Donald Trump will become president again.
Trump, 78, won the swing states North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as of publication, while leading in Michigan, Nevada and Arizona. Including his expected wins, this total put him over 270 electoral votes. The New York Times projected he will win the popular vote — for the first time in the three times he has run for president, and the first time for a Republican since 2004. Indiana voted for Trump by a margin of 20% against Vice President Kamala Harris at the time of publication.
Harris has not addressed the results as of publication. She canceled her speech at Howard University planned for Tuesday night.
He’ll come in with broader executive power than most presidents in U.S. history. Trump v. United States, decided by the Supreme Court this July, grants presidents presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts.” Further bolstering his mandate is the Republican party flipping the Senate, though the margin is unclear.
Trump will enter office with Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his vice president. Trump has been campaigning for nearly two years, announcing his campaign 720 days before Election Day.
It’s been a historic campaign season. Trump narrowly avoided assassination in July this year. In September, the Secret Service captured a man allegedly attempting to assassinate the former president at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump’s policy proposals included setting unilateral tariffs to at least 10% with higher duties for Chinese imports, extending his 2017 tax cuts and cutting taxes on tips and Social Security payments. He’s pledged to end the Russo-Ukrainian War in 24 hours via negotiation, but it is unclear what strategy he would take. He’s proposed the largest mass deportations of undocumented immigrants in American history.
Twenty-seven women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct occurring since the 1970s, ranging from rape to walking in on naked teenage pageant contestants. A grand jury found him liable for sexually abusing columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996. He has denied all accusations. In January, a New York jury ordered Trump to pay $83 million for defaming Caroll.
He’s been impeached twice and was found guilty of 34 felony counts regarding hush money payments to a adult film star. He spread lies about the 2020 election’s validity, which helped lead to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
More recently, Trump’s former — and longest serving — Chief of Staff John Kelly called him a “fascist,” a claim President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have echoed.
His campaign has been marked by divisive rhetoric. In the September debate against Kamala Harris, Trump falsely claimed Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets, a claim he’s doubled down on. Dozens of bomb threats to Springfield institutions followed.
Other rhetoric has come under fire and made his plans for the presidency unclear. He said the military should handle what he called “the enemy from within,” during prospective unrest on Election Day. He’s threatened to investigate and prosecute political rivals.
Many of his priorities are continuations from his first presidential term. Trump is proposing to continue cutting environmental regulations, implement further isolationist foreign policy and position the U.S. further in support of Israel.
He will also continue appointing conservative-leaning judges, after selecting three Supreme Court judges during his first term. Those judges voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, leading to a mass wave of restrictions on abortion nationwide, including a near-total ban in Indiana.
