Donald Trump Makes History, Elected 47th President
Plus, Senate flips red and FL narrowly rejects abortion ballot measure
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📌 TRUMP WINS BIG ACROSS SEVERAL BATTLEGROUND STATES
Former President Donald Trump pulled off one of the biggest comebacks in American history Tuesday, winning Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, en route to defeating Vice President Kamala Harris.
Just four years after losing his first reelection attempt, Trump now becomes the second president in American history (he is our 45th and 47th president) to win two non-consecutive terms (Grover Cleveland was the last). As we write this at 4amET, he is also currently leading in the three remaining battleground states—Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada— as Harris underperformed Biden’s 2020 performance across the country. Fox News was the first network to officially call the race just before 2amET.
It appears that the pre-election polling margin of error again undercounted Trump’s support, similar to 2016 and 2020.
For Trump, the win is a remarkable comeback following his departure from office after January 6, 2021 with record low approval ratings, as a number of top Republicans said his political career is over. The victory comes after two impeachments, four indictments, two assassination attempts, and an unprecedented move by Democrats to switch their nominee with just over 100 days before the election.
TURNOUT & GAINS
The former president flipped the 6 battleground states Biden’s won in 2020 and held North Carolina. Besides college-educated women, Trump appears to have gained support from nearly all other major voter demographic groups.
Gender gap: While a majority of women backed Harris (prelim data has it at about 54%), it appears that number will be less than the 57% that backed Biden in 2020.
Race: Trump made major gains among Latino men and women and among Black men.
Trump won 45% of Hispanic voters nationwide— up 13 percentage points from 2020. Harris won more than 80% of Black men, but did the worst of any Democrat since the 1960s with that group.
The former President made gains in heavily red, purple and even light blue counties. Politico analysis found that Trump made improvements from 2020 in 92% of more than 1,300 counties we have data from at this point. The median county shifted a bit about two points in Trump’s favor.
OVER TO HARRIS
The end of Tuesday night felt a bit like Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election party— she waited until Wednesday morning to concede— with Harris’s campaign co-chair telling a crowd at Howard University to go home and that she will address them in the morning.
New York Times reporter Jazmine Ulloa says most people left Howard University in silence, and described one difference from 2016. “There does not appear to be shock or stunned tears.”
EXIT POLLS
Looking more into the date behind the vote, one key number: about three-quarters of Americans feel like we are off track. And while Harris is not the incumbent, she was part of Biden’s administration, and never really made an attempt to distinguish herself from the president. At his campaign rallies, Trump would play her answer during an appearance on ‘The View’ where she couldn’t say what she would do differently than Biden.
A CNN exit poll showed that 80% of Trump voters cast their ballot for him vs. against Harris. On the other side, 67% of Harris voters enthusiastically voted for her rather than 29% that voted to against Trump.
📌 REPUBLICANS WIN SENATE, HOUSE TOO CLOSE TO CALL, FLORIDA FIRST STATE NOT TO PASS PRO-CHOICE ABORTION BALLOT MEASURE
While we are still waiting to see which party will control the House of Representatives— it could take weeks— the Senate flipped to Republican control after two Democratic seats went blue Tuesday.
Senate: 51-42 (waiting on races)
West Virginia’s popular Republican governor Jim Justice easily won Joe Manchin’s former seat.
Ohio Republican Bernie Moreno, a Colombian-born Cleveland car dealer backed by Trump, unseated Sen. Sherrod Brown (D).
Texas & Nebraska: Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Deb Fischer won their seats after close races.
We are still waiting on close Senate races in Montana, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and Michigan. Republicans could win as many as 56 seats, a comfortable margin for Trump to get through cabinet secretaries and judicial nominees.
Over to the House, where we are still waiting on the majority of results from the most competitive races.
Democrats appear to have flipped some seats in New York, but we will be watching a number of districts, especially in California, and may drag on for days to weeks.
If the GOP is able to keep control of the House, it would mean at least two years for Trump to pass his agenda with relative ease.
Abortion on the ballot: In the first blow to pro-choice ballot measures since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Florida did not reach the 60% threshold to overturn the state’s 6-week abortion bans and enshrined the right to the procedure in the state’s constitution.
The state vote was over 57%— a percentage that would have passed in any of the other nine states voting on similar measures Tuesday. [Florida requires a super-majority vote by the public to amend the state constitution.]
Measures to enshrine abortion access in the state constitution in New York and Maryland— states where the procedure is already legal— passed. Arizona and Missouri, states with abortion restrictions, are poised to pass enshrine abortion rights into their states’ constitutions.
South Dakota, like Florida, appears to have rejected the measure.
Nebraska had dueling measures: one that would enshrine the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution while the other would keep the state’s current 12-week ban. Both appear above the 50% threshold to pass, so more to follow there.
Governor results: Despite Trump winning North Carolina, the governor’s office went to Democrat Josh Stein following controversies around Republican Mark Robinson.
Other notable races included wins from Republican Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire’s close gubernatorial race.
⏳ SPEED READ
🚨MORE ELECTION NEWS
📌 Non-credible bomb threats against Atlanta-area polling places were from Russia, secretary of state says (CNN)
📌 Sarah McBride becomes the first out transgender person elected to Congress (NBC)
📌 Florida voters reject recreational marijuana (AP)
📌 2 poll workers die after vehicle swept off highway in floodwaters (ABC)
📌 Man arrested when trying to enter U.S. Capitol with a torch and flare gun, police say (PBS)
📌 America Votes: Scenes from polling places (AXIOS)
📌 Nearly 14,000 mail-in ballots have signature issues in Nevada (KUNR)
📱OTHER IMPORTANT HEADLINES
📌 Israel’s Netanyahu fires defense minister Gallant citing lack of trust in surprise announcement (AP)
📌 10,000 North Korean troops now in Russia's Kursk region, Pentagon says (ABC)
📌 Rafael strengthens into a hurricane in the Caribbean. The storm and its path could change drastically as it heads toward US (CNN)
📌 US warns Iraq: Don't let Iran attack from your soil or Israel could retaliate (AXIOS)