(VOVWORLD) - Republican candidate and former US President Donald Trump has won the election to become the 47th President of the United States. The result is certain to create huge changes in the US and the world.
President of the United States. The result is certain to create huge changes in the US and the world.
Major US and international news agencies reported that Donald Trump has surpassed 270 electoral votes to defeat his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris and return to the White House after a 4-year hiatus.
Advantages
Trump cruised to a very early victory in his home state of Florida, including in Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida, where he lost to Joe Biden by 7 points in 2020.
Pre-election analysis suggested that Florida might be a toss-up in this year's election and the Democratic Party focused campaign resources here. But in the end Trump beat Harris by a wide margin.
Trump won every state in which he led the polling prior to the election, including Texas, with its 40 electoral votes.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris won in her home state of California, as well as in New York, Colorado, New Jersey, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Maryland, traditional strongholds of the Democratic Party.
In Wisconsin, election officials in Milwaukee said they were going to re-count more than 30,000 mail-in ballots due to problems with their vote counting machines.
The US after the election
The US presidential election has been full of surprises and controversy, including President Biden’s sudden withdrawal from the race in late June to be replaced on the ticket by Vice President Harris. This has also been the most expensive presidential race ever, with the two campaigns spending nearly 16 billion USD, surpassing the 15.1 billion USD spent in 2020.
Professor Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia said that, regardless of the outcome, the divisions created by the extreme messaging of the two campaigns will persist long after the election.
"I hope not, but I don't see what'd cause it to disappear. There are strong views from both sides. One side believes they have been cheated out, even though there is absolutely no proof of that. In fact, on the contrary. But what do you do when about half of the population refuses to accept reality?"
The US presidential election will have a significant impact on US-China economic-trade-technology relations, the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and relations between the US and its European allies.