Trump set to be elected 47th President of the United States in stunning comeback

WEST PALM BEACH (Florida) – Former president Donald Trump is set to be elected as US president, becoming the first Republican to secure the popular vote since George W. Bush in 2004.

Defeating Vice-President Kamala Harris in a stunning political comeback, Trump is the first president in more than a century to win a non-consecutive second term.

Trump, 78, will also be America’s oldest president ever, turning 82 by the end of his term.

According to projections based on vote counts so far, Trump has picked up 279 Electoral College votes v 223 for Ms Harris.

To win the White House, a candidate has to reach a simple majority of 270 electoral votes in a 538-member Electoral College under America’s unique system of electing its president.

Republicans also seized control of the US Senate after flipping Democratic held seats for the first time in four years.

“It’s a political victory that our country has never seen before,” Trump said in a speech on Nov 6 in a convention centre in Florida. 

“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” he added.

He also said that he will govern with the motto “promises made, promises kept”, as he was cheered loudly by his supporters.

He added: “We also have won the popular vote, that was great.”

The tally so far showed Trump with nearly 70.9 million votes, to Ms Harris’ 65.8 million.

Trump was flanked on the stage by his wife Melania, his vice-presidential running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, and other family members and Republican leaders.

In his speech, Mr Vance said: “We just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America.”

He said Trump will lead in “the greatest economic comeback in American history”.

While the votes are still being counted, world leaders

have offered their congratulations.

Among them

was Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong,

who said: “Singapore stands ready to work closely with you and your administration to advance our bilateral ties and to further strengthen the US’ partnerships in the Asia Pacific.” 

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on social media platform X: “Congratulations President-elect @realDonaldTrump on your historic election victory. I look forward to working with you in the years ahead.”

Said French President Emmanuel Macron, also on X: “Congratulations, President @realDonaldTrump. Ready to work together as we did for four years. With your convictions and mine. With respect and ambition. For more peace and prosperity.”

Final results from 50 US states and the District of Columbia could take days or even weeks to materialise if the winning margins are thin and get disputed. But the initial projections had pointed to a strong showing by Trump, after a bitter and deeply divisive election centred on protecting democracy, abortion rights, the economy and illegal immigration.

The election has been called by the media for 44 US states as well as the District of Columbia thus far. Crucially, Trump won in all states that have historically voted Republican, but also won or was ahead in all seven of the battleground states in this election – Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona and North Carolina.

Ms Harris won only in 17 states that have traditionally voted blue, and was leading in Maine, which is also a Democrat stronghold. The final results are still awaited in Arizona, Nevada, Alaska, Michigan and Maine. 

The early bounce in favour of Republicans is a feature of US elections. A “red mirage” refers to a phenomenon in which early vote totals lean towards a Republican win, only to be called in favour of Democrats after absentee and provisional ballots are counted, in what is called a “blue shift”.

The 2024 election is set to become the most expensive in history, with total contributions reaching US$15.9 billion (S$21 billion) v US$15.1 billion spent in 2020 and more than double the 2016 election’s US$6.5 billion, according to non-profit OpenSecrets.

Trump had cast his vote at the Mandel Recreation Centre in Palm Beach, Florida, predicting “a very big victory”.

Outside the Florida convention centre earlier in the evening, hundreds had gathered, hoping to see Trump sweep by in his motorcade. Mr John Deiz, a business owner in West Palm Beach, said he been waiting an hour to see Trump. He told The Straits Times he believed good times will return once Trump is back in the White House.

Trump had been watching the results with family, friends and donors in his luxurious residence in Mar-a-Lago, about 6km away. Among them will be billionaire donor Elon Musk and ally Robert Kennedy Jr.

Ms Harris was ensconced in Washington and is holding a watch party at Howard University, her alma mater. The historically black university, often called the black Harvard, was founded in 1867, two years after the end of the American Civil War.

The stark difference in venues mirrors America’s deep divisions.

Outside a Palm Beach County polling station, Ms Gina Hartman, 76, and her son Robert, 50, exemplified the split down the country’s middle.

Mrs Hartman said she had voted for Ms Harris because of her promise of “reproductive freedom”, but her son is sitting out this election, finding neither candidate up to mark.

This is the first presidential election in which women – who narrowly outnumber men and are more reliable voters – could elect the nation’s first female president to express their dissatisfaction with a Supreme Court verdict that in 2022

overturned the landmark Roe v Wade ruling guaranteeing the right to abortion.

Trump, who enabled a Supreme Court conservative majority, takes credit for the move. The issue has become more salient with the failure of a measure that would have repudiated Florida’s strict six-week abortion ban.

Restoring abortion rights is an issue at the forefront of Ms Harris’ candidacy.

In the early evening of Nov 5 at Howard University, the mood was upbeat. But as the looming sense of a Trump victory grew, the mood grew anxious and some of Ms Harris’s supporters headed towards the exit. “It’s not over till it’s over,” some supporters shouted at those leaving.

Some Harris supporters remained joyful.

“If you told me when I was five that a woman who looked like me would be running for president, I wouldn’t have believed it. I honestly never expected it but it’s amazing to see how far we’ve come,” said Ms Lydia Gebro, 21.

Wearing her Howard University sweatshirt, she was one of thousands of students who flooded the halls of the university for Ms Harris’ watch party.

In Pennsylvania, mother Alexandra Detweiler, 48, and son Charlie Detweiler, 18, voted in person for Ms Harris at the Swarthmore-Rutledge School in Delaware County. Ms Harris is the candidate who will uphold democracy, they told ST.

Ms Detweiler has been nervous about the election.

“We live in a swing state, and a swing county. Every vote matters and I think it’s really gonna come down to the wire today,” she said.

And it is that focus on upholding democracy that is a top concern for voters across the nation.

Fight for democracy

About half of all voters surveyed said the need to save democracy was uppermost in their minds as they voted, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide.

The AP survey respondents counted democracy ahead of other factors including high prices, abortion, the situation on the US-Mexico border,

two assassination attempts on Trump

and the legal cases against him, the survey said.

About four in 10 voters said “the economy and jobs” was the top issue facing the country, up from about three in 10 in 2020.

About one-quarter of voters said they wanted “complete and total upheaval” in how the country is run, reflecting deep dissatisfaction with the Joe Biden administration. More than half want “substantial change”.

But is Trump the change candidate they desire? Or has Ms Harris truly succeeded in overcoming her status as an incumbent party candidate?

Both sides have tried to claim the “change” mantle during the campaign.

In West Palm Beach in Florida, voters coming out of polling booths mostly preferred not to speak about why they were voting for Trump in a city where many neighbourhoods were dotted with Trump signs.

Among those who did open up was Mr Ernensto Delgado, 48, a Hispanic American who said he was confident that his community would come out strong for Trump.

“I’m an immigrant myself, you can see my English is not perfect, but the border has to be controlled,” he said, underlining the issue of an influx of illegal immigrants across the thinly policed US-Mexico border.

Those voting for Ms Harris were more open about their choice, and many of them made it clear that it was her stand on restoring legal access to abortion that had moved them.