Donald Trump elected US President in a stunning political resurgence | US elections 2024

Donald Trump was elected the 47th President of the United States in a stunning political resurgence that sent shockwaves across America and around the world.

Trump is the first convicted criminal to win the White House. At 78, he is also the oldest person ever elected to the office.

The outcome will ring alarm bells in foreign capitals given Trump's chaotic leadership style and his overtures to authoritarians like Vladimir Putin in Russia and Kim Jong-un in North Korea. His opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, and some of his former White House officials called him a threat to democracy and even a fascist.

But the American electorate appeared willing to put aside such concerns and hand the nuclear codes a second time to the real estate developer-turned-reality-TV star.

Trump defeated Harris, a Democrat who was seeking to make history herself as the first woman, first Black woman and first South Asian American in the 248-year history of the United States. At 5:37 a.m. ET, the Associated Press called Wisconsin for Trump, with the state's 10 Electoral College votes bringing Trump's total to 277 — well above the 270 votes needed to win the presidency.

Harris, 60, made reproductive rights and personal freedoms a rallying cry and supported a national law that codified access to safe abortion. Her loss represents a devastating and unsettling blow to supporters, reminiscent of Hillary Clinton's crushing defeat in 2016.

But for Trump, the most unlikely comeback is now complete. Many analysts assumed that his loss to Joe Biden in 2020 spelled the end of his political career, particularly when an angry mob of his supporters – fueled by his lie that the election was stolen – stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 stormed, leading to his death and second impeachment.

But while Trump's hold on the Republican Party was briefly shaken, he held on. The thrice-married New Yorker, accused of sexual abuse, remained an unlikely hero among evangelical Christians and the white working class, and polls suggested he had only slight but significant appeal among African-American and Latino voters.

Four criminal trials – including a 34-count conviction for concealing hush money payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels – would have been devastating for any other politician, but seemed to damage Trump's standing with his “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) base.

Trump brushed aside his challengers with insults and secured the Republican presidential nomination for the third time in a row. Shortly before the July convention, he survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, an escape that many allies saw as a sign from God (another would-be assassin was caught at one of Trump's golf courses in Florida in September). .

Meanwhile, Joe Biden stepped down as the presumptive Democratic nominee after a disastrous performance in the July debate and named Harris as his successor. Their “politics of joy” energized Democrats and appeared to change the direction of a race that had been slipping away from them.

The competition took place over just over 100 days, the shortest in modern history, against a backdrop of hurricanes at home and wars abroad. Trump received major support from the world's richest man, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who gave away millions of dollars to voters in swing states who signed a petition related to his political action committee.

The race looked extremely close until the end. According to the latest New York Times/Siena College national poll released Oct. 25, both candidates were tied in the popular vote at 48% each.

Trump's victory suggests that his often crude and rambling, mendacious and racist delivery still resonated with voters disillusioned with the political establishment. It was also a repudiation of Biden's legislatively productive presidency and his dire warnings about the danger Trump poses to U.S. institutions and global security.

The election result threatens shocks and mass protests across the country. Trump employed a now-familiar campaign theme of nativist populism, promising the largest-ever deportation of undocumented people, whom he branded as “animals” with “bad genes” who were “poisoning the blood of the country.” He complained that the United States was “like a garbage can” to the rest of the world.

The former president also portrayed his criminal charges as a political attack, vowing “retaliation” against perceived enemies and using increasingly dystopian rhetoric. He made threatening comments, threatening to use the military domestically against “enemies from within” and vowing to pardon supporters jailed over the Jan. 6 uprising.

Trump will be the first president to serve non-consecutive terms since Grover Cleveland, who served from 1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897.

As vice president, Harris will preside over a joint session of Congress in January to certify the election results. Her successor as vice president will be JD Vance, a 40-year-old senator from Ohio who, unlike former Vice President Mike Pence, refuses to acknowledge that Trump lost four years ago.