Trump victory to test US democratic institutions, foreign relations

Donald Trump secured the U.S. presidency on Wednesday in a comeback victory four years after he was voted out of the White House, as tens of millions of voters embraced a vision of leadership likely to test democratic institutions at home and relations abroad.

Trump, 78, recaptured the White House comfortably after a campaign marked by dark rhetoric that deepened the polarization in the country, prevailing after two attempts on his life and a late decision by Democrats to run Kamala Harris after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race in July.

Trump’s victory in the swing state of Wisconsin pushed him over the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency. He also led Harris by more than five million votes in the popular count.

“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Trump said early on Wednesday to a roaring crowd at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in Florida.

Trump was elected despite persistently low approval ratings. Impeached twice, he was criminally indicted four times and found civilly liable for sexual abuse and defamation. In May, Trump became the first U.S. president to be convicted of a crime when a New York jury found him guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money paid to a porn star.

Trump’s political career had appeared to be over after his false claims of election fraud led a mob of supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a failed bid to overturn his 2020 defeat.

But he swept away challengers inside his Republican Party and then beat Harris by capitalizing on voter concerns about high prices and what Trump claimed, without evidence, was a rise in crime due to illegal immigration.

Harris did not address supporters gathered at her alma mater Howard University on Tuesday evening. Her campaign invited supporters back to Howard on Wednesday.

Republicans won a U.S. Senate majority, but neither party appeared to have an edge in the House of Representatives, where Republicans currently hold a narrow majority.

Major stock markets around the world rallied following Trump’s victory, and the dollar was set for its biggest one-day jump since 2020.

Trump’s win will have major implications for U.S. trade and climate change policies, the war in Ukraine, Americans’ taxes and immigration.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Trump to congratulate him, and they discussed “the Iranian threat” and the need to work together for Israel’s security, Netanyahu’s office said. “The conversation was warm and cordial,” it said.

Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, called for an end to the “blind support” for Israel from the United States.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomed what he called Trump’s commitment to “peace through strength,” while the Kremlin said it would wait and see if his victory could help end the war in Ukraine more quickly. Trump said while campaigning that he could end the war in 24 hours.

Heading into the election, voters identified jobs and the economy as the country’s most pressing problem, according to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polls. Many Americans remained frustrated by higher prices even amid record-high stock markets, fast-growing wages and low unemployment.

With the Biden administration taking much of the blame, a majority of voters said they trusted Trump more than Harris to address the issue.

In counties across the U.S. – even many heavily Democratic ones – results so far showed Trump performed better than in 2020.

Hispanics, traditionally Democratic voters, and lower-income households hit hardest by inflation helped fuel the victory. Trump’s support among women, whose backing Democrats had counted on, improved from four years ago. And his loyal base of rural, white and non-college educated voters again showed up in force, according to Edison Research exit polls.

Trump’s tariff proposals could spark a fiercer trade war with China and U.S. allies, while his pledges to reduce corporate taxes and implement a spate of new cuts could balloon U.S. debt, economists say.

Trump has promised to launch a mass deportation campaign targeting immigrants in the country illegally.

He has said he wants the authority to fire civil servants he views as disloyal. His opponents fear he will turn the Justice Department and other federal law enforcement agencies into political weapons to investigate perceived enemies.

A second Trump presidency could drive a bigger wedge between Democrats and Republicans on issues such as race, gender, what and how children are taught, and reproductive rights.

Harris fell short in her 15-week sprint as a candidate, failing to galvanize enough support to defeat Trump, who occupied the White House from 2017-21, or to allay voters’ concerns about the economy and immigration.

Trump ran a campaign characterized by apocalyptic language. He called the United States a “garbage can” for immigrants, pledged to save the economy from “obliteration” and cast some rivals as the “enemy within.”

His diatribes were often aimed at migrants, who he said were “poisoning the blood of the country,” or Harris, whom he frequently derided as unintelligent.

Two months after Trump’s conviction in the hush money case, a would-be assassin’s bullet grazed his right ear during a July campaign rally in Pennsylvania, exacerbating fears about political violence.

Another assassination attempt was thwarted in September at his Florida golf course. Trump blamed both attempts on what he claimed was the heated rhetoric of Democrats including Harris.

Barely eight days after the July shooting, Biden, 81, dropped out of the race, finally bowing to weeks of pressure from his fellow Democrats after a poor performance during his debate with Trump called into question his mental acuity.

Biden’s decision to step aside turned the contest into a sprint, as Harris raced to mount her own campaign in a matter of weeks, rather than the typical months. Her rise to the top of the ticket reenergized despondent Democrats, and she raised more than $1 billion in less than three months while erasing what had been a solid Trump lead in opinion polls.

Harris’ financial advantage was partly countered by the intervention of the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who poured more than $100 million into a super PAC mobilizing Trump voters and used his social media site X to amplify pro-Trump messaging.

As the campaign drew to a close, Harris increasingly focused on warning Americans about the perils of reelecting Trump and offered an olive branch to disaffected Republicans.

She highlighted remarks from several former Trump officials, including his former chief of staff and retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, who described Trump as a “fascist.”

Trump and his incoming vice president, U.S. Senator JD Vance, are due to take office on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20. He promised roles in his administration to Musk and former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., both avid supporters.