W Bush did 20 years ago when Bush garnered 44 per cent of Hispanic voters.
According to AP, about eight in 10 Black voters backed Harris, down from the roughly nine in 10 who backed Biden. More than half of Hispanic voters supported Harris, but that was down slightly from the roughly six in 10 who backed Biden in 2020. Trump’s support among those groups appeared to rise slightly compared to 2020. Collectively, those small gains yielded an outsize outcome.
America’s wait for a female president continues
Kamala Harris’ loss once again shows that America is still not ready for a female president.
The gender divide among voters was much discussed this election, with uncertainty about how this split would play out on polling day and what it would mean for each candidate. However, it seems that the women’s voting bloc didn’t side with Harris.
The only segment of the electorate with which Harris made notable gains over Biden’s 2020 performance was college-educated women — the voters who had propelled the party’s strong suburban performance in the 2022 midterms.
More interestingly, abortion wasn’t the main issue driving voters, with the economy and democracy trumping it. It also seems that the Trump campaign’s efforts of paying significant attention to male voters, particularly young men, paid off.
Republicans win the Senate
While the focus for many Americans was on the outcome of the presidential race, the Senate race has also been a shocker for the Democrats.
The Republicans gained control of the Senate, ending four years of Democrat leadership in the upper chamber of Congress.
As many as 33 Senate seats were up for grabs this election, making up roughly a third of the 100-seat chamber. Before the polls, the Democrats had a strength of 51 members. However, the Republicans — who previously had 49 members — claimed the Senate by flipping two seats.
In Ohio, Democrat incumbent Sherrod Brown lost his seat to Republican Bernie Moreno. In West Virginia, retiring independent Senator Joe Manchin ’s seat was won by Republican Jim Justice, who defeated Democrat Glenn Elliot by a comfortable 41 percentage points margin.
While the results for the Senate are in, the battle for the control of the House of Representatives continues. If the Republicans win both chambers of Congress it will pave the way for Trump’s agenda to be enacted in full.
Uncertain future for Democrats
When Kamala Harris entered the race for the White House, just a few months ago, she generated quite a lot of excitement. But in the end, it seems to have fizzled out just when it mattered.
Not only has Kamala Harris lost the election, but the Democrats have lost control of the Senate, with the party now hoping to hold on to the House.
Now, Democrats will be left to wonder how to reconnect with the voters, especially with the electorate that seems to have largely rejected the Democrats and their messaging.
A fractured nation
Trump will become president to the United States of America, which is deeply divided. Before the election, an overwhelming majority of Harris voters — 82 per cent — said they were either very or somewhat concerned that an event similar to the January 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol could occur again.
However, most Trump supporters did not share that sentiment, with 38 per cent saying they were very or somewhat concerned about that happening, and a 51 per cent majority saying they were either not too concerned or not at all concerned.
It will be interesting to see now if Trump can unite the voters of America.
With inputs from agencies
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