U.S. election night: Trump seals victory in presidential race
Republican candidate has enough electoral votes to win White House
- Donald Trump has won back the White House. Read Wednesday's file here.
Republican candidate Donald Trump has won one of the most divisive U.S. presidential elections in recent memory, defeating Democratic candidate Kamala Harris to complete a political comeback not seen in more than a century.
Trump, 78, will become just the second president in American history to serve non-consecutive terms and the first convicted felon to hold the most powerful political office in the world.
The president-elect found early strength over Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, a vice-president who had tried to convince voters she could offer a fresh start to a jaded nation and end an era of divisive national politics. After each candidate won reliably red and blue states, it was victories in battleground states that pushed Trump over the top.
"It is now clear that we've achieved the most incredible political thing. Look what happened. Isn't this crazy?" he told cheering supporters at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., just before 2:30 a.m. ET.
"I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honour of being elected your 47th president."
Trump spoke after his reclamation of the largest swing state prize of Pennsylvania left victory within arm's reach. He has won, or is leading in, the other six battlegrounds and was ahead in the popular vote.
Harris, 60, will not be addressing the nation until Wednesday.
"We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not been called yet," Harris campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond told supporters gathered for a watch party at Howard University in Washington around 1 a.m.
"We will continue overnight to fight to make sure every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken. So you won't hear from the vice-president tonight, but you will hear from her tomorrow."
As of early Wednesday, Harris had lost two states that Biden won last time — Georgia and Pennsylvania, which both flipped from blue to red — and was on a path to lose Arizona and Nevada, which Biden narrowly won in 2020.
Trump was also ahead in the popular vote, with 51.2 per cent to Harris's 47.4 per cent.
The mood at Harris's election night party at Howard University — the candidate's alma mater — shifted from electric to anxious as races were called and her supporters could see how close the race would be.
In another blow to Democrats, Republicans seized control of the Senate after flipping blue seats and holding onto others — taking the majority for the first time in four years.
Grover Cleveland is the only other U.S. president to serve two terms that were not back-to-back. The Democrat was in office from 1885-1889, then again from 1893-1897.
Trump's campaign promises
The next U.S. president will be consequential for Canada: The countries are top allies, side-by-side on the world stage and exchanging billions of dollars annually in trade.
After Trump's declaration of victory, the American dollar surged and U.S. stock futures hit record highs as investors bet on lower taxes and higher interest rates.
During the campaign, the Republican candidate made immigration a top issue. He has promised mass deportations, said he would end birthright citizenship and vowed to expand a travel ban on people from certain countries.
He took credit for the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, saying abortion laws should be left to the states.
On the economy, Trump said he would impose sweeping tariffs on imported goods and on specific companies and countries. He pledged to end taxes on tips and overtime, to make emergency generators tax-deductible in states hit by natural disasters, to lower corporate tax rates and to open federal lands to foreign companies and housing.
He also vowed to undo much of Biden's climate change work.
On foreign policy, Trump pledged to fundamentally alter the U.S. relationship with NATO and to resolve the Ukraine war with possible peace talks that might require Kyiv to cede territory. He has said Hamas must be "crushed" and vowed to be tougher on Iran, but has given few details or policy proposals around the crisis in the Middle East.
Unlike Canadians, Americans voted directly for who they want to see as president — though it is the electoral college that ultimately elects the winner. More than 84 million voters cast their ballots early, either by mail or in person.
Voting largely went smoothly, but the FBI said hoax bomb threats on Tuesday, many of which appeared to originate from Russian email domains, were directed at polling locations in three U.S. battleground states: Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin.
The bureau said the threats were not credible but at least two polling sites in Georgia were briefly evacuated.
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With files from CBC's Jenna Benchetrit, Alex Panetta, The Associated Press and Reuters