President Trump declared victory over Vice President Kamala Harris early Wednesday morning and welcomed Americans to a new “golden age” in a speech to supporters gathered in West Palm Beach, Fla.
“This was a movement like nobody has ever seen before, frankly, I believe this was the greatest political movement of all time,” Trump said. “Now it’s going to reach a new level of importance because we’re going to help our country heal.”
Trump acknowledged his campaign “overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible,” — seemingly a reference to the two assassination attempts he survived earlier this year — and vowed to fight on behalf of Americans “with every breath in my body.”
“I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve. This will truly be the golden age of America,” he said.
Before taking the stage, Trump had been declared victorious by several outlets, including Fox News and Decision Desk. The Associated Press had yet to call the race for Trump, but had Trump at 267 electoral college votes to Harris’s 224, leaving Harris with an all-but-impossible path to victory.
Trump notched wins in key states including Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes), North Carolina (16 electoral votes), Georgia (16 electoral votes), Idaho (four electoral votes), Iowa (six electoral votes), Kansas (six electoral votes), and Ohio (17 electoral votes), according to the AP.
Harris won California (54 electoral votes), Colorado (ten electoral votes), Hawaii (four electoral votes), New Mexico (five electoral votes), Oregon (eight electoral votes), Virginia (13 electoral votes), Washington state (12 electoral votes), and Washington D.C. (three electoral votes).
Four key battleground states remained outstanding – Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan— though Trump led in all four.
On the ground at the celebration, Trump’s supporters projected confidence early in the evening and admired the realignment that the party underwent under the president-elect, who had handily pulled major figures like Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard into his orbit.
Meanwhile, Harris “didn’t have any closing argument,” Trump ally Roger Stone told reporters.
“Her closing argument was, ‘he’s Hitler and his supporters are Nazis,’… That’s just an insult. She couldn’t run on her record because it was a record of failure,” he said.
Representative Carlos Gimenez (R., Fla.) told National Review that Republicans had done a great job promoting early voting this cycle.
Trump’s supporters were boosted early in the evening by high Republican turnout in Miami Dade that flipped the once-blue county red.
Asked about the flip, Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R. Fla.) pointed to early exit polls showing strong minority support for Trump.
“The Hispanic demographic is now the largest voting demographic in the country for minorities. I’ve been predicting this for a while, but I think from here on out with national elections, it’s going to be the targeted demographic for re-elect,” she said.
It was a great night for Republicans overall. By the time Trump took the stage, the party had officially retaken the Senate. The GOP had officially taken 51 seats, with Republicans looking at winning as many as 56 seats with candidates leading in several uncalled races in Montana, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada.
During his speech, Trump claimed a popular-vote victory — he led the popular vote as of early Wednesday morning — and predicted Republicans would retain their House majority, though the House remained too close to call.
Harris, for her part, did not address her own supporters on Tuesday evening and had not conceded as of 3 a.m. Wednesday.
Her campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond offered quick remarks to the crowd at her campaign party earlier in the evening, insisting there are still “votes to count.”
“We still have states that have not been called yet. We will continue overnight to fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken. So you won’t hear from the vice president tonight. But you will hear from her tomorrow,” he said.
Earlier in the evening, Harris’s campaign manager wrote a memo to staff saying “we feel good about what we’re seeing” in the Blue Wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Campaign manager Jenn O’Malley Dillon wrote that “our clearest path to 270 electoral votes lies through the Blue Wall states.”
In Pennsylvania, O’Malley Dillon said Harris has “overperformed turnout expectations in Philadelphia, and overperformed in our early vote expectations in Bucks County,” which is a prominent Philadelphia suburb.
In Michigan, she wrote, they’ve seen “strong turnout” in Detroit. And in Wisconsin, “we know there is a significant amount of vote remaining in Dane and Milwaukee counties.”
O’Malley Dillon wrote that “this race is not going to come into focus until the early morning hours,” urging staffers to “get some sleep, and get ready to close out strong tomorrow.”