NEW YORK, Nov 6: Donald Trump declared victory in the presidential election early Wednesday morning, as the Republican led democrat Kamala Harris in projected Electoral College votes in the presidential election.
Neither Trump nor Harris has so far secured the 270 votes Electoral College needed to win the White House, but after NBC News projected he will win Pennsylvania, the former president was just four electoral votes short of that goal. ( Electoral College is a body of people representing the 50 states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president.)
“I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honour of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president,” Trump told supporters at the West Palm Beach, Florida, Convention Center, where he was flanked by family members and top members of his campaign.
“We’re going to help our country heal,” Trump said. “We’re going to fix everything about our country.”
“We made history for a reason tonight,” he said. “This will truly be the golden age of America.”
“This will forever be remembered as the day the American people regained control of their country.”
Two hours before, the crowd at Ms. Harris’s election watch party at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington, D.C., had already thinned by midnight, and the mood was glum when Cedric Richmond, a co-chairman of the Harris campaign, told those who were left that the vice president would not be coming to campus. Her supporters streamed for the exits.
Trump showed his strength early, winning states like Texas and Florida easily and defying recent polls, such as one in Iowa, that seemed to show a surge of support for Ms Harris.
Republican-held Senate seats that Democrats had hoped to at least make competitive — such as Ted Cruz’s in Texas and Rick Scott’s in Florida — were not even close. And Republican leaders in Florida were also able to defeat ballot initiatives legalizing abortion and marijuana, both of which failed to reach the 60 percent they needed.
A largely peaceful Election Day was marred by bomb threats that roiled polling places in Democratic regions of Georgia, Arizona and Michigan. Officials said none of the threats appeared to be credible, but at least in Georgia and Arizona, some polling places stayed open later as a result. Election officials in those states attributed at least some of the threats to Russian actors.
In his remarks, Trump dubbed his second mandate a “golden age” for America and its people, all to chants of “USA, USA” from the crowd.
He said his party would help the country “heal” and vowed to fix America’s borders, saying he and the Republican party had “made history” for a reason.
“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” he declared, noting that Republicans had “taken back control” of the Senate.
On their part, Democrats did score some landmark wins. For the first time in history, the Senate will have two Black women, both Democrats, serving simultaneously: Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester won her Senate contest in Delaware, while Angela Alsobrooks defeated the moderate former governor Larry Hogan in Maryland. Sarah McBride, a Delaware Democrat, will also be the first transgender member of the House.
In the battle for the House, Republicans were holding their own in key races, leaving control up for grabs.
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