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      2024 US elections takeaways: how female voters broke for Harris and Trump

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      Gender had promised to be one of the biggest stories of the 2024 election. With abortion one of voters’ top issues, Donald Trump’s well-documented history of misogyny and a female presidential candidate of color on the ballot, Democrats banked on women showing up in force to defeat him. But Trump’s stunning victory in both the electoral college and the popular vote dashed those hopes – and scrambled the narrative around how gender, race and other markers of identity informed Americans’ votes.Based on available exit polling, which remains preliminary, here are five early takeaways on how gender shaped the 2024 elections.1. Women voted for the Democratic candidate, but by smaller marginsWomen did indeed show up to support Kamala Harris, but in smaller numbers than her Democratic predecessors. While Hillary Clinton won women by 13 points in 2016 and Joe Biden by 15 in 2020, Harris secured them by just 10 points, CNN found.2. White women are still voting for the Republican candidateAlthough women as a whole have historically voted for Democrats, white women have not. Instead, over the last 72 years, a plurality of white women have voted for the Democratic candidate only twice, in 1964 and 1996. On Tuesday, they once again went for Trump – just as they did in 2016 and 2020. But Harris made inroads with the group; she lost them by only 5 points, according to CNN. (In 2020, they broke for Trump by 11.) More surprisingly, Trump’s lead among white men also shrank, from 23 points in 2020 to 20 in 2024.3. Trump did better with young women than he did in 2020The Trump campaign leaned into targeting young men, as the former president publicly palled around with male YouTubers and podcasters, such as Joe Rogan, who make little space for women. This effort paid off: exit polling indicates that there was a canyon-wide 16-point gender gap between young men and women, which is an increase from 2020. While women between the ages of 18 and 29 preferred Harris 58% to 40%, their male peers chose Trump 56% to 42%. However, compared to his last run, Trump did better with both young men (41% of them voted for him four years ago) and young women (33% in 2020). 4. Harris suffered significant losses among both Latino women and menLatino men, in particular, veered hard to the right. In 2016, Clinton won Latino men by 31 points; by 2020, their support for Democrats had cooled somewhat, as Biden won them by 23 points. On Tuesday, Trump won this group handily, by 10 points, according to exit polling performed for the Washington Post and other outlets. Meanwhile, Harris won Latina women by 24 points, a victory that pales in comparison to Clinton’s 44-point lead in 2024.5. Black women are the most reliable Democratic votersLong the Democrats’ most stalwart supporters, Black women are still the backbone of the Democratic party. Harris won them by 85 points – a bigger lead than any other gendered and racial group measured by CNN. Apart from the contest for president, Delaware and Maryland both elected Black women, Lisa Blunt Rochester and Angela Alsobrooks, to the Senate — making the next Senate the first one where two Black women will simultaneously serve together.Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage

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      Harris concedes election to Trump. Here’s how to watch her full speech

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      Kamala Harris will deliver a speech conceding defeat in the presidential election to Donald Trump this afternoon. Earlier today, she called Trump to congratulate him on his electoral victory.Here’s what to know.Where will Harris deliver her concession speech?Continuing a longstanding US tradition, Harris called Trump to congratulate him on recapturing the White House. Joe Biden also issued congratulations and “expressed his commitment to ensuring a smooth transition”, according to the White House.Harris will appear at Howard University, her alma mater, in Washington DC to deliver a concession speech.On election night, supporters gathered on the historic campus were in a celebratory mood earlier in the evening, but as the likelihood of a Democratic victory dimmed, the mood grew somber.Harris was scheduled to address the crowd on election night, but did not appear. Instead, the campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond took the stage to address supporters.Harris also launched her unsuccessful 2020 campaign for the Democratic nomination at Howard and used the campus to prepare for her August debate against Trump.When will she speak?Her speech will take place at 4pm ET.The New York Times reported that Harris was scheduled to call Trump this afternoon to concede. The concession call is not a legal requirement in the US election, nor is the concession speech.In past elections, when has the losing candidate conceded?In 2016, Hilary Clinton gave a concession speech on Wednesday morning. “Donald Trump is going to be our president,” she said in Manhattan. “We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead.”In both 2012 and 2008, the election was called for Barack Obama before midnight.In 2020, Trump refused to concede the US election to Joe Biden. He has not admitted publicly that he lost.How to watch Harris’s concession speechMajor news networks will probably air the speech live. CBS will stream the speech, and CNN will probably make the speech available on its YouTube channel.The Guardian will have a live feed of the speech and a team of reporters covering it live in our election blog.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhat did she say on election night?Harris made no public comment after polls closed on election night, beyond encouraging voters on social media to stay in line at their polling locations.Harris was expected to speak to supporters on election night. However, as results came in and it became clear her path to victory had disappeared,Richmond addressed the crowd at her election night party: “We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not been called yet.”He confirmed Harris wouldn’t be speaking, but said the campaign would “continue, overnight, to fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken”.What to know about Trump’s victory speechAppearing with his family, close aides and his running mate, JD Vance, before supporters in Florida last night, Trump called his victory the “greatest political movement of all time”.“There’s never been anything like this in this country and now it’s going to reach a new level of importance, because we’re going to help our country heal,” Trump said.“We’re going to fix our borders. We’re going to fix everything about our country … I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve, this will truly be the golden age of America.”What happens next?Harris will preside over a joint session of Congress in January to certify the results of the election. Trump will be sworn in as the 47th US president on 20 January 2025.Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage

