Millions of Americans faced a transformed country and a rattled world on Wednesday following the realisation of Donald Trump’s stunning return to power.
As the extent of Trump’s victory began to sink in – including clear dominance not only in the electoral college but also probably in the popular vote, with at least 72m votes cast for him, as well as control of the US Senate – there were expressions of jubilation among the former president’s supporters. The House remained too close to call late on Wednesday, but Republicans projected confidence that they would maintain their narrow majority, giving Trump sweeping power to enact his legislative agenda.
On the other side of America’s ever more gaping partisan divide, confusion, foreboding, and in some prominent circles silence reigned.
Trump’s defeated rival Vice-President Kamala Harris gave a rousing concession speech on Wednesday afternoon in Washington in which she told young Americans “do not despair” but to keep up the fight “for our democracy, for the rule of law, for equal justice, and for the sacred idea that every one of us has certain fundamental rights and freedoms that must be respected”.
Joe Biden called the new president-elect Wednesday to congratulate him on his win and extend an invitation to the White House, according to the Trump campaign. Biden is also expected to address the nation on Thursday to discuss the results and the peaceful transfer of power.
Democratic and progressive Americans, at least 67 million of whom voted for Harris, struggled to come to terms with the overnight reality. They were confronted by the fact that Trump’s pitch to the American people, built on his dark and lie-packed vision of a country in terminal decline, “swamped” by murdering “illegal aliens”, and on the point of a communist takeover, had prevailed.
Trump made little attempt to assuage the fears of those who did not vote for him when he gave a victory speech in West Palm Beach, Florida, at 2.30am – three hours before the Associated Press officially called the result. He talked of creating a “strong, safe and prosperous America”, but also said that he was going to “seal up those borders”, and referred to the media as the “enemy camp”.
Harris gave her concession speech to a sombre crowd of supporters gathered at her alma mater, Howard University. That was the same location where she held her election night watch party, in front of a far more joyous audience until the results began to come in and she pulled back from appearing.
Harris admitted that the outcome of the election was “not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for”. But she went on: “Hear me when I say the light of America’s promise will always burn bright, as long as we never give up and as long as we keep fighting.”
A couple of hours ahead of her speech, Harris had a phone conversation with Trump in which she congratulated him and emphasised the importance of a peaceful transfer of power. The remark was no doubt sincere, but it also carried a punch given Trump’s efforts to subvert his 2020 defeat culminating in the Capitol insurrection on 6 January 2021.
“A fundamental principle of democracy is that we must accept the results,” she said pointedly in her concession speech. “We owe loyalty to the constitution of the United States, to our conscience, and our God.”
Despite her disappointing defeat, Biden praised Harris as a “tremendous partner and public servant full of integrity, courage, and character” as he reiterated his gratitude toward his vice-president.
“Under extraordinary circumstances, she stepped up and led a historic campaign that embodied what’s possible when guided by a strong moral compass and a clear vision for a nation that is more free, more just, and full of more opportunities for all Americans,” Biden said in a statement. “She will continue the fight with purpose, determination, and joy.”
Harris’s aborted victory party, followed by a delayed concession speech, bore chilling echoes with Hillary Clinton’s painful experience in 2016. For the second time in eight years, a woman had failed to break through the “highest, hardest glass ceiling” to become America’s first female president – thwarted by a man who campaigned against them in the most disparaging terms.
With the critical battlegrounds of Arizona and Nevada yet to be called, Trump had comfortably passed the 270 electoral college votes needed to send him back to the Oval Office. He was on 295 to Harris’s 226.
With the popular vote also leaning towards Trump, 2024 was in line to become the most convincing victory by a Republican presidential candidate since George W Bush’s re-election in 2004. The contrast was stark with opinion polls that for weeks had almost universally predicted a razor-thin finish.
Michigan was projected for Trump by Wednesday lunchtime. The news was poignant, as it meant that for the second time, Trump had shattered the so-called “blue wall” of Rust belt states. The three states – Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – have voted as a bloc in every presidential election since 1992, always for the Democrat, other than in 2016 when Trump smashed his way through it the first time.
The matching jubilation and consternation that swept the US rippled around the world. Leaders in Trump’s “strongman” image raced to congratulate him on his victory, led by Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister who has held close to him for years.
“The biggest comeback in US political history!” Orbán gushed.
The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, spoke to Trump over the phone to congratulate him and reaffirm the “incredibly strong” relationship between the US and the UK, Downing Street said. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, also heralded what he called “a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America”.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, presented a brave face, complimenting Trump’s approach to “peace through strength”. But coming at a time when Russia is making battlefield advances, the US election result spelled possible catastrophe for Ukraine, given Trump’s threat to pull military funding.
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage
Trump’s victory also came five days before world leaders gather in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the Cop29 climate summit at which they will attempt to forge a deal in which rich nations help the developing world avoid fossil fuel-powered growth. Trump’s mantra of “drill, baby, drill” and his warning that he will pull the US out of the Paris agreement for a second time, now hang ominously over the proceedings.
With 11 weeks to go before Trump is inaugurated, Americans now have the challenge of coming to terms with a seismic shift. Trump will be the first convicted felon to hold the presidency – a distinction that pales into insignificance beside the unprecedented nature of the promises on which he ran.
He has pledged to smash the US government as we know it, firing hundreds of thousands of civil servants and replacing them with “yes” people. He has threatened to carry out the largest mass deportation of undocumented immigrants in US history – amounting to many millions. He has vowed to end the independence of the US justice department, and pursue prosecutions of his political enemies while eradicating the federal cases against himself.
And he has said he aspires to be a “dictator”, albeit only on day one.
Already by Wednesday the inevitable Democratic post-mortem had begun over Harris’s defeat. Questions were being asked over whether Biden, whose diabolical approval ratings appeared to act as a drag on his vice-president, should have stood down earlier, and whether there should have been an open primary rather than an anointing of her.
Other structural fault-lines opened up in the election which, over time, Democratic leaders will have to grapple with. Trump made inroads with Latino and Black male voters, including in the vital swing states, the exit polls suggested.
Harris’s performance in the big urban centers – including Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee in the blue-wall states – also dipped slightly on Biden’s figures in 2024, raising further cause for concern about the party’s dependence on white female voters in the cities and suburbs.
On MSNBC on Tuesday night, the commentator Joy Reid expressed disappointment at white women in North Carolina for not coming out to vote for Harris and contributing to the Democrat’s loss in the swing state.
“In the end, they didn’t make their numbers, we have to be blunt about why,” Reid said. “Black voters came through for Harris, white women voters did not.”
Anna Betts contributed reporting
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage
