Donald Trump has been declared the winner of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, with wins in critical swing states Pennsylvania and Wisconsin taking him over the 270 needed electoral college votes.
The Republican was the overwhelming favorite to win the White House on Wednesday morning after being declared the winner of several swing states overnight. Fox News was the first to call the race in his favor, prompting Trump to give a victory speech in Florida, with the Associated Press and The New York Times declaring him the victor several hours later.
As the results rolled in, the Times estimated his chances of returning to the Oval Office at over 95%, predicting his final electoral college tally at 306 versus 232 for his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, mirroring Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden in 2020.
The publication’s revised electoral college prediction for Trump after securing Pennsylvania’s 19 votes and Wisconsin’s 10 stood at 312, besting his 2016 defeat of Hillary Clinton by 8 electoral votes.
As of 6 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time, Trump had 277 electoral college votes compared to 224 for Harris, who replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee earlier this year in the aftermath of Biden’s widely panned June 27 debate performance against the Republican.
Trump was also on track to win the popular vote with over 71 million ballots cast for the former president, whose first term in Washington ran from 2017 to 2021. He secured more than 5 million more votes nationally than Harris, for 51% of the popular vote.
Out of the seven battleground states and their 93 electoral college votes, Trump earlier won Georgia and North Carolina, collecting 16 votes each. He could sweep the rest of the swing states, where he was leading in Arizona, Michigan and Nevada.
The GOP also took back control of the Senate after four years in the minority, flipping three seats to get to 52 in the 100-seat chamber, and were defending their narrow majority in the 435-seat House, gaining three seats for 203, with 218 needed. The Democrats were at 178 House seats with 54 uncalled races and 42 Senate seats with six uncalled races.
If the results hold, the Republican Party will fully control the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government along with a conservative majority on the Supreme Court—with six of the nine justices being appointed by Republican presidents, including three by Trump during his first term.