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      Why did voters abandon Kamala Harris? Because they feel trapped – and Trump offered a way out | Aditya Chakrabortty

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      Since we’ll hear a lot, again, about “populism”, let’s remember, again, that 19th-century US populism had a healthy strain of leftwing politics. Defending workers, riling up bankers, decrying the “cross of gold” and economic conservatism: look past his Bible-bashing, and William Jennings Bryan was a precursor to Franklin Roosevelt. Yet for much of this election year, the populists’ modern-day successors in the Democrats have served up an anti-populism: telling voters they were wrong.Americans were told they were wrong to see the corrosion of Joe Biden’s abilities, and wrong to think that his replacement should not be decided in a giant backroom stitch-up. They were wrong not to enjoy the US economic miracle, and wrong not to worry about the future of democracy. Black and brown people and students were wrong to expect the party to oppose the bloodbath in Gaza. Latinos were ungrateful to desert the party of racial equality, while Black men were boneheaded not to back a Black woman. Everyone was wrong not to lap up the rallies opened by Beyoncé and Usher, the skits on Saturday Night Live and that clip of Barack Obama rapping. Why couldn’t they just feel the joy?For reasons I’ll explain in a moment, I’m no fan of explanations that begin and end with the bogeyman of “populism”. They almost always wind up with well-lunched commentators ventriloquising the opinions of people they’ve never talked to and in whose worlds they’ve never set foot. Look at the exit polls and you see a materialist explanation for what’s just happened: two out of three US voters report their economy is bad. And they have an excellent point. As I wrote last month, look at the data over the long run and two big trends stand out.First, for the vast majority of US employees – whether middle class or working class, teacher or shop assistant – wages have flatlined. Not for four or even 20 years – but for most of the past half century. Strip out inflation, and average hourly earnings for seven out of 10 employees have barely risen since Richard Nixon was in the White House.I can’t think of a more flammable political economy than a country with a few very rich people where most workers only get by because of low gas and food prices. Then what happens? A second blow. Covid peters out, the world comes out of lockdown and low-wage America is doused in that most combustible of economic substances: inflation. The entire system goes up – and Donald Trump spots his chance.Faced with the flames, what would be a left-populist response? It wouldn’t be to resort to pedantry, to correct angry voters by showing them the aggregate figures – but that’s what many Democrat supporters did. Nor would it be to roll back all the benefits extended over the pandemic: the improved child tax credit, Medicaid and unemployment insurance. But that’s what Joe Biden did, even as he shovelled billions into infrastructure. The electoral result was that working- and middle-class voters peeled away from the Democrats. Kamala Harris won the most affluent voters, while Trump took those earning between $50,000 (£39,000) and $100,000 (£77,000). The two tied for those on $50,000 and below. So much for Harris being part of the most pro-worker government since the 1960s.Just as the electorate professed fury with the entire political and economic system, she and the Democrats made themselves the system’s defenders. They weren’t change but more of the same. They worried about the future of “democracy”; they warned about disrupting free trade. Harris’s slogan of “we’re not going back” said it all: a campaign defined by being anti-Trump rather than for anything. A strategy intended to woo “moderates” left nearly everyone cold.Harris started her campaign differently, by promising to hunt down price-gouging corporates. That policy was popular, but there was little else. She went policy-lite, so as to present Trump with less of a target. Among the supporters she wheeled out this autumn was the billionaire Mark Cuban. In a country where the richest 0.1% own nearly 20% of all wealth – almost as much as 90% of Americans put together – this is almost the definition of anti-populist politics.We probably won’t hear much about billionaires over the next few days. If the commentariat’s form from 2016 is anything to go by, the sketch will be of angry left-behinds and rednecks rallying to a strongman. Never mind that last night’s exit polls showed Trump as personally less popular than Harris, or that more than half of voters judge his views to be “too extreme”. Not to mention that Trump is easily the richest man ever to serve in the White House, with a personal net worth of about $5.5bn (£4.3bn). A marketing man, skilled at targeting discontent, Trump does not follow his crowds. Rather, he is led by the money men around him: the fossil fuel executives, the shadow bankers, the crypto bros and the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.Mitt Romney and George W Bush could always rely on some stuffed shirts from the Fortune 500 to hand over a few tens of thousands. But Trump’s donor class is very different. They include men like Stephen Schwarzman, head of the world’s largest private equity firm, Blackstone, billionaire investor Nelson Peltz and Silicon Valley’s David Sacks. They’re not company men building relationships but, as Trump styles himself, dealmakers. This lot have shelled out a lot more to get in Trump (Musk alone has spent an estimated $100m), and expect their money’s worth. “They’re less concerned about the photo op and a visit to the White House,” as one former bagman for Trump told the New Yorker. “They want to essentially get their issues in the White House.”Trump has reportedly lined up Musk to become his “secretary of cost cutting”, while in April, the US’s next president demanded oil executives give him $1bn to beat the Democrats. In return, he said, he’d let them do a lot more drilling. Slashed regulations and lower taxes are Trump’s way of keeping donors on side. Last time he was in the White House, he brought in $1.5tn of tax cuts that meant the richest 400 families in the US paid a lower tax rate than their secretaries, nannies, cleaners and anyone else in the working class.You can expect a lot more like it over the next four years. Trump will almost certainly plunder from the budgets for social security and Medicaid. The tech bros will suckle on government subsidies, while the suits from private equity get to set government policy.However this politics dresses itself, it’s not populism. Try: theft – taking from the poor to give to the rich.

      Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

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      Why did Trump win, and what comes next? Our panel reacts | Panelists

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      Moustafa Bayoumi: ‘Between hate and nothing, hate won’So, it will be Trump, after all. The very idea of another Trump presidency is devastating. His entire campaign consisted of unbridled race-baiting, woman-hating and fascist-in-waiting messaging, yet still he prevails. This is what succeeds in this country?The answer, it’s now clear, is a resounding yes. Should I be surprised? There are long and painful histories of racism, misogyny and fascism in this country (the Nazis even studied the US when crafting their regime). But, unlike any other nation’s election, this American tragedy will reverberate around the world. We must do all that we can to prevent a Trump presidency turning into even more of a death sentence not just for American women seeking abortions, but also for Ukrainians, Lebanese people and especially Palestinians.Hindsight is easy, of course, but some of us have been warning the Democrats for months about the limitations of the Harris campaign. The Democrats appeared more interested in courting disaffected Republicans, including war criminals such as Dick Cheney, than even merely dialoguing with their progressive flank. They refused to allow a Palestinian American to take the stage at their convention. Meanwhile, American bombs are dropped daily on Palestinians in what is widely considered a genocide, and Harris has had little to say.In fact, Harris probably had little to say about a lot of issues, so much so that the news site Axios labeled her the “‘no comment’ candidate”. The Republicans ran their campaign as a party of hate; the Democrats ran as a party that stood for almost nothing. Between hate and nothing, hate won.This must be the most profound wake-up call the Democratic party has ever heard. They must stop trying to be moderate Republicans and instead stand for equal justice, working people and human rights for everyone. Saying that they do just isn’t enough.The Democrats thought all the hate emanating from the Trump campaign was simply an emotion that they could neutralize by their expressions of “joy”. But what if hate isn’t an emotion? What if it’s an ideology? The answer to that question is what we, and the rest of the world, are about to find out. Pray for us.

      Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist
      Ben Davis: ‘Harris was brought into a terrible situation’American democracy has fallen apart. That an authoritarian rightwinger will take power is the symptom rather than the cause. What brought us to this point, is the cataclysmic, decades-long breakdown of working-class institutions and civil society. The only path forward is to rebuild somehow.Trump gained or held steady with every demographic, even left-trending groups like white college-educated voters and women. He gained most with young, less politicized voters and voters of color of all stripes. How has this happened?Working-class organization, civil society and the basic institutions that have held the country together have disintegrated. There are very few places where people talk to anyone outside their co-workers – during work – and a small number of friends. We don’t know our neighbors. We don’t have unions. This is a society where trust erodes to an extreme degree, and politics is practiced at the level of the individual rather than the community.Kamala Harris did not run a terrible campaign. She was brought into a terrible situation. Joe Biden’s hubris cost her deeply. But she failed in two directions. She shed young voters, Arab and Muslim voters, and Latino voters who had previously favored the left by running an aggressively bipartisan, centrist campaign, ignoring the active genocide in Palestine supported by the United States.But this didn’t work either. The median voter, the bipartisan moderate voter, rejected her.Americans don’t have organization. And with that, they don’t have active solidarity or a structured worldview. They believe a man who played a businessman on TV can press a button and stop inflation. The voting patterns we have seen with young voters, voters of color and all sorts of voters left behind by our country are striking. Their grievances are real. And Democrats have been unable to offer a solution.

      Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DC
      Lloyd Green: ‘Biden racked up decades-high levels of inflation’Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refused to internalize their limited mandate. On election day the US punished them, returning Donald Trump, a convicted felon, to the White House. And before the Democrats cast half the country as benighted, they ought to look closely in the mirror.In office, Biden racked up decades-high levels of inflation at the same time as openly musing about being more consequential than Barack Obama – not the metric Americans were looking for. As much as Biden-Harris saw Dobbs and democracy as silver electoral bullets, voters without four-year degrees were unimpressed.But it doesn’t end there. Despite Biden’s growing deterioration, he pursued re-election – until it was too late. Meanwhile, his team openly trashed Harris to anyone who would listen. All heard that bell’s peal.On the campaign trail, Harris exhibited joy but failed to show sure-footedness. She clobbered Trump in debate but bobbed and weaved when confronted by interviewers. Her inability to separate herself from her boss coupled with her selection of Tim Walz as her running-mate probably doomed her bid. Think incredible lightness of being.Culture remained a battleground. In 2020 and 2022, Democrats nearly destroyed themselves over “defund the police”. Fast forward to 2024: Harris declined to say where she stood on a Proposition 36, a California ballot measure supported by small businesses that sought to impose felony charges and stiffer sentences for certain theft and drug crimes. The proposition prevailed overwhelmingly; Harris did not.

      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
      Arwa Mahdawi: ‘Harris did not sufficiently break from Biden’Joy will come in the morning, fired-up Democrats enthused at the Democratic national convention back in August. It did not. The unthinkable happened in the middle of the night. Trump is back and he’s back with a vengeance.A Trump revenge tour will bring carnage at home and abroad. Netanyahu was already doing whatever he liked under the Biden administration – but we also know he was angling for a Trump victory. For over a year now Palestinians have been grieving; now it seems likely that the West Bank will be annexed and the misery in Gaza, already unbearable, will intensify.And I don’t need to tell you what will happen with women’s rights at home. Overturning Roe v Wade was just the beginning. The right’s war on women is entering a terrifying new phase.How did we get here? How did the US elect an adjudicated and alleged sexual predator over a woman again? This will be dissected for weeks but the bottom line is this: the US was desperate for change and the Harris campaign squandered their chance to meaningfully represent a new path for the country. Harris did not sufficiently break from Biden and Americans did not want a repeat of the last four years.The Harris campaign tried to find a path to victory by moving to the right, ignoring progressives and courting Republicans by parading around Liz Cheney. It didn’t work. And yet the lesson one imagines the Democratic party will draw from this loss is that they must move even further to the right.Things are bleak. But political change isn’t something that only happens every four years at the ballot box. The amount of organizational energy I’ve seen in the last couple of months has been astounding. We must keep this energy up. The fight isn’t over.

      Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
      Bhaskar Sunkara: ‘The Democrats must return to their populist New Deal roots’Unlike in 2016, many of us were bracing ourselves for this outcome. But how exactly did Donald Trump manage to win the White House a second time?It certainly wasn’t on the merits of his campaign. Trump was less coherent than in 2016, didn’t deliver the same potent appeals to workers, and embraced unpopular billionaires like Elon Musk.But he seemed to have this election handed to him. To start with, there was Joe Biden. The headline features of “Biden’s economy” were strong as far as GDP growth and jobs went, but Biden was unable to effectively communicate his domestic successes and take advantage of his bully pulpit as president. As a result, 45% of voters, the highest number in decades, said they were financially worse off than they were four years ago.Good policies don’t translate to good politics without an effective voice behind them and the president was unable to head off worries about inflation and immigration. The failures caused by his declining ability manifested itself most dramatically at the first presidential debate and Harris was forced to run from behind when she became the presumptive nominee.Harris herself ran a competent campaign, but was limited by the very nature of today’s Democratic coalition: it’s increasingly the party (in both style and substance) of professional-class people. Even though Harris herself shied away from it, the Democrats as a whole are still associated with identitarian rhetoric and relied on cross-class issues like abortion – which turned out to be less salient than the economy – to drive turnout.The type of majorities that can actually transform American politics won’t be found until Democrats return to their economic populist, New Deal roots. That means naming elites as enemies and avoiding cultural radicalism that appeals to very few and alienates working-class minority communities.This isn’t Harris’s loss; it belongs to her whole party. And the whole country will pay the consequences.

      Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of the Nation, founding editor of Jacobin and author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequalities More

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      US election 2024 live: Donald Trump says ‘we made history’ as he closes in on victory with win in Pennsylvania

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      On stage in West Palm Beach, Trump declared victory and pledged to bring a “golden age” to the United States.“This was a movement like nobody’s ever seen before, and frankly, this was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time. There’s never been anything like this in this country, and maybe beyond,” Trump said.“And now it’s going to reach a new level of importance, because we’re going to help our country. We’ll help our country … we have a country that needs help, and it needs help very badly. We’re going to fix our borders. We’re going to fix everything about our country. And we made history for a reason tonight, and the reason is going to be just that we overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible, and it is now clear that we’ve achieved the most incredible political thing.”He continued:
      I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president, and every citizen, I will fight for you, for your family and your future. Every single day, I will be fighting for you and with every breath in my body, I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve. This will truly be the golden age of America.
      Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, says Athens “looks forward to further deepening the strategic partnership between our two countries,” in a post on X congratulating Donald Trump on his election victory.At a time of regional turmoil, the centre right leader highlighted the need to continue working closely on geopolitical issues.Nato-member Greece has increasingly emphasised its role as a “pillar of stability” in the eastern Mediterranean – a role that in turn has been highlighted by the Middle East conflict.Hours before ballot boxes opened in the US, Mitsotakis said that while the presidential elections were of “particular importance for the entire international community” it was “absolutely necessary for Europe to come of age geopolitically. The time has come for Europe to re-energize itself by launching policies that go off the beaten track”.The comments have been interpreted as speaking to the nervousness many in Europe will feel about a Trump comeback.The video team have shared the below clips of Donald Trump supporters gathered at a watch party in Florida earlier erupting in celebration as Fox News called the 2024 race.The Associated Press, which the Guardian relies on for projections, has not yet called the election overall.Israel’s president Isaac Herzog has described Donald Trump as a “champion of peace” as senior figures in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government welcomed the prospect of the return of the former president to the White House.In a post to social media Herzog said:
      Congratulations to president Donald Trump on your historic return to the White House. You are a true and dear friend of Israel, and a champion of peace and cooperation in our region.
      I look forward to working with you to strengthen the ironclad bond between our peoples, to build a future of peace and security for the Middle East, and to uphold our shared values.
      Earlier, the Israeli prime minister Netanyahu himself offered congratulations, saying a Trump victory “offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America”.Israel’s newly appointed defense minister, Israel Katz, said he believed that a Trump presidency will “bring back the hostages” and defeat Iran, posting:
      Congratulations to president-elect Donald Trump on his historic victory. Together we’ll strengthen the US-Israel alliance, bring back the hostages, and stand firm to defeat the axis of evil led by Iran.
      Two far-right members of the Netanyahu cabinet, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir both used social media messages to invoke blessings from God on Trump, Israel and America. The two of them head parties which are for the exansion of Israel’s illegal settlements on the land of the occupied West Bank.Qatar’s Emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, also offered congratulations to Trump, saying:
      I wish you all the best during your term and look 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 has been one of the nations working most closely with the US and Egypt in attempts to broker a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas. Hamas is believed to still be holding about 100 hostages seized from Israel on 7 October 2023, many of whom are thought to have been killed.Hamas, which launched the 7 October attack last year, leading to Israel’s sustained military assault on Gaza, has also reacted to the US election.Reuters reports senior official Sami Abu Zuhri said Trump would be tested on his statements that he can stop the war within hours as US president, and told the news agency: “We urge Trump to learn from Biden’s mistakes.”Charles Michel president of the European Council, which represents the leaders of the 27 EU member states has congratulated Donald Trump.The prime minister of Ireland, which is the European HQ to some of the US’s most important companies, has congratulated Donald Trump.“The people of the United States have spoken and Ireland will work to deepen and strengthen the historic and unbreakable bonds between our people and our nations in the years ahead,” said Simon Harris.Ireland’s relationship with the US is one of its most important economically and politically given its role over the peace deal in Northern Ireland.Foreign investment from the US is the backbone of the country’s economy with US multinationals including tech companies Google, Microsoft and Intel, employing 300,000 people in Ireland and contributing 50% of the country’s corporate tax.Here’s a video of Donald Trump speaking on stage in West Palm Beach, Florida, earlier where he pledgedto bring a “golden age” to the United States.The leader of the UK’s Liberal Democrats party has called a likely Donald Trump election victory “a dark, dark day for people around the globe” and described the Republican as a “destructive demagogue”.Ed Davey, who leads the third largest political party in the UK parliament, wrote on X:
