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The Republican Dave McCormick won the Senate race in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Thursday, denying the Democratic incumbent, Bob Casey, a fourth term and expanding his party’s majority in the upper chamber.When the Associated Press called the race at 4.09pm ET on Thursday, two days after polls closed in Pennsylvania, McCormick led by 0.4 points. The narrow margin raised the possibility of a recount, although his victory is expected to stand given his lead of roughly 30,000 votes.A spokesperson for Casey insisted that thousands of ballots remained uncounted, refusing to yet concede the race to McCormick.“As the Pennsylvania Secretary of State said this afternoon, there are tens of thousands of ballots across the Commonwealth still to count, which includes provisional ballots, military and overseas ballots, and mail ballots,” Casey spokesperson Maddy McDaniel said in a statement. “This race is within half a point and cannot be called while the votes of thousands of Pennsylvanians are still being counted. We will make sure every Pennsylvanian’s voice is heard.”With McCormick’s victory, Republicans have now secured at least 53 seats in the Senate, erasing Democrats’ previous majority in the chamber. Two Senate races in Nevada and Arizona remained too close to call as of Thursday afternoon.Although he fell short, Casey outperformed Kamala Harris, who lost Pennsylvania to Donald Trump by two points. Trump also won the two other “blue wall” states of Michigan and Wisconsin, but Democrats managed to hold on to both Senate seats that were up for grabs in those states.The call in Pennsylvania brought an end to a contentious and expensive Senate race that saw the two candidates trade barbed attacks on the cost of living, abortion access and McCormick’s recent residency in Connecticut. Casey attacked McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO, as out of touch while McCormick linked Casey to the “reckless” government spending of the Biden administration.At their debate last month, Casey mocked McCormick as “bought and paid for by these billionaires and corporations”. McCormick returned fire, saying: “When you don’t have a record to run on, which Senator Casey does not, you attack your opponent.”The high stakes of the race made it into one of the most expensive Senate elections in the nation, as the dueling campaigns and their allies spent more than $300m on ads. One pro-McCormick organization, the Keystone Renewal Pac, spent at least $54m on the race, making the group the highest-spending single-candidate Pac involved in a Senate race of this election cycle.Most public polls of the race showed Casey leading by several points up until recent weeks, when McCormick narrowed that gap to just a few points. Despite that trend, Casey appeared to be in a slightly stronger position than Harris, who was running neck and neck against Trump in Pennsylvania up until election day. Leaders of both parties had identified Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes as the potential tipping point in the presidential race.“I think both races are going to be very close, but I think the people of our state know it’s a very, very clear choice,” Casey told the Guardian in September. “It’s never been clearer.”Before election day, Democrats held a 51-49 majority in the Senate. Republicans’ victories in Montana, Ohio and West Virginia had already guaranteed control of the Senate, but McCormick’s win will give the party even more leverage to enact Trump’s agenda when the new Congress is seated in January.Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage
Trump wins the presidency – how did it happen?
