Former President Donald Trump was poised to return to the White House for a second time, ending Tuesday evening on the brink of victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.
After running on a dark campaign of retribution, Trump tried to strike a conciliatory tone in a rambling victory speech at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, where thousands of jubilant supporters had assembled for what Trump promised would be “the last rally.” During the speech, which included several of the kind of oddball tangents he is known for, Trump declared his intention to “help the country heal,” and promised his next administration would be “the golden age of America.” He acknowledged his family and thanked his campaign, and after Sen. JD Vance said a few words, Trump quipped, “Turned out to be a good choice!”
Among the others he thanked for his victory were podcasters Joe Rogan and Theo Von, in an acknowledgement of the underappreciated role that the medium played in his outreach to the young men who helped return him to office. Trump barely mentioned his opponent and instead focused on his remarkable comeback, which he called “a triumph of democracy.”
“It’s time to put the divisions of the past four years behind us,” he said.
In July, after President Joe Biden stepped aside and Harris became the Democratic nominee, polls showed the race at a virtual dead heat, with both Harris and Trump within the margin of error in all the major swing states. But Trump succeeded in breaching the “blue wall” state of Pennsylvania that Harris could not afford to lose. He also won handily in North Carolina and Georgia, and appeared headed toward victory in Wisconsin. At the end of the evening, it seemed almost certain he would exceed the 270 electoral votes needed to win—he was also ahead in the national popular vote.
Harris did well with women voters of all ages and regions, but it wasn’t enough to make up the ground she lost among Black men, but especially Latino voters, who, based on exit polling, appeared to break for Trump in surprisingly large numbers. Trump’s campaign had focused on peeling off support from those traditionally Democratic groups, and while they still voted in force for Harris, enough of those voters switched sides to make a difference.
As a 2024 candidate, Trump himself was no more disciplined than he was in 2016 or 2020. But his campaign was far more professional than it had been in his previous races. “Donald Trump is a movement,” former Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) told me in the spring. “That’s how he won this thing originally. But it was kind of rag tag. This time he has everything going for him. He has a huge, disciplined ground operation, a coordinated message operation.”
A lot of that, Davis suspected, could be credited to campaign co-chair Chris LaCivita. “He’s the kind of guy that Trump listens to outside of the family and can take control.”
In October, though, Trump seemed to revert to form when he brought Robert F. Kennedy Jr. into the fold and promised to put him in charge of “making America healthy again.” Kennedy proceeded to make news with kooky promises that the second Trump administration would ban childhood vaccines and get rid of fluoride in drinking water.
Trump also briefly brought back Corey Lewandowski, his 2016 campaign manager who in 2021 fell out of Trump’s orbit after the wife of a big donor accused him of making unwanted sexual advances. Despite this series of self-inflicted wounds, campaign co-chairs LaCivita and Susie Wiles ultimately let “Trump be Trump” while keeping the rest of the campaign on track and focused.
During the closing days of the campaign, the Daily Beast published a story alleging that LaCivita was “double dipping” and making millions from Trump’s campaign and its ad buys (he denied the claim vociferously). The Atlantic later reported that the story had infuriated Trump, who considered firing LaCivita. In previous campaigns, Trump had hired and fired a handful of campaign managers, including Paul Manafort, who ended up going to prison for money laundering, tax fraud, and illegal foreign lobbying connected to his years working for Ukrainian politicians. (Trump later pardoned him.) But Wiles and LaCivita managed to stay on for the strong finish.
Trump also consolidated his support among the nation’s business leaders in a way he had not in his previous two campaigns. Most notably, billionaire Elon Musk took a starring role in Trump’s campaign, spending $150 million of his own money to fund a last-minute get-out-the-vote effort by paying an army of canvassers to knock on doors for the candidate. (Trump spent a few minutes of his speech praising “Elon” and his “spaceship.”) Whether Musk can truly take credit for Trump’s victory is an open question. Especially because some of those workers seemed to be doing a good job of taking Musk’s money and not too much else.
News reports noted that as many as a quarter of the voter contacts made by Musk’s canvassers in Arizona and Nevada were bogus, as the workers figured out how to game the canvassing app to look as though they were out beating the bushes for every last vote when in fact they were hanging out at Starbucks. But Trump’s victory will undoubtedly be viewed as a victory for Musk as well, and perhaps serve as encouragement for other oligarchs to take a more direct role in running campaigns, leaving the national party even weaker.
Trump has promised that among his first acts upon taking office will be to close the border, free some of the incarcerated January 6 rioters, fire special counsel Jack Smith (who has been investigating Trump for his mishandling of classified documents and his role in fomenting the January 6 riot), and launch his campaign of mass deportations.
Sometime before Pennsylvania was called, Cedric Richmond, co-chair of Vice President Harris’ campaign, informed her supporters that she would not be speaking tonight, and would address them in the morning.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