      This is a dark, dark day for people around the globe. The world’s largest economy and most powerful military will be led by a dangerous, destructive demagogue.”
      In a statement recently released by the party, Davey added:
      The next president of the United States is a man who actively undermines the rule of law, human rights, international trade, climate action and global security.
      Millions of Americans – especially women and minorities – will be incredibly fearful about what comes next. We stand with them.
      Families across the UK will also be worrying about the damage Trump will do to our economy and our national security, given his record of starting trade wars, undermining Nato and emboldening tyrants like Putin.
      Fixing the UK’s broken relationship with the EU is even more urgent than before. We must strengthen trade and defence cooperation across Europe to help protect ourselves from the damage Trump will do.
      Now more than ever, we must stand up for the core liberal values of equality, democracy, human rights and the rule of law – at home and around the world.”
      The president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has congratulated Donald Trump and urged him to work with her on a “transatlantic partnership”.Von der Leyen said the EU and US were “more than just allies”, but shared a deep bond “rooted in our shared history, commitment to freedom and democracy, and common goals of security and opportunity for all”.She said:
      Let us work together on a transatlantic partnership that continues to deliver for our citizens. Millions of jobs and billions in trade and investment on each side of the Atlantic depend on the dynamism and stability of our economic relationship.”
      Behind the scenes von der Leyen’s team has been preparing for a Trump victory for months, including by drawing up lists of US imports to Europe to target with tariffs, if Trump imposes punitive duties on European goods to the US.Donald Trump has won Michigan’s Saginaw county, a bellwether that bodes well for his chances of flipping the Great Lakes state Joe Biden won four years ago.Trump is leading with 84.2% of the votes counted, picking up 50.9% support to Kamala Harris’s 47.7%. In 2020, Biden beat Trump by winning 49.4% of the vote compared to the Republican’s 49.1%. The county supported Trump in 2016, when he won Michigan overall.The Associated Press has not yet called Michigan, but Trump currently has a lead of just under five percentage points over Harris.Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte has congratulated Donald Trump and said he showed “strong US leadership” in his first term in office that strengthened the alliance.In a statement Rutte said he looked forward to working with Trump “to advance peace through strength through Nato”.Rutte, who took office last month, referred to the challenges facing the alliance without a direct reference to the war in Ukraine.He said:
      We face a growing number of challenges globally, from a more aggressive Russia, to terrorism, to strategic competition with China, as well the increasing alignment of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.
      The veteran Dutch politician, reputed for knowing how to handle Trump, praised the US president-elect, while seeking to convince him of the value of the alliance.India’s prime minister Narendra Modi joined the ranks of world leaders congratulating Donald Trump on his presumed victory. In a post on X, Modi offered “hearty congratulations to my friend Donald Trump”, alongside several photos of the two men tightly embracing each other and holding hands.Modi, who has been Indian prime minister for a decade, was seen to have a close relationship with Trump during his first term in office, and Trump has repeatedly referred to “my friend Modi”.As it looked like Trump was claiming victory on Wednesday, Modi said he was “looking forward to collaboration” between the US and India and added:
      Together, let’s work for the betterment of our people and to promote global peace, stability and prosperity.”
      At the Republican watch party in Las Vegas, the crowd is giddy.The bar at the Ahern hotel is packed with excited, bleary-eyed supporters. In a city known for its flair and theatrics, many supporters are dressed up in their most flamboyant Maga gear. A man wearing a rubber Trump mask and a star-paneled cape draws laughs and cheers.Sari Utschen, 57, was wearing a homemade dress that was embroidered with the word “Trump” down the front in huge block letters, and string of LED lights draped like a scarf.“I feel relieved. I feel joyous,” she said.Utschen said she used to vote with Democrats in the 80s and 90s, but finds that the party has gone too far to the left in recent years. “I’ve been red-pilled,” she said, laughing. Over the past four years, she said: “I felt like we were being bamboozled under Biden. Nothing made sense.” More

