Donald Trump has been elected the 47th president of the United States in a stunning political resurrection that sent shockwaves through America and around the world.
Trump becomes the first convicted criminal to win the White House. At 78 he is also the oldest person ever elected to the office.
The result will sound alarm bells in foreign capitals given Trump’s chaotic leadership style and overtures to authoritarians such as Vladimir Putin of Russia and Kim Jong-un of North Korea. He was branded a threat to democracy and even a fascist by his opponent, Vice-President Kamala Harris, and some of his own former White House officials.
Yet the American electorate proved willing to push such concerns aside and hand the nuclear codes to the property developer turned reality TV star for a second time.
Trump defeated Harris, a Democrat who had been seeking to make history herself as the first woman, first Black woman and first south Asian American to become president in the US’s 248-year history. At 5.37am ET the Associated Press called Wisconsin for Trump, with the state’s 10 electoral college votes tipping the Trump’s total to 277 – well past the 270 votes that is needed to win the presidency.
Harris, 60, made reproductive rights and personal freedoms a rallying cry and backed a national law codifying access to safe abortion. Her loss represents a devastating, anxiety-inducing blow to supporters reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s crushing defeat in 2016.
But for Trump, the unlikeliest of comebacks is now complete. Many analysts assumed that his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020 spelled the end of his political career, especially when an angry mob of his supporters – fuelled by his lie that the election was stolen – stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, resulting in his second impeachment.
But while Trump’s grip on the Republican party was briefly shaken, it held firm. The thrice-married New Yorker, found liable for sexual abuse, remained an unlikely hero of evangelical Christians and the white working class, and polling suggested that he gained small but significant traction among African American and Latino voters.
Four criminal cases – including a conviction on 34 felony counts over concealing hush-money payments to the adult film performer Stormy Daniels – would have been devastating to any other politician but only appeared to strengthen Trump’s standing with his “Make America Great Again” (Maga) base.
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