WASHINGTON — Voters delivered a decisive win for former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris in Tuesday’s election, laying the groundwork for a second administration — a “golden age,” he calls it — in which he has vowed to conduct mass deportations of migrants, impose stiff taxes on foreign goods and install wealthy supporters in key positions.
And according to numerous media reports, the former president is expected to enter office free of his federal criminal charges as the U.S. Justice Department plans to wind down its classified documents and 2020 election interference cases ahead of inauguration day.
Trump’s populist campaign was at least as focused on cultural resentments as concrete policy proposals, but he did consistently promise to take action on immigration and the economy.
A hardliner on immigration since he began his first White House run in 2015, Trump promised on the campaign trail this year to conduct a mass deportation of more than 13 million immigrants in the country illegally.
The logistical challenges and cost of such an enterprise, which may include temporary detention camps and a massive boost to immigration enforcement funding, may prove difficult.
Experts across the fiscal policy spectrum have also warned that Trump’s plan to impose across-the-board tariffs on foreign goods will increase consumer costs and risk triggering a trade war.
The former president incessantly threatened to spike tariffs as high as 60% on all Chinese goods, and anywhere between 25% to 200% on goods coming over the U.S. border from Mexico.
Trump teased a Cabinet and staff featuring billionaire Elon Musk, a major campaign donor and surrogate, who told thousands of Trump supporters he could cut $2 trillion in federal spending.
Trump also promised a top health spot for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., whose reputation includes spreading misinformation about vaccines and leaving a dead bear cub in New York’s Central Park.
The son of the late attorney general and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy promised Saturday on social media that a new Trump administration would “advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water” on its first day in office.
The former president thanked Musk and Kennedy, Jr., in his victory speech in the wee hours Wednesday, promising the latter “is going to make America healthy again” as the crowd chanted “Bobby, Bobby, Bobby.”
“He wants to do some things, and we’re gonna let him go to it,” Trump said.
Harris called the former president Wednesday to congratulate him on his win, according to a senior campaign aide. The conversation, during which the aide said she stressed a peaceful transfer of power, represented a departure from Trump’s behavior in 2020, when he refused to concede to the race’s victor, President Joe Biden.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said the former president “acknowledged Vice President Harris on her strength, professionalism, and tenacity throughout the campaign, and both leaders agreed on the importance of unifying the country.”
Trump, who is poised to be the first-ever convicted felon elected to the Oval Office, now faces a presidential transition period that will entail filling thousands of political appointees’ positions, a process that is expected to be made smooth by a Republican-led Senate.
Federal criminal charges trailed Trump through his entire second presidential run, and the former president made clear on the campaign trail his ire for political foes, at times labeling them the “enemy from within.”
A U.S. Supreme Court decision this year that granted presidents wide latitude to take criminally questionable action if they purport to do so in service of the office could provide Trump an opening to wield the department against political opponents.
Upon taking office this time, Trump, 78, will also make history as the oldest person ever elected to the U.S. presidency, while his running mate, 40-year-old Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, will be among the youngest to assume second in command.
Geopolitical impact
Even before the AP had called the race, world leaders began congratulating Trump for his win.
“Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback!” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on X in a post addressed to the president-elect and former first lady Melania Trump. “Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.”
Qatar’s leader Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani offered his best wishes on X around the same time as Netanyahu, declaring that Qatar is looking forward “to working together again to strengthen our strategic relationship and partnership, and to advancing our shared efforts in promoting security and stability both in the region and globally.”
Qatar is a major broker in negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage deal to end the Israel-Gaza war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also swiftly congratulated Trump on “an impressive election victory.”
“I recall our great meeting with President Trump back in September, when we discussed in detail the Ukraine-U.S. strategic partnership, the Victory Plan, and ways to put an end to Russian aggression against Ukraine,” Zelenskyy posted to X early Wednesday.
“I appreciate President Trump’s commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach in global affairs. This is exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer. I am hopeful that we will put it into action together,” Zelenskyy continued.
U.S. aid is critical to both Israel and Ukraine in their respective conflicts with Hamas and Russia.
Trump has frequently criticized U.S. support for Ukraine but is not expected to significantly alter U.S. policy toward Israel.
Trump legal problems
The former president has faced numerous criminal charges and civil lawsuits since his term ended in January 2021.
Trump’s long presidential campaign was punctuated by a busy legal schedule that included two federal cases, still ongoing, and cases in Georgia and New York.