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      The thought of a Trump presidency is eating me alive | Francine Prose

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      I’m neither the calmest nor the most anxious person. But as Donald Trump’s presidential victory seems more certain by the minute, I feel sick to my stomach with worry. I hoped to go to sleep on election night knowing Harris had won, and that we were safe. But that is not what was in store for us.The anxiety I’m feeling right now started months ago. During the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, my hair began falling out and one of my eyelids started twitching. Classic signs of stress, said a doctor friend. On Halloween, talking with a colleague, I realized that we looked and sounded the way people look and sound outside the intensive care unit, as they wait to learn whether a friend or relative will survive.The survival we were worried about was that of our democracy. Our flawed democracy, I should say. No one can pretend we live in a nation of equals, that there aren’t massive income and racial disparities. No one imagines the rich and poor have an equal say about who runs for office or makes decisions about healthcare and education. No one dreams that either presidential candidate will stop funding war in the Middle East.Regardless of who is funding our political campaigns, no one is going to run for office on a platform that proclaims: I promise the American people that I am going to fight to protect our precious oligarchy!So let’s call it democracy. Because the alternative is so much worse.We understand the alternative. We know what a dictatorship is. The millions killed by Hitler, the millions killed by Stalin. The Argentinean military dropping prisoners out of helicopters. The replacement of laws and rights with the whims of the dictator. The dehumanization of the other, the whipping up of the majority to see the minority as vermin, as vectors of “poisoned blood”. The normalization of violence as part of the political process. The mutual admiration of one dictator for another. The silencing of every voice except that of the dictator and his inner circle. The idea that the old couple next door, with their funny accents, raising their grandson, are criminals who must be arrested and dumped across the border. The delight in racist humor, that jolly dog-whistle of hatred.The imprisonment and execution of those who disagree with the government is one of the most common threats we’d heard during the campaign. Any system, even ours, could murder its Alexei Navalny. In Pittsburgh I met a writer, Abdelrahman ElGendy, who spent six years in prison for taking part in a demonstration against Egypt’s military government. And what if the dictator decides against birth control or equal rights for women? What if misogyny is so open and prevalent that a woman’s laughter is described as a witch’s cackle?And what if the dictator loses his mind – along with the nuclear code? What if the dictator surrounds himself with power-hungry sociopaths, as so many dictators have? What if the dictator decides that the sick and old, the infirm and poor are a drain on the economy?These are snowflake fears, I know, but buttressed by sturdy historical facts. The most eloquent account of the prelude to a dictatorship was written by Gabriel García Márquez, in an essay, Death of a President: The Last Days of Salvador Allende, published in Harper’s, in 1974.All you have to do is read about the rally at Madison Square Garden on 26 October 2024. A comedian told nasty jokes about Puerto Rico, the sex lives of Latinos, the cheapness of Jews, the sluttiness of powerful women. A prominent speaker said, “America is for Americans.” In 1939, 20,000 people attended the rally of the German American Bund, also in Madison Square Garden. One of those speakers said that if George Washington were alive, he would be friends with Adolf Hitler.Regardless who wins the 2024 election, the campaign has been a snapshot – however blurry in places – of our country. And it’s not a pretty picture. The divisions are going deeper, or perhaps just more open. In our peaceful rural neighborhood, someone has posted a campaign sign at the entrance to the long narrow lane that leads to the peaceful town cemetery.Dictators are not about bridging divides. They prefer divisions. They like people hating other people. They like people fearing that the country is in danger from maniacs who want to defund the police and offer welcome baskets to busloads of narcos and serial killers. We’ve been encouraged to picture migration as a scene from World War Z (2013), zombies scaling fortifications, swarming the cities of the living.People have been saying that the would-be dictator was not really going to do what he threatened during the campaign. Economically, it was a nonstarter. Deport the undocumented agricultural workers, and a tangerine will cost $20! But I kept thinking of something that the journalist Masha Gessen wrote in the aftermath of the 2016 election: believe the dictator.Added to our dark fantasies about the future are the pre-existent realities lately getting new scrutiny. The refusal of two major newspapers to endorse a candidate reminded us (surprise!) how much of our media is run by billionaires calculating, to the penny, the potential profit and loss, depending on who wins. Officials with significant roles in our governments turn out to have price tags as low as an airline upgrade. For most of my life, I’ve felt more or less reassured by the existence of the supreme court, but that bedrock trust is gone.Things are a mess. We want the country to get better, and we fear it could get worse.People in other countries have apparently been obsessed with the 2024 US elections. They understand what’s at stake. Even from afar they can see why we have been sleeping badly at night and being on edge during the day.

      Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences More

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      in US Politics

      Donald Trump poised to win election after string of crucial swing state wins

      by

      After notching a string of wins in crucial swing states, Donald Trump was poised to return to the White House after a momentous presidential election in which democracy itself had been at stake and which is likely to take the United States into uncharted political waters.The Republican nominee took North Carolina surprisingly early, the first battleground state to be called, and later he took Georgia and then Pennsylvania. He was strongly positioned in Arizona and Nevada, other key contests.The race between Trump, a former president, and the current Democratic vice-president, Kamala Harris, had been a frenetic contest and it finally approached its conclusion amid scenes of celebration in the Trump camp.At 1.20am, at Trump’s election watch party in Palm Beach, Florida, a prolonged, almighty roar went up as Fox News had called Pennsylvania for Trump. “It’s over!” screamed one man, amid the noise, at what felt like the point of no return. A young man in a black Trump hat shouted: “Fuck Joe Biden! Fuck her!”The euphoric crowd chanted: “USA! USA!” They gathered near the stage, waiting for Trump to speak.At 1.47am, Fox named Trump president-elect, though the Associated Press – which the Guardian follows – has not yet put Trump over the finish line.The man who incited the deadly attack at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, earning (and surviving) a second impeachment; the man who was this year convicted on 34 criminal charges; the man who faces multiple other criminal counts and who has been ordered to pay millions in multiple civil lawsuits, including one over a rape claim a judge deemed “substantially true”. The man at the centre of all of that whom senior military aides called a fascist and a danger to the republic was preparing to head for the White House again.Eventually, past 2am, Trump emerged to speak, to the strains of God Bless the USA, the Lee Greenwood country anthem plastered on Bibles that Trump hawks for sale. Trump was surrounded by his family, by close aides, and by JD Vance, the hard-right Ohio senator he made his vice-presidential pick.“This is a movement like nobody’s ever seen before,” Trump said. “This is I believe the greatest political movement of all time. There’s never been anything like this in this country and now it’s going to reach a new level of importance, because we’re going to help our country heal.View image in fullscreen“We’re going to fix our borders. We’re going to fix everything about our country … I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve, this will truly be the golden age of America.”Trump reveled in battleground state victories and said he would win them all. He claimed to have won the popular vote, which had not yet been decided. He described “a great feeling of love” and claimed “an unprecedented and powerful mandate”, celebrating Republicans retaking the Senate. He said it looked like Republicans would keep control of the House of Representatives – again, undecided at that point.Trump saluted his wife, Melania, his family, and Vance, who he invited to the podium to speak. Vance buttered up the boss, promising “the greatest economic comeback in American history under Donald Trump’s leadership”.Trump referred to the assassination attempts against him. “God spared me for a reason,” he said.At Harris’s watch party, at Howard University in Washington, the mood became somber, as hopes Harris could become the first president from a Historically Black College and University began to flicker and dim. Around 1am, Cedric Richmond, a former congressman and Harris campaign co-chair, told supporters they would not hear from Harris.“Thank you for believing in the promise of America,” Richmond said. “We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not been called yet. We will continue overnight to fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken.”Attendees rushed out, the mood swinging to despair. Eight years after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in a similar fashion, few attendees seemed surprised or shocked. Many declined to comment. “What more is there to say,” one woman shrugged as she shuffled out.Strewn water bottles and other litter were all that was left after the crowd was gone.Before 1am, the Republicans had retaken the Senate. A West Virginia seat went red as expected but the die was cast when Sherrod Brown, a long-serving progressive Democrat, was beaten in Ohio by Bernie Moreno, a car salesperson backed by Trump. Democrats had held the chamber 51-49. Other key races went right. In Maryland, Angela Alsobrooks provided a point of light for Democrats, joining Lisa Blunt Rochester, of Delaware, as the third and fourth Black women ever elected to the Senate.The House remained contested, Democrats seeking to retake the chamber, to erect a bastion against a Republican White House and Senate. The House can hold a president to account but the Senate controls federal judicial appointments. Further rightwing consolidation of control of the supreme court, to which Trump appointed three hardliners between 2017 and 2021, looms large.In June 2022, that Trump court removed the federal right to abortion. Campaigns for reproductive rights fueled Democratic electoral successes after that but on Tuesday such issues seemed to fall short of fueling the wave of support from suburban, Republican-leaning women Democrats had hoped for and pundits predicted.A measure to enshrine abortion rights in the Florida constitution, which Democrats hoped would help boost turnout, fell short of the 60% needed for approval. Nebraska, won by Trump, voted to uphold its abortion ban, which outlaws the procedure after 12 weeks of pregnancy. Abortion-related measures did pass in New York, Maryland, Colorado, Missouri, Nevada and Arizona.A huge gender gap opened. A CNN exit poll showed Harris up by 11 points among female voters, Trump up 10 among male voters. Other polls showed dominant concerns over the economy and democracy. According to the AP Votecast survey, four in 10 voters named the economy and jobs as the most important problem facing the country, a hopeful sign for Trump. Roughly half of voters cited the fate of democracy, a focal point of Harris’s campaign.Wednesday will bring jitters in foreign capitals. Victory for Trump’s “America first” ethos can be expected to boost rightwing populists in Europe and elsewhere – and to place support for Ukraine in jeopardy as it fights Russian invaders.At home, America lies divided. Harris centered her campaign on Trump’s autocratic threat while he ran a campaign fuelled by grievance, both personal and the perception of an ailing America, baselessly painting Biden and Harris as far-left figures wrecking the economy with inflation and identity politics. Though he was the subject of two assassination attempts, in Pennsylvania and Florida, he stoked huge divisions and widespread fears of violence.Trump told supporters “I am your retribution” and threatened to prosecute political foes, journalists and others. He suggested turning the US military against “the enemy from within”. He put immigration and border security at the heart of his pitch, painting a picture of the US overrun by illegal immigration, with language that veered into outright racism and fearmongering. He referred to undocumented people as “animals” with “bad genes … poisoning the blood of our country”.He vowed to stage the biggest deportation in US history, to replace thousands of federal workers with loyalists, to impose sweeping tariffs on allies and foes alike.On election night, he said he would govern “by a simple motto: Promises made. Promises kept. We’re going to keep our promises. Nothing will stop me.”Additional reporting by Sam Levine in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Hugo Lowell in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Asia Alexander in Washington DCRead more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage

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