Donald Trump has sealed a historic victory in the US presidential election and completed his stunning political comeback.
The Republican comfortably defeated Democrat Kamala Harris in what polls had suggested would be a very tight election, after he swept several key battleground states and won a commanding lead in the national popular vote.
He becomes the first former president to return to the White House in more than 130 years and, at 78, the oldest man elected to America’s highest office.
Claiming victory at a rally in Florida on Wednesday morning, Trump told supporters that he would usher in “a new golden age” and “restore America to greatness”.
Accompanied by his family and his pick for vice-president, JD Vance, Trump told supporters in West Palm Beach on Wednesday morning: “This is a magnificent victory for the American people that will allow us to make America great again.”
“The task before us will not be easy, but I will bring every ounce of energy, spirit and fight that I have with my soul to the job that you’ve entrusted to me.”
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and Trump mega-donor, was with the Republican candidate as the results came in. The billionaire posted increasingly positive message on X – which he owns – throughout the night.
Trump swept several of the key battleground states, with CBS projecting that he has won in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and North Carolina – and appears to be on track for a clean sweep of all seven swing states that were crucial for a win.
Projections suggest he is likely to win the overall popular vote nationally – a feat he fell short of when first elected in 2016.
Trump also has a solid lead in Nevada, while the race remains tight in the other Sun Belt battleground of Arizona.
As expected, Trump has dominated conservative strongholds from Florida to Idaho, while Harris won liberal states from New York to California, CBS projects.
The Democrat had been expected to address a crowd on election night at Howard University in Washington DC, where she was an undergraduate, but it emerged after midnight that she would not appear. Harris has made no statement so far.
Following the announcement by Democratic campaign co-chairman Cedric Richmond, the crowd all but disappeared from Harris HQ at the historically black college.
CBS exit poll data suggests Vice-President Harris – who was hoping to become America’s first woman president and campaigned heavily for abortion rights – may have under-performed with women.
Some 54% of female voters cast their ballots for her, the numbers indicate. But Joe Biden won the support of 57% of women in 2020.
Black and Latino voters also appeared slightly less likely to support Harris than they were to back Biden four years ago, according to Associated Press exit poll data.
Instead, Trump swept the key battleground states and smashed the Democrats’ once vaunted “Blue Wall” of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, with Michigan also leaning his way.
He becomes the oldest man to take the presidency. The Republican has refused to release his medical records, despite spending much of his early campaign attacking President Joe Biden’s advancing age.
Congress is also up for grabs in the election.
In what would be a major boost for a Trump presidency, Republicans have won control of the Senate after wresting two seats in West Virginia and Ohio from the Democrats and seeing off a competitive challenger in Texas.
Neither party seemed to have an overall edge in the House, which Republicans narrowly control.
However, control of Congress would allow Trump a relatively easy path to pass his key proposals through the legislature – including his pledges to enforce mass deportations of illegal migrants and to enact sweeping tax cuts.
He has also vowed to drastically reshape the federal government – pledging to dismiss thousands of career civil servants and replace them with political appointees. At his rally in Florida, Trump said he had won “an unprecedented and powerful mandate” to impose that agenda.
Around 86 million voters cast their ballots early amid one of the most turbulent campaigns in recent American history.
Harris, 60, only became the Democratic Party candidate in July, after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race under pressure from within the party.
His victory marks a dramatic reversal in fortunes for the billionaire. He left office in 2021 with plummeting approval ratings and the country reeling following the Capitol riot – which saw his supporters attempt to violently block to certification of his loss to Joe Biden.
He narrowly avoided conviction in the Senate after becoming the first president to be impeached twice by the US House. The Republican leader in the Senate – Mitch McConnell – said Trump had “provoked” his supporters into attacking the Capitol.
He later became the first former president to be convicted of a criminal offence, after being found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
But he announced his return to frontline politics in November 2022, beginning the campaign that would eventually see him sweep aside challengers in the Republican primaries and claim his party’s nomination for president.
His campaign for the White House has been fought in stark terms, frequently attacking his opponents – first President Joe Biden, the Harris – in personal terms.
Often repeating his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, Trump vowed to his supporters that he would be their “justice” and “retribution” if returned to office.
He also painted an image of the US as a country overrun by illegal immigration and lumbered with a crumbling economy.
Trump was the target of two assassination plots over the course of the campaign – narrowly avoiding a sniper’s bullet in Pennsylvania in July.
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Attention in the coming days will turn to the make-up of his potential cabinet, with senior advisers telling CBS that the Trump transition team are to meet at West Palm Beach in the coming days.
At his victory rally, Trump hinted that Robert F Kennedy Jr – a former Democrat and vaccine-sceptic – would be handed a key healthcare role.
“He’s to help make America healthy again,” Trump said. “He wants to do some things, and we’re going to let him go to it.”
Both sides had armies of lawyers on standby for legal challenges on and after election day. Despite some early lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign, the scale of his lead appeared to ward off any prospect of protracted legal battles.
Law enforcement agencies nationwide were also on high alert for potential violence, but proceedings have been peaceful so far.
About 30 bomb threats hoaxes targeted election-related locations nationwide on Tuesday, more than half of them in the state of Georgia alone, reports CBS.
Trump’s allies were quick to hail his victory on Wednesday morning.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, tipped as a potential pick for Trump’s cabinet, wrote on X that “hardworking Americans” had triumphed over the “celebrities” who backed Kamala Harris.
And former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – tipped for a return to the role – said Trump would ensure a “safe, secure, and prosperous future” for Americans.
Meanwhile, Senator Lindsey Graham warned special prosecutor Jack Smith – who has pursued charges against Donald Trump for his role in the Capitol riot – that it was “clear the American people are tired of lawfare” and urged him to end his cases against the president-elect.