Full presidential election results and map
Abortion ballot measure results by state
Republicans retake control of the Senate
Senate, House and governor results More
Everything we know about the next US president suggests that the press in America will be under siege in the next four years as never before.After all, Donald Trump has portrayed the media as the “enemy of the people”, has suggested that he wouldn’t mind seeing journalists get shot, and, in recent months, has sued CBS News and the Pulitzer prize organization.Now, with what he considers a mandate, he’ll want to push harder.“He’ll use every tool that he has, and there are many available to him,” predicted Marty Baron, the former executive editor of the Washington Post and the author of Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and the Washington Post, published last year.Baron told me on Wednesday that the president-elect had long been on a mission to undermine the mainstream media, and that he would be more empowered in a second term.Every would-be autocrat sees to it, after all, that an independent press doesn’t get in his way. Often, it’s one of the first democratic guardrails to be kicked down as a nation moves in an authoritarian direction.“Trump is salivating at the chance to sue a journalist for a leak of a classified document,” Baron said, perhaps using the century-old Espionage Act to exact a harsh punishment, even a prison term.With an aggressive attorney general – more combative than Jeff Sessions, whom Trump criticized for not being tough enough – that may be doable.And if even more source material is deemed classified, almost any story based on a leak can be depicted as a threat to national security.Another tactic: Trump’s allies will bankroll legal actions against the press, as the tech investor Peter Thiel did in a lawsuit against Gawker in 2016, forcing the media company into bankruptcy while portraying himself as a champion of quality journalism.Baron also sees Trump and friends threatening advertisers whose revenue keeps media companies in business – “and they will run for cover”.Then, if media outlets become sufficiently weakened, his allies may buy them and turn them into propaganda arms.Another likely move is to stonewall the press, making the job of informing the public much harder.Trump’s true believers, installed throughout the government, from the intelligence agencies to the IRS to the defense department, will anticipate what Trump wants and be hostile to reporters, Baron predicted. “Journalists will hit roadblocks constantly.”Toward the same end, legislation that weakens the Freedom of Information Act – which allows the press and the public the right to see much of what their government is doing – would be easy enough to enact with a Trump-friendly Congress.How to defend against all this?Baron hopes that media lawyers are already working on contingency plans to combat these moves, and that the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press will have the resources it needs to help as challenges arise. The non-profit provides pro bono legal representation to news organizations, reporters, documentary film-makers and others; and often contributes court documents to support journalists’ fights to protect their newsgathering.On Wednesday, the Reporters Committee sent out a fundraising email with a dire message beginning: “We won’t mince words – the next Trump administration poses a serious threat to press freedom.”I spoke on Thursday with Bruce Brown, the non-profit’s longtime executive director, who told me it will be important “to separate the daily indignations from the true legal threats” that are likely on their way. But, he said: “We have to prepare and be clear-eyed and get ready to act.”The organization is ready, though, with 20 lawyers on staff, many who worked on these issues during the first Trump administration. “In 2016, we were a third the size we are now, and we have lawyers with vastly more experience.”Major media organizations, he said, “need to stick together and not let him peel them off one by one”.More broadly, Marty Baron believes that the mainstream press needs to work on its trust problem.It needs to improve how it presents itself to the public, given that so many people are willing to believe that today’s journalism is part of the problem rather than a pillar of democracy.Bezos’s decision to quash a Post endorsement of Kamala Harris certainly didn’t help with enhancing trust, though the owner claimed he was motivated by wanting his paper to appear non-partisan; about 250,000 subscribers disagreed, cancelling in anger or disgust.Baron (who was critical of the decision to yank the editorial) urges the press to be “radically transparent” with the public.For example, journalists should provide access to full versions of the audio and video that their stories are based on, and should allow people to examine original documents or data sets.“The message,” he said, “should be ‘check my work’.”Baron also believes “the press has a lot to learn about what people’s genuine concerns are,” and should try harder to reach audiences of all political stripes.Trump’s messages about immigration, he believes, have found such fertile ground partly because of people’s worries, whether evidence-based or not, about jobs and salaries.Rebuilding trust is a long-term project. But the Trump-induced challenges are immediate.To survive them, the press needs to get ready now.
Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More
Late on Tuesday night, when it became clear that Donald Trump would be re-elected as president of the United States, the so-called “heterodoxy” was elated.For years, these male podcasters, influencers and public figures had marketed themselves as free-thinking pundits who evaded the bounds of political classification. “Their political views could once have been described as libertarian,” Anna Merlan wrote for the Guardian in August; the word used to describe them pointed to the same, derived from the Greek heteros, meaning other, and doxa, meaning opinion.However, in 2024, the heterodoxy universally endorsed, supported and celebrated the hyper-masculine promise of Trump. This has created a moment in which the vast majority of online voices who appeal to young men are explicitly pro-Trump. In the wake of his win, those who at least feigned political ambivalence now feel no need to moderate themselves.Joe Rogan reacted to Trump’s win on Tuesday night by yelling a reverential “holy shit” in a video he posted to X that showed him watching Trump’s election party on Fox News. Rogan, whose chart-topping podcast has an estimated 81% male audience, considers himself more of a conversationalist than a pundit but nevertheless endorsed Trump hours before the election, after hosting Trump and JD Vance on The Joe Rogan Experience. (He invited Kamala Harris, but they could not agree on interview terms.)Rogan endorsed Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic primary and then voted libertarian, and initially liked Robert F Kennedy Jr in 2024. He has supported left-leaning policies like drug and marijuana legalization, same-sex marriage and abortion rights, though he vehemently opposes gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Ultimately, he attributed his pivot to Trump to Elon Musk, the last guest to appear on his podcast before the election.“If it wasn’t for him we’d be fucked,” Rogan posted, referring to Musk. “He makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way.”Musk, who is generally well-liked among heterodox figures and their supporters, was gleeful as it became clear that Trump had won. He posted a picture to X showing him holding a sink in the Oval Office – a reference to his 2022 takeover of Twitter HQ – captioned “let that sink in”, seemingly relishing the business success and policy influence he anticipates having under a second Trump administration, which he helped secure.Musk’s shift to the far right – after voting for Obama and opposing Trump in 2016 – became noticeable during the pandemic, when he became frustrated that lockdown requirements were slowing production at SpaceX and Tesla. Since taking over Twitter, now X, he has re-platformed Trump and conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones as well as racist and sexist provocateurs like the white nationalist Nick Fuentes. “Your body, my choice. Forever,” Fuentes posted on Tuesday night; the phrase has been making rounds on social media since. Musk personally shares an increasingly large volume of far-right content on his own page – especially transphobic content, seemingly in response to his estranged daughter coming out as transgender.While final election data has yet to be released, initial exit polling indicates that men, and particularly young men aged 18-29, were a crucial pillar of support for Trump. Now more than ever, young men are at odds with more liberal young women, supporting Trump over Harris 56% to 42%, while young women preferred Harris 58% to 40%, according to exit polls. These young men, especially those without a college degree, have expressed feeling unfulfilled, dissatisfied with their jobs and lives, and desirous of a society and home life with traditional gender roles. For years, media outlets have documented how more and more young men have been radicalized after consuming content from right-leaning entertainers and commentators, especially on platforms like YouTube and Twitch. Now, as more of those men have reached voting age, this phenomenon appears to be benefiting Trump and the far right.One 2021 study found that a leading predictor of support for Trump – over party affiliation, gender, race and education level – was belief in “hegemonic masculinity”, defined as believing that men should be in positions of power, be “mentally, physically, and emotionally tough”, and reject anything considered feminine or gay. Some heterodox influencers gained a following by embodying or promoting precisely this brand of masculinity, and giving their followers a script for blaming dissatisfaction on women.Jordan Peterson, who has built a career as a pop pseudo-psychologist promoting patriarchy and the revival of the “masculine spirit”, considers himself to be “devoid of ideology”, but has aligned himself with rightwing figures like Tucker Carlson, Andy Ngo and Matt Walsh and frequently decried the media’s coverage of Trump, calling it biased. He was quick to celebrate Trump’s victory – albeit in a backhanded way. “Thank Heaven for working class slobs,” he posted to X at 1.40am.Nico Kenn De Balinthazy, better known by his YouTube moniker Sneako, took to the streets of New York on Tuesday night in a Make America Great Again hat and an American flag draped around his shoulders. Sneako, who supported Bernie Sanders in 2016 before switching his allegiance to Trump, could be seen trying to provoke the people around him, gloating as the results came in. He loudly laughed at one woman who was crying. The day before the election, he had posted on X: “Kamala Harris is proof that women shouldn’t vote.”Not every heterodox figure has been explicitly pro-Trump this year. Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, which is overwhelmingly geared toward men (particularly college-age men), was also quick to react to the election results. In a video posted to his Instagram, Portnoy – who has been accused of consistently misogynistic behavior both at and outside work – didn’t celebrate Trump, who he has never endorsed, but he expressed indignation at liberal voters.“People like myself, independents, moderates – the Democrats gave us no choice,” Portnoy said, at times slurring his words. “That was the worst campaign. And their pure arrogance and their moral superiority have driven people away. If you say you’re voting for Trump, suddenly you’re a Nazi, you’re Hitler, you’re garbage. Enough. Enough.”Lex Fridman never endorsed Trump either. The science and politics podcast host is less brash than the bulk of the heterodoxy, but is still popular among young men and still friendly to rightwing figures like Carlson and the former Trump adviser Stephen Miller when they stop by for interviews. On election night, he replied to Musk’s enthusiasm for Trump with a rocket emoji and “LFG!”He also was sure to acknowledge a perceived win for himself as he celebrated Trump’s. “PS: Long-form podcasts FTW,” he posted. “I hope to see politicians from both sides doing 2-3+ hour genuine, human conversations moving forward.”During this election cycle, Trump’s embrace of the bro-centric podcast scene came as he sidelined (and in some cases, fumbled) traditional campaign tactics like door-knocking and canvassing. This choice appears to have had no negative effect on his election bid. In fact, it may have even helped him. Trump’s victory could very well be an emboldening choice among heterodoxy figures, who now see the possible fruits of openly embracing the right. They certainly aren’t going away. More
Saginaw county’s Democrats were sure that the lessons had been learned and that this time it would be different.The Kamala Harris campaign flooded this bellwether county in the crucial battleground state of Michigan with canvassers and advertising, a reaction to Hillary Clinton’s complacent and, as it turned out, misguided belief that she had the area sewn up in 2016.The vice-president and Tim Walz campaigned in Saginaw. Leftist hero Bernie Sanders rallied the local university’s students. Door-knockers and phone bankers urged people to the polls in the hope and expectation of at least eking out the narrow win Joe Biden enjoyed in Saginaw county four years ago.But through it all, there were warnings from those closest to key groups of Saginaw’s voters – union organisers, Black community leaders, social workers for lower-income families, Latino activists – that denouncing Republican demagogue Donald Trump and making vague promises from Harris of a better future were not enough.They cautioned that Harris was not getting through to large numbers of those who struggled the most in a county marked by large economic disparities because she was failing to directly address their concerns, not least inflation and the cost of living.Others said that Harris looked too much like one of the machine politicians so many voters have come to despise, particularly as she avoided taking a stand on key issues or bent to the prevailing political wind.All of them warned that it could cost her the election in Saginaw county, and beyond.And so it proved.Trump won Saginaw county decisively. The vice-president lost by three times as many votes as Clinton in 2016 and did even worse when compared with Biden four years later.Trump beat Harris by more than 3,400 votes on about the same turnout as 2020. In that election, the then president lost to Biden by 303 votes.This year, Trump won an outright majority in Saginaw county with nearly 51% of the vote, more than 1% up on his 2020 tally.On election night, the leader of the county Democrats, Aileen Pettinger, a retired firefighter, bounced into a watch party at a local union hall confident that female voters angry about the US supreme court ruling on abortion and the broader assault on women’s rights had won it for Harris.Local Democrats worked hard to try to bring female Republican voters on board over access to abortion, even leaving Post-it notes in women’s bathrooms reminding them that no one would know if they secretly voted for Harris.But as the results trickled in, the party began to feel like a wake. People drifted away. Whoever was in charge of the music stopped playing Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now. A silence fell as hope bled away.Across town at the Republican watch party, Trump supporters burst into a rendition of the Christian hymn How Great Thou Art after the former and future president gave his victory speech.The initial election results for Saginaw appear to show that Harris lost Biden voters to Trump in some of the poorer areas of the county, including minority neighbourhoods, as well as mostly white suburbs. Harris also failed to mobilise the large numbers of people who usually do not vote in Saginaw. The turnout in the main city was only about 50%.A month ago, Jeff Bulls, president of the Community Alliance for the People in Saginaw, told the Guardian that many voters in lower-income parts of Saginaw were disenchanted with the political process because they did not see that it improved their lives.Bulls warned that Harris’s failure to address issues such as inflation and the cost of housing in a way that would make a difference to those struggling to get by was undermining her campaign. After Harris’s defeat, Bulls said “it’s not unexpected for me”.