Donald Trump has been declared the winner of the 2024 presidential election. Trump, who announced his reelection campaign in 2022, is the second president in US history to be elected to two nonconsecutive terms. Trump declared victory early on Wednesday, followed by the AP, The New York Times, and other outlets.
Trump has made immigration, the border, and the economy hallmarks of his reelection campaign. As the Republican nominee, he promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, suggested that he’d sign a ban on abortion after 15 weeks, and pledged to embrace Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. His allies at the Heritage Foundation and the America First Policy Institute have drafted hundreds of executive orders ahead of Trump’s second term. Their plans include a dismantling of the federal bureaucracy and a crackdown on legal immigration.
Trump — who challenged the results of the 2020 presidential election and whose supporters stormed the Capitol amid efforts to certify the election — repeatedly refused to say he’d accept the results of the 2024 election unless he won. Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), Trump’s running mate, has also refused to say whether he believes Trump lost the 2020 election.
Among Trump’s challengers in the Republican primary, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley was the most vocal critic of his response to the January 6th riots. Others, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, were far less critical of Trump. In the end, most of Trump’s critics within his own party fell in line, and Harris’s efforts to court Trump-skeptical Republicans weren’t enough to push her over the edge. Trump flipped crucial swing states including Pennsylvania and Georgia, giving him the 270 electoral votes needed to win.
This was a tumultuous campaign for Trump, whose favorability with voters rose after he was shot at during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania and dipped after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Biden’s decision to step down and endorse vice president Kamala Harris proved to be a hurdle for Trump, whose campaign had until that point had largely focused on Biden’s age and fitness for office.
Trump also received a significant financial boost from the tech elite, who collectively contributed hundreds of millions of dollars towards Trump’s campaign. Through his America PAC, which he created to help reelect the former president, Elon Musk held get-out-the-vote events in battleground states and gave away millions of dollars to registered swing state voters.
(Originally posted by Gaby Del Valle)