Voters in the United States elect Donald Trump as the country’s 47 president.
See how election night unfolded in a deeply divided nation… and how it affects the balance of power in congress.
now, on The Inside Story: Trump Wins.
Welcome to the Inside Story I’m Carla Babb in Washington.
America has voted and we have a winner.
Former president Donald Trump will be the next predident of the United States after one of the most divisive election years in modern history.
At 78, Trump is the oldest man ever elected president.
And he is also the first president since Grover Cleveland to lose reelection and then return to the White House. That was way back in 1892.
We begin our coverage with VOA national Correspondent... Carolyn Presutti.
The next president of the United States is a familiar one.
I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th one.
Former President Donald Trump waited more than seven hours after polls closed on the east coast to address his followers
It’s time to put your divisions of the past four years behind us, it’s time to unite.
Supporters were always confident despite polls showing a razor-thin difference between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
I think a lot of people are just tired of what’s going. On in the country. Just everything’s up: food, fuel housing.
I like the four years we had under Trump and I’m hoping we can get back to that.
After Trump achieved the required 270 electoral votes, the red wave continued in the U.S. Senate as the Republicans took the majority
It’s been a brutally long campaign, with Trump surviving two assassination attempts. A bullet in July grazed his ear, leaving an iconic image of the presidential candidate mouthing "Fight Fight Fight."
Renee White was sitting behind him that day in Butler, Pennsylvania, and was in Palm Beach election night. She says Trump needs to keep that attitude these next four years.
I don’t think it’s going to be easy. You have to keep fighting. USA, USA.
It’s almost as if this crowd knew from the beginning that their man would win again. These are the hats that were given out as people walked into this election watch party. On the back -- Trump with 45 and 47 written on the side.
Carolyn Presutti, VOA News, West Palm Beach, Florida.
Carolyn joins us now from the Trump campaign Headquarters in West Palm Beach Florida. Carolyn, I could feel the excitement on your television report. What’s the mood like down there?
It was certainly a jubilant in that convention hall. Every time they show the figures on the screen, when they would call states for Trump, everyone would erupt in roars and cheers and claps. And it was almost a dance atmosphere. Toward the end, people just didn't want to leave. And I think today they're waking up and thinking, Okay, let's get this administration started. They're calling it Trump 2.0
Whereas you have the Democrats on the other side who are waking up and saying, Oh my gosh. What happened? Where did we go wrong? Where did the polls not play out correctly? I mean, the polls were showing a very razor, thin margin between these two candidates. But then when you look at these results, they aren’t razor thin.
So, I'm sure Democrats are going to go back to the drawing board and they're going to say, how can we do better in future races? How can we do better in future presidential races? And when you look at those swing states, my goodness, they were supposed to split, right? Or at least Harris was supposed to get one or two of those because, remember, four years ago in 2020 Biden had flipped several of those states from being red Republican states to democratic, blue states. And this turnaround, Trump lift them back to the red Republican state.
So all this is going to be looked at in the next days, weeks, months ahead, to just analyze what happened in this election for Democrats. And of course, Republicans going forward are saying this is the mood of the country, and this is the way that we will continue the next five years. The nest four years.
What reactions are we seeing to the Trump win?
Well, here in in West Palm Beach, I don't know if you can see it behind me, but that is Mar a Lago, and that is where President Elect and future First Lady Melania live. That is their home. So this area is certainly their moment, their residents. So the people here are red, and they definitely vote Republican. Now all of Florida is Republican. And as you saw in this election, Florida did go to Trump, and markets I see are responding as well.