“She wasn’t really speaking to real people’s issues. You have a lot of poverty here in this county, whether it’s in the city of Saginaw or whether it’s rural people out there. And if you don’t speak to that, you’re not going to inspire people to vote for you, and I felt like her campaign was mostly about just blaming Trump or saying he’s racist. She wasn’t really inspiring people with her own policies, with her own vision, and I think that cost her,” he said.Similar warnings came from union organisers who saw members going with Trump, even though Biden kept telling them how good the economy was, because rising inflation had hit them hard. As loyal Democrats, some couched their warnings carefully in public, not wanting to give ammunition to the Trump campaign.Others were more forthright, including Carly Hammond, a Saginaw organiser for the US’s largest union confederation, the AFL-CIO. She told the Guardian a month ago that the Harris campaign was failing to address the deep distrust of politicians in general, and the Democratic party in particular, among many working people.“It’s the Donald Trump voters in unions that I see. I think most of them are still in the same place,” she said in October.“The trend that I see with labour people who are Trump supporters is a tendency to be very upset with the status quo, which everyone should be. People are going to stick with Trump until they see and they feel like things are getting better for them.”Hammond, whose grandfather worked at one of the many car factories that were once dotted around Saginaw but have since closed, said the Democratic campaign was the biggest election mobilisation she had seen but that Harris lacked “concrete plans” to motivate voters.After the result, Hammond issued a statement saying she was “angry that neither presidential candidate had real acknowledgement of, or plans to address, the real suffering and struggle so many Americans are going through”.Black and Latino community leader organised get-out-the-vote campaigns in the last days before the election as they warned of disenchantment and lack of enthusiasm for Harris.Dan Soza, whose father was the first Latino elected to the Saginaw city council, is a child welfare officer who is deeply alarmed by Trump’s threat of mass deportations. He said that Harris failed to connect with large numbers of Latino voters in the city on what they cared about most: the economy.“There was never any really specific plans. OK, the $25,000 for new home buyers was specific, but where was the specific plan for inflation? Not that the other side added any better answers, but they just never really came out with any concrete plans on what they were going to do,” he said.Soza said that the rise in Latino men voting for Trump in other parts of the country was replicated in Saginaw. He said a lot of that had to do with “fear of a female leader, machismo”.But he said the Democrats also made a mistake in thinking that opposition to Trump’s stance on immigration would play well with Latino voters in places such as Saginaw, where there is a long established Latino community, mostly of Mexican origin, when many of those crossing the border are from Central and South America.“Immigration isn’t as important to them as we think. They took to heart issues like the economy,” he said.The scale of Harris’s loss was emphasised by the success of other Democrats in Saginaw.Kristen McDonald Rivet decisively beat a Republican former prosecutor, Paul Junge, for the open seat in the US House of Representatives covering Saginaw and neighbouring counties. McDonald Rivet took about 51% of the vote, meaning that some people split their vote to support her and Trump.But Bulls is not alone in thinking that the Democratic party needs a wholesale rethink of what it stands for if it is to win back voters in Saginaw.“The Democratic party has to have a come-to-Jesus moment and really revisit who they represent because they’re not speaking to kitchen-table issues. There’s a lot of rhetoric around the middle class. We largely don’t have a middle class, especially in the Black community. We have working class. We have people that are in poverty, and they’re not speaking to them and their struggle, to real issues that poor people are really, really dealing with,” he said.“I would hope that there’s a reckoning and that they revisit who they actually represent, because right now it’s not us.”Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage
Harris urges supporters to ‘never give up’ – read the full speech
Election takeaways: Democratic drubbing and how women voted
Abortion ballot measure results by state
How Trump won the presidency – in maps
With Trump re-elected, this is what’s at stake More
After Donald Trump’s US election victory, here’s what will happen next:
US president, Joe Biden, spoke to Trump on Wednesday and invited him to the White House. Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said Trump “looks forward to the meeting, which will take place shortly, and very much appreciated the call”. It would be the first time they had met since Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump in June that forced him out of the race.
