Donald Trump’s extraordinary comeback
America’s battle lines over class, age, and race have been redrawn.
Donald Trump has been impeached twice. Indicted four times. Shot at once. On Tuesday, his unlikely political career took yet another twist — and survived yet more setbacks in his way — as he became the first former president since Grover Cleveland to be re-elected to the White House.
Trump’s triumph marked an extraordinary turnaround from where he stood just under four years ago, after he refused to accept his 2020 election loss and called his supporters to Washington, where many of them stormed the U.S. Capitol in protest. In January 2021, he left the city a pariah: blocked from social media, abandoned by the leaders of his party. A historic seven Republican senators voted to convict him of inciting insurrection. Precisely four years later, he will return to the capital city as the leader of a vindicated, resurgent movement — with a sweeping electoral mandate to carry out his far-reaching agenda.
“We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible,” Trump told his supporters last night in Florida. “And it is now clear that we’ve achieved the most incredible political thing — look what happened, is this crazy? It’s a political victory that our country has never seen before, nothing like this.”
“We just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America,” Trump’s running mate, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, said when he was called to the microphone.
As of this writing, Trump has flipped three states he lost in 2020 — Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — and also won the battleground state of North Carolina, bringing his total to 277 electoral votes. If he wins the as-yet-uncalled Alaska, Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada — all of which he leads by comfortable margins — Trump would rocket to 312 electoral votes. Vice President Kamala Harris, whose hopes of becoming the first Black female president have been dashed, is poised to win 226 electoral votes, assuming she wins Maine, where a victor has also yet to be declared.
Trump is also poised to win the popular vote, a first in his three campaigns — and a first for a Republican candidate since 2004. Of the votes that have been currently tabulated, Trump has won 71.3 million (or 51%), to Harris’ 66.3 million (or 47.5%).
Republicans have easily won a majority in the Senate, where flips in Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia have brought the party to 52 seats. Republicans also lead in uncalled races in Nevada and Pennsylvania, while Democrats boast an edge in undeclared Arizona, Maine, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
The contest for House control remains closely divided, with Republicans at 197 seats and Democrats at 177. Of the 61 races yet to be called, Democrats lead in 37 and Republicans lead in 24 — if those edges remain, Republicans would boast a threadbare 221-seat majority in the lower chamber, securing a trifecta of federal power. However, several races remain much too close to call, and the House winner will likely not be known for several days or even weeks.
I watched the results come in from the press section at Howard University, Harris’ alma mater, where her campaign had gathered its supporters.
The night began with jubilance: a DJ played as attendees in the crowd danced, hoping that the results would yield an early Harris victory. As it became clear that the night was headed another way, the mood gradually darkened. The organizers repeatedly muted the CNN feed, as attendees began streaming out, looking downcast.
At about 12:45 a.m., the campaign announced that Harris would not be taking the stage that night, leading to groans in the audience. Within minutes, almost everyone had left.
“This looked a lot different in my head,” one attendee told me as she walked out. “This feels like a nightmare,” another said.
Asked why they thought Harris had fallen short, attendees offered a range of explanations. “White supremacy and the fear of having a female president,” one told me. Separately, two attendees pinned the loss on “misinformation,” including one who said that was the cause of Trump’s gains among Black men and another who said it was the reason he picked up ground among Hispanics. Another said that Elon Musk had put his thumb on the scale.
However, none of the attendees interviewed looked inward, suggesting ways their own party came up short as it failed to defeat Trump for the second time in eight years. Here are some factors they could have pointed to, but didn’t:
81-year-old Joe Biden’s insistence on running for re-election even with some of the lowest approval ratings in presidential history — and the months the party spent humoring him, leaving Harris with only 100-odd days to mount her campaign.
Biden misunderstanding his 2020 mandate, attempting to enact sweeping progressive change after campaigning as a moderate (and doing so in a way that helped spike inflation, something voters have long punished in particular).
Biden’s failure to address the border until years into his presidency, even as migrants flooded red and blue cities alike (leading to Trump gains in both), and the party’s flawed assumption that Hispanics universally supported them on immigration.
The party’s failure to realize how poorly it was perceived by working-class voters of all races: white, Black, and Hispanic.
