Watch: Kamala Harris delivers concession speech in 2024 presidential election
Vice President Kamala Harris officially conceded the 2024 election to Donald Trump , after he was projected to become the 47th U.S. president .
Harris began her speech on Wednesday by thanking her family, staff and constituents. She also thanked President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden as well as her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, and his family.
The vice president may have been ending her campaign against Trump, but her concession outlined the contours of future fights against the president-elect.
Harris also noted that while the results were not what she had hoped for, she will help Trump and his administration with a peaceful transfer of power.
"We must accept the results of this election," Harris said. "Earlier today, I spoke with President-Elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory. I also told him that we will help him and we will engage in a peaceful transfer of power."
Trump was declared the winner early Wednesday by the Associated Press and others, having surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency.
Harris earned at least 224 electoral votes, with swing state results in Nevada and Arizona still outstanding. According to the White House, Harris will speak at 4 p.m. ET at Howard University in Washington D.C., a historically Black university and her alma mater. Sources told The Associated Press that Harris called Trump Wednesday afternoon to congratulate him.
The Harris campaign hosted an election night party on Tuesday on The Yard at Howard University, where the mood turned from "festive to fretting" as the race calls began coming in, according to The Associated Press.
Harris had been expected to address the election night party, but her campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond said supporters wouldn't hear from her until Wednesday.
"We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not been called yet. We will continue, overnight, to fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken," Richmond said Tuesday night, prior to the AP's race call for Trump.
Harris launched her White House bid just four months ago after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Her modified campaign centered a lot of her message on Trump and a warning of the threat she said he posed to U.S. democracy and abortion protections. She targeted the traditional Democratic base — African Americans, Latinos and young people — but also sought to win over disaffected Republicans.
However, Trump managed to win both nationwide and in key swing states with voters who were alarmed about the economy and prioritized more aggressive enforcement of immigration laws.
Anxiety about inflation was particularly high nationally, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide.
Voters broadly believed that Trump would be better equipped than Harris, Biden's current vice president, to handle the economy and jobs. The key swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan largely mirrored the mood of the nation, the survey found.
The AP's VoteCast survey found that Trump picked up a small but significant share of younger voters, Black voters and Hispanic voters – many of whom were feeling down about the economy. Majorities of younger Black voters and Latino voters said the economy is not working well, according to the survey.
