Former President Donald Trump made a stunning comeback early Wednesday morning, as he was elected the 47th president of the United States. He gained 295 electoral votes to Vice President Kamala Harris’ 226, surpassing the 270 electoral votes necessary to secure the presidency.
The win followed several key swing states voting in Trump’s favor — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Each of these critical battleground states elected Trump in 2016, then went blue in 2020, allowing for President Joe Biden’s defeat of Trump. As of Wednesday night at 11 p.m., Arizona and Nevada’s electoral votes have yet to be officially called, but with Trump’s sweeping of the rest of the key swing states, his victory was assured.
Trump has become the first person with felony charges to be elected president. He was also facing a civil conviction for sexual abuse and has filed for six bankruptcies
Trump also has several criminal cases pending against him, both state and federal. The state criminal case currently against him is regarding his 34 felony counts for falsifying business records in relation to his attempt to illegally affect the 2016 election and his hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. There are also two pending federal criminal cases against the president-elect. Brought up by special counsel Jack Smith, the two cases involve Trump holding on to classified business records after he left office, and for attempting to illegally overturn the 2020 election.
New Jersey is a reliably blue state, the last time a Republican candidate secured the state being the 1988 election between George H.W Bush and Michael Dukakis. New Jersey still voted blue in this election, but Trump’s performance in the state was abnormally high for a Republican candidate.
Harris defeated Trump in N.J., but only by about five percentage points. In comparison, Trump lost N.J. by 14 points against Hillary Clinton in 2016. This makes for the narrowest margin the state has seen since 1992.
Trump evidently overperformed across the entire country, whereas Harris underperformed, with more voters skewing right than was originally anticipated.
MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki attributed Trump’s higher than expected turnout in N.J. to several predominantly Hispanic/Latino counties. In 2020, 32% of Hispanic/Latino voters went for Trump, whereas this election saw a jump to 45%. Harris also saw a drop in support from Asian voters, 56% compared to 2020’s 61%.
On Wednesday afternoon, Harris delivered a speech conceding the election at her alma mater, Howard University, where she had hoped to give her victory speech on election night.
Harris promised a peaceful transition of power, and stressed the importance of accepting the results of the election, but vowed that she would not give up the fight at the root of her campaign.
“The fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness and for the dignity of all people, a fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best — that is a fight I will never give up,” Harris told the crowd at Howard.
mkane10@ramapo.edu & jhammer@ramapo.edu
Featured photo courtesy of @jailedfemcel, X