Biden will make an address to the nation on Thursday, vowing a peaceful transfer of power to Trump after his crushing election win over Kamala Harris. In what promises to be an agonising moment for Biden, he will speak in the Rose Garden of the White House at 11am (4pm GMT) to “discuss the election results and the transition” to Trump’s second term.
Despite Trump’s election success being apparent pretty early on election night, the full US election results are still not in. Out of 51 states (including DC), results for 49 have been called so far. Donald Trump currently has 295 electoral votes and Harris has 226. For context, Joe Biden was declared the winner offcially four days after the election in 2020.
Harris will preside over a joint session of Congress in January to certify the results of the election. Harris delivered a speech conceding defeat in the presidential election to Trump on Wednesday afternoon.
Trump will be sworn in as the 47th US president on 20 January 2025.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, who previously said that Donald Trump had promised him control over a broad range of public health agencies if he returned to the White House, said on Wednesday that there are “entire departments” within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that “have to go”, reports The Hill.The website, citing an MSNBC interview, reports that Kennedy said:
In some categories … there are entire departments, like the nutrition department at the FDA … that have to go, that are not doing their job, they’re not protecting our kids.”
When asked if he would eliminate any health agencies, Kennedy told MSNBC, “to eliminate the agencies, as long as it requires congressional approval, I wouldn’t be doing that.”“I can get the corruption out of the agencies,” he added.Trump on Sunday told NBC that Kennedy, the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and former independent candidate who dropped out and endorsed Trump, would have a “big role in the administration” if he won Tuesday’s presidential election.After Donald Trump’s US election victory, here’s what will happen next:
US president, Joe Biden, spoke to Trump on Wednesday and invited him to the White House. Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said Trump “looks forward to the meeting, which will take place shortly, and very much appreciated the call”. It would be the first time they had met since Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump in June that forced him out of the race.
Biden will make an address to the nation on Thursday, vowing a peaceful transfer of power to Trump after his crushing election win over Kamala Harris. In what promises to be an agonising moment for Biden, he will speak in the Rose Garden of the White House at 11am (4pm GMT) to “discuss the election results and the transition” to Trump’s second term.
Despite Trump’s election success being apparent pretty early on election night, the full US election results are still not in. Out of 51 states (including DC), results for 49 have been called so far. Donald Trump currently has 295 electoral votes and Harris has 226. For context, Joe Biden was declared the winner offcially four days after the election in 2020.
Harris will preside over a joint session of Congress in January to certify the results of the election. Harris delivered a speech conceding defeat in the presidential election to Trump on Wednesday afternoon.
Trump will be sworn in as the 47th US president on 20 January 2025.
The Philippines expects US policy in the Indo-Pacific and support for its treaty ally amid South China Sea tensions to remain steady under Donald Trump, driven by bipartisan resolve in Washington, its ambassador to the US said on Thursday, reports Reuters.Both Democrats and Republicans prioritise countering China’s influence, including in the South China Sea, Jose Manuel Romualdez said, suggesting that military cooperation, economic ties and security commitments with the Philippines will continue.“It is in their interest that the Indo-Pacific region remains free, peaceful and stable, especially given the economic part of it, with trillions of dollars passing through the South China Sea,” Romualdez told Reuters in an interview.US-Philippine security engagements have deepened under president Joe Biden and Philippine counterpart Ferdinand Marcos Jr, with both leaders keen to counter what they see as China’s aggressive actions in the South China Sea and near Taiwan.Marcos said in a congratulatory message after Trump’s victory:
I am hopeful that this unshakeable alliance, tested in war and peace, will be a force of good that will blaze a path of prosperity and amity, in the region, and in both sides of the Pacific.”
