Donald Trump reclaims White House in stunning comeback
Former President Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris and reclaimed the White House on Wednesday morning, mounting a stunning comeback after his 2020 reelection loss.
Trump will be the second president in American history to serve two nonconsecutive presidential terms.
The triumphant Trump early Wednesday thanked "the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president" and said his "political victory" was one "that our country has never seen before."
"Frankly, this was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time. There's never been anything like this in this country and maybe beyond," Trump said at an election night party near his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida. "And now it's going to reach a new level of importance because we are going to help our country heal."
The former and soon-to-be president is the first convicted felon to win an American presidential election in modern history. Trump also returns to Washington, D.C., after threatening the peaceful transfer of power four years ago in the wake of his pandemic-era loss to President Joe Biden.
Harris, who would have become the first woman president if she won, did not address her supporters at an election party her campaign hosted in Washington on Tuesday night.
With victories in Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, Trump was on track to clinch the electoral votes he needed to win the White House before the race was even called in the battlegrounds of Arizona, Nevada and Michigan and Wisconsin.
Trump joins the late President Grover Cleveland as the second commander-in-chief to serve nonconsecutive terms. Cleveland's two presidential terms began in 1885 and 1893.
The race in Arizona was too close to call on Tuesday night, but Trump was ahead of Harris by roughly 17,000 votes in initial, incomplete election results. Democrats hope that so-called late early ballots, which take longer to count, could close the gap between the two candidates on Wednesday.
However, Trump hit the 270 vote threshold to win the Electoral College and will take the White House whether he wins Arizona or not.
"There was no other path to victory," Trump said, summing up his victories in the battleground states.
In Arizona, Trump's advantage over Harris was driven by voters who were pessimistic about the economy and immigration. Voters here overwhelmingly believed the country was on the wrong track, surveys found. The Biden administration is deeply unpopular in the Grand Canyon State, which drove more voters to register as Republicans in the past four years even as Democrats made gains in statewide races for governor and other constitutional offices.
Polls showed that Harris had support among voters who were most concerned about democracy and abortion access.
Former GOP Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey was among the first to publicly congratulate Trump on social media after Fox News called the race shortly before midnight. Ducey bore the brunt of Trump's baseless claims that Arizona's election was stolen in 2020, famously ignoring a phone call from the former president as he certified the election results.
Four years later, Ducey endorsed Trump and said "now is the time to bridge our deep political divides and get America back on track!" The former governor did not respond to an interview request.
Trump, 78, also makes history as the oldest person to be elected president. When he is sworn into office in January, Trump will be several months older than Biden was when he assumed the office at age 78 four years ago.
Harris' campaign was history-making in its own right. Harris was only the second woman to lead a major party presidential ticket, following Hillary Clinton in 2016. Clinton also lost to Trump.
Plus, the vice president became her party's nominee after Biden won the presidential primaries and was pushed out of the race by his own party over concerns about his age.