Harris’ refusal to fully clarify whether or why she had shelved her left-wing positions from 2019, creating confusion for voters about what she truly believed.
Harris’ selection of a progressive governor of Minnesota, instead of a moderate governor from a swing state.
Harris’ decision not to distance herself more fully from Biden, a deeply unpopular president, repeatedly declining to offer any ways in which her administration would differ from his.
None of this is to say that Trump ran a perfect campaign — particularly in the final weeks. But he successfully marshaled the anti-incumbent sentiment that has been evident all year across the world, benefitting from a wave of nostalgia for his time in office as he criticized the Biden-Harris administration’s unpopular handling of the economy and immigration. He successfully brought a wave of pro-Trump young men to the polls, speaking to them through podcasts and other unorthodox routes of information.
The country has plainly moved to the right — on gender, on immigration, on other issues — and the Democratic Party simply refused to move with it, at least until it was too late. The below map is the one that explains the night, showing a near-uniform swing in Trump’s direction compared to 2020: in blue areas like New York, in the industrial Midwest, in majority-Hispanic enclaves in Texas and Florida. All across the map.
Exit polls also show Trump’s success in creating the multiracial working-class coalition that Republicans have long dreamed of. According to CNN’s exit polls, Trump won 45% of the Latino vote, up from 32% in 2020. He won 54% of Latino men, up from 36% in 2020. In a long-awaited realignment, he won voters who make less than $100,000 a year (49%-48%) after losing them 43%-56% last cycle, while losing those who make more than $100,000 (45%-53%) after winning them in 2020 (54%-42%). He also made up significant ground among 18-to-29-year-olds. America’s historic battle lines over class, age, and race have been redrawn.
Perhaps the clearest indicator of Trump’s success came from the nation’s dismal view of the economy: 35% of voters in CNN’s exit poll said that the economy was “not so good,” and Trump won 52% of them. 32% said the economy was “poor,” and Trump won 86% of them. Harris won huge majorities of those who said the economy was “excellent” or “good” — but those segments made up a mere 32% of the country.
“We’ve made history for a reason tonight,” Trump said as he declared victory. He was correct.
What happens now?
Trump ran a campaign that was fueled by dark rhetoric and promises of vengeance, threatening to prosecute or otherwise punish dozens of his perceived enemies. “We’re going to keep our promises,” he said last night.
However, that task will be difficult in many places. His promised mass deportations will be logistically difficult to pull off — and would likely hurt the economy, as would his promised universal tariffs (which he would be able to impose unilaterally).
Trump’s ability to pass any legislation — from cutting taxes to reducing foreign aid — will be reliant on his party’s victory in the House, which remains unclear at this hour. However, with the Senate, he will likely still be able to fill his Cabinet and to confirm any Supreme Court nominees, should conservative Justices Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito retire.
Pay close attention to the people Trump names in the coming days to key administration positions. Much of what he sought to do in his first term was thwarted by the personnel around him. His calls for prosecuting enemies will rely on nominating a pliant Attorney General — and then getting that person confirmed by the few moderate Republicans left in the Senate. Some of the obstacles that sprung up in his way in the first term will likely return; others, especially if he wins full control of Congress, will fall away, as he now leads a party almost completely under his thumb. Many of the moderating influences who surrounded him in his first administration are unlikely to return for the sequel.
Donald Trump has been the singular, dominant figure of American politics for nearly ten years: always present, always visible, always pushing the boundaries of what was previously thought possible for a politician, not always prevailing, but always — against the odds — surviving. In last night’s election, he not only survived: he thrived. He returns to the White House emboldened and — for the first time — embraced by a majority of Americans, having realigned America’s political culture and successfully tugged the country to the right.
Despite his vitriol, his impeachments, his indictments, Trump will now enter history not just as the improbable 45th president — but as the rejuvenated 47th as well.
I’ll have a lot more coverage for you throughout the week: helping explain how Trump won, what he’ll do in office, and where both parties go from here. Stay tuned.
Your summary of what went wrong for democrats was succinct and on point.I wish they had had the same insight. Thank you for working to give us even coverage.
You’ve pulled off a lucid summary in a remarkably short time. I wish I felt solace.