Just over a month before Election Day, a federal judge unsealed new evidence from U.S. special counsel Jack Smith outlining Trump’s alleged role in the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election results that culminated in the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The high-profile case was stuck in a holding pattern for most of 2024 while Trump fought the charges, arguing that former U.S. presidents cannot be criminally tried for actions they took while still in office.
In July, the U.S. Supreme Court returned the case to the lower court after ruling that former presidents enjoy criminal immunity for any actions related to core constitutional powers, and presumed immunity for duties on the office’s outer perimeter, but none for personal actions.
Smith has argued in hundreds of pages of new court filings that Trump undermined the 2020 presidential election results as a candidate, in his personal capacity working with private attorneys.
Trump has indicated numerous times that, if elected to another presidency, he would oust Smith from the U.S. Justice Department.
The only criminal case against Trump to reach trial played out in a Manhattan courtroom in April and May, and concluded when a jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The former president had covered up hush money paid to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election.
Trump’s sentencing in his home city, originally scheduled for July, is now set for Nov. 26 — though it’s unclear how New York Judge Juan Merchan will proceed following Trump’s second trajectory to the White House. The case had already been delayed as the parties began to argue how the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling affected evidence presented against Trump.
Trump made history in June 2023 as the first former president to be indicted on federal criminal charges alleging that he hoarded classified documents at his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate and refused to return them to the National Archives. A federal judge tossed the case in July, but Smith has appealed it.
How the states were called for Trump
The Associated Press projected Trump’s victory Wednesday morning when Wisconsin notched the former president’s Electoral College vote count to 277 — over the 270 needed to secure the presidency. Harris had 224.
Trump by midday on Wednesday gained Michigan, bringing his electoral vote total to 292 and snagging five of the vital seven swing states in which he and the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, spent most of their time campaigning through 2024.
North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin all voted for Trump. Still without a victor declared were Nevada and Arizona.
GOP Senate
Republicans also took control of the U.S. Senate, guaranteeing Trump a relatively smooth path in confirming his appointments to the courts and the Cabinet in the coming months.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who is leaving his leadership post at the end of the year, called it “a hell of a good day.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, Republicans had nabbed 52 seats in the Senate and Democrats had 43, the AP said.
Montana Sen. Jon Tester, a longtime centrist Democrat viewed as his party’s most vulnerable senator in 2024, was ousted by Republican Tim Sheehy in a high-profile race called by the AP on Wednesday morning.
Control of the U.S. House had not yet been called but Republicans were leading there on Wednesday afternoon, 201-186.
If they were to maintain control of the chamber, that would set up an extraordinary Republican trifecta in Washington that likely could expedite legislation including on taxes, the debt, reproductive rights and immigration.
All results are unofficial until local election officials across the country verify and certify the outcome in the coming days and weeks.
Democracy as an issue flops
Harris’ campaign emphasized Trump’s threat to democratic norms, citing his refusal to accept his 2020 election loss and conviction on 34 felony counts.
But that message appeared not to resonate with voters, who told exit pollsters they were more concerned about economic factors like high inflation.
Leaders with Common Cause, an advocacy group that sought to engage voters on democracy issues, accepted the results Wednesday but continued to warn about the “grave threat” Trump posed to the country’s democratic norms.
“We respect the democratic process, but we now must face the fact that Trump’s stated intentions and actions pose a grave threat to the core principles of our democracy,” Virginia Kase Solomón, Common Cause president and CEO, said on a call with reporters. “As a twice-impeached former president with multiple felony charges, his return to office brings unprecedented risk to our nation’s foundational values.”
A roller coaster race
Trump had spent most of his reelection campaigning against Biden, who bowed out of the race in the summer after a disastrous debate performance.
That required the Trump team to pivot to a new campaign with a candidate Trump had never gone up against — Harris.
Harris, who touted herself as the underdog, tried to position herself as a new generation of leadership and through her policy plans on housing, health care and the economy, offering a new chapter for Americans.
She heavily ran on her support of reproductive rights and the threat to democracy that a second Trump presidency would bring, citing the immunity ruling from the Supreme Court.
In the end, Trump’s core campaign issues of immigration and criticisms of the economy appeared to have swayed voters, and she fell short of claiming any of the swing state votes that offered her a path toward victory.
As it became clear late Tuesday that she was falling behind in key states that carried Biden to the White House in 2020, thousands of her supporters who gathered at Howard University for a watch party left in waves as her chances for victory continued to narrow.
Ashley Murray is a co-author of this story. Ariana Figueroa, Jane Norman and Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared in Colorado Newsline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
