Harris calls Trump to concede defeat
Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has called Donald Trump to concede defeat on Thursday morning (AEDT) as media networks declared him the next president with more than 270 electoral votes.
The Vice President has not yet spoken publicly and is expected to address the nation on Wednesday (8am on Thursday AEDT), according to media reports.
Harris did not speak to supporters who had gathered on election night at her alma mater Howard University in Washington DC, and cancelled her expected speech.
Her campaign co-chair, Cedric Richmond, briefly addressed the crowd after midnight, saying Harris would speak publicly later.
“We still have votes to count,” he said.
US networks Fox News, CNN and NBC declared Trump the incoming president after projecting he had secured 279 electoral votes to Harris’s 223, with several states yet to be counted.
Trump scooped wins over Harris in hard-fought battleground states including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Edison Research projected that Trump’s victory in the swing state of Wisconsin pushed him over the threshold.
He also led Harris by about 5 million votes in the popular count.
“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Trump said on election night to a roaring crowd of supporters at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in Florida.
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“This will be the golden age of America,” he said.
“We’re going to help our country heal.”
Republicans have also taken control of the US Senate and appeared to have an edge in the fight for control of the House of Representatives where they currently hold a narrow majority.
This would give Republicans a full sweep of power in Congress and allow Trump to pursue his agenda.
But if Democrats take the House it would give them veto power.
Major stock markets around the world rallied following Trump’s victory, and the US dollar was set for its biggest one-day jump since 2020.
Trump’s political career had appeared to be over after his unsubstantiated claims of election fraud led a mob of supporters to storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in a failed bid to overturn his 2020 defeat.
But he swept away challengers inside his Republican Party and then beat Harris by capitalising on voter concerns about high prices and what Trump claimed was a rise in crime due to illegal immigration.
Voters identified jobs and the economy as the country’s most pressing problem, according to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polls.
Many voters remained frustrated by higher prices even amid record-high stock markets, fast-growing wages and low unemployment.
With the administration of President Joe Biden taking much of the blame, a majority of voters said they trusted Trump more than Harris to address the issue.
Hispanics, traditionally Democratic voters, and lower-income households hit hardest by inflation helped fuel Trump’s election victory.
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His loyal base of rural, white and non-college educated voters again showed up in force.
Once the 2024 vote is certified by Congress on January 6, 2025, Trump and his incoming vice president, US Senator JD Vance, are due to take office on inauguration day January 20.
Throughout his two-year-long campaign, Trump has signalled he will prioritise personal fealty in staffing his administration.
He promised roles in his administration to Tesla boss Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, both avid supporters.
Trump prevailed despite persistently low approval ratings.
Impeached twice, he has been criminally indicted four times and found civilly liable for sexual abuse and defamation.
In May, Trump was convicted by a New York jury of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star.
His victory is expected to have major implications for US trade and climate change policies, taxes and immigration as well as the war in Ukraine.
His tariff proposals could spark a fiercer trade war with China and US allies, while his pledges to reduce corporate taxes and implement a spate of new cuts could balloon US debt, economists say.
Trump has promised to launch a mass deportation campaign targeting immigrants in the country illegally.
Vice President Harris fell short in her 15-week sprint as a candidate, failing to galvanise enough support to defeat Trump, who occupied the White House from 2017-2021, or to allay voters’ concerns about the economy and immigration.
Harris had warned that Trump wanted unchecked presidential power and posed a danger to democracy.
Nearly three-quarters of voters say US democracy is under threat, according to Edison Research exit polls, underscoring the polarisation in a country where divisions have only grown starker during a fiercely competitive race.
Despite legal woes and controversies, Trump is only the second former president to win a second term after leaving the White House.
The first was Grover Cleveland, who served two four-year terms starting in 1885 and 1893.
Two months after Trump’s conviction in the hush money case, a would-be assassin’s bullet grazed his right ear during a July campaign rally in Pennsylvania, exacerbating fears about political violence.
Another assassination attempt was thwarted in September at his Florida golf course.
Trump blamed both attempts on what he claimed was the heated rhetoric of Democrats including Harris.
-TND/AAP
