Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential candidate, served a presidential term from 2017 to 2021, lost to Democratic candidate Joe Biden in 2020, and ran for president again this year. Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, previously served as US Vice President under President Biden from 2021 to 2025, and campaigned for the position of US President in this election. A long race of rallying, advertising, and debating led up to the final November 5th presidential election. In this election, former president Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States.
The months leading up to the election were filled with hard work, uncertainty, and unexpected events that completely changed the outcome of the election. On July 13, 2024, a bullet grazed Trump’s ear in an assassination attempt against the former president at a Pennsylvania rally. Just days later, from July 15-18, Trump was nominated as Republican presidential candidate in the 2024 Republican National Convention, in which he also chose his running mate, JD Vance. Current president Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race after a disastrous debate, endorsing Harris, on July 21. On August 19-22, Harris was selected as the Democratic nominee with running mate Tim Walz in the Democratic National Convention. Harris and Trump took part in their first debate together, addressing a wide range of issues from abortion rights to affordable childcare, on September 10th, and a Vice Presidential candidate debate followed, taking place on October 1st. A couple weeks before election day, early voting opened for all US citizens, and counting occurred on November 5th. Trump’s victory was declared by the AP(Associated Press) in the early hours of November 6th.
Trump and Harris competed to win the votes of seven swing states, referred to widely as battleground states. These states were Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Trump won the votes of five battleground states and is leading in the other two, as of November 7th, as well as winning all of the typically Republican states in the nation. With these two states yet to cast their votes, Trump wins with 295 electoral votes to 226(the winning number is 270). Though Harris got the 54 electoral votes of California and won much of the East Coast, her loss in the swing states proved costly. Colorado’s 10 electoral votes went to Harris. There are still votes being counted in Nevada and Arizona, though.
The fact that Democrats typically send more mail-in ballots than Republicans has created a tendency for Democratic candidates to get more votes later in the election process. This tendency is labeled with the terms red mirage and blue shift. This occurrence was not present during this election.
In her concession speech, Harris told her supporters to continue to fight for freedom. She said that it was not over for them and concluded her speech with the historical proverb, ”Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.” She represented the Democrats’ loss with the “darkness” and the citizens of the United States with the “stars” in this closing statement.
In his victory speech, Trump guaranteed citizens “healing” for a country that “needs help very badly,” reiterating his slogan and promise of “Make America Great Again.” He acknowledged the obstacles that the campaign overcame to fuel his win and thanked his supporters. He swore to build a thriving country and reward those who voted for him with an improved nation.
President elect Donald Trump will officially be the 47th president of the United States on January 20th, 2025.
Cites –
www.npr.org
www.time.com
www.apnews.com
www.newsweek.com