Under Marcos, the Philippines has increased the number of its bases accessible to US forces to nine from five, some facing the South China Sea, where China has built artificial islands equipped with runways and missile systems. The US has proposed $128m for infrastructure improvements at those bases, in addition to a $500m pledge for the Philippine military and coastguard.According to Reuters, Romualdez expressed confidence that these commitments, including joint US-Philippine maritime exercises that began last year, would continue under Trump.“We have very strong bipartisan support in the US Congress where the money comes from. Every single one of our friends in the Republican side has signified their concern and strong support for whatever we’re doing right now in relation to the challenges we face with China today,” Romualdez told Reuters. He suggested potential changes under Trump would be “minimal” and could even be favourable.Analysts say it is hard to separate the president-elect’s bluster from his actual plans but it’s clear his priority is to bin many of Joe Biden’s policies, writes Andrew Roth in this analysis piece:The US foreign policy establishment is set for one of the biggest shake-ups in years as Donald Trump has vowed to both revamp US policy abroad and to root out the so-called “deep state” by firing thousands of government workers – including those among the ranks of America’s diplomatic corps.Trump’s electoral victory is also likely to push the Biden administration to speed up efforts to support Ukraine before Trump can cut off military aid, hamper the already-modest efforts to restrain Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza and Lebanon and lead to a fresh effort to slash and burn through major parts of US bureaucracy including the state department.Trump backers have said he will be more organised during his second term, often dubbed “Trump 2.0”, and on the day after election day US media reported that Trump had already chosen Brian Hook, a hawkish state department official during the first Trump administration, to lead the transition for America’s diplomats.And yet analysts, serving and former US diplomats and foreign officials said that it remained difficult to separate Trump’s bluster from his actual plans when he takes power in January. What is clear is that his priority is to bin many of the policies put in place by his predecessor.“I’m skeptical that the transition process will be super-impactful since the natural instinct of the new team will be to toss all of Biden’s foreign policy in the dumpster,” one former senior diplomat said.“If you go back to 2016, Mexico didn’t pay for the wall. And, you know, it doesn’t look like there was a secret plan to defeat Isis,” said Richard Fontaine, the CEO of the Center for a New American Security thinktank. “Some of these things didn’t turn out the way that they were talked about on that campaign trail and we go into this without really knowing what the president’s proposal will be for all of this – and what he will do.”South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, spoke with Donald Trump on Thursday and congratulated him on winning the US presidency on the “Make America Great Again” slogan as officials in Seoul worked to prepare for “significant” economic changes, reports Reuters.Yoon and Trump held a 12-minute phone call and discussed the close security and economic ties of their two countries across all areas, a senior South Korean official said on Thursday.South Korea’s ambassador to the US also visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida to meet with members of the president-elect’s camp, the foreign ministry said.Trump’s election has renewed attention in South Korea on his “America First” foreign policy plans and how his unpredictable style will play out in his second term, reports Reuters.Officials worked past midnight on Wednesday to prepare for changes expected from US policies, with the Bank of Korea and thinktanks seeing a potential hit to exports if the US raises tariffs.Meetings at the trade ministry that began in the hours after Trump’s victory led to back-to-back discussions early on Thursday as South Korea’s economic leaders weighed the impact on exports of potential tariffs.“Should policy stance that has been stressed by president-elect Trump become realised, the impact on our economy is expected to be significant,” finance minister Choi Sang-mok said at a 7.30am (10.30pm GMT on Wednesday) meeting with trade and foreign ministers.South Korea would probably suffer less than China, Mexico and the EU, but Asia’s fourth-largest economy could be forced into another renegotiation of its bilateral free trade agreement with Washington, according to Kim Young-gui, an economist at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP).Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday that Poland would work on strenghtening its relations with the US after Donald Trump won the presidential election.Yesterday, Tusk joined other European leaders in congratulating Trump.The Australian prime minister who vowed before the last election to herald a “kinder, gentler parliament” has now hailed Australia’s rowdy, robust and combative style of political debate as proof of a functioning democracy, warning “only dictatorships pretend to be perfect”.In remarks to a global democracy conference in Sydney a day after the United States returned Donald Trump to the presidency eschewing warnings about his autocratic style, Anthony Albanese suggested the adversarial tendencies of the Westminster political system were “a virtue, not a flaw”.“A fierce contest can be a good thing, as long as it’s a contest about substance, about things that matter to people and issues that affect the country,” Albanese told the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, in a speech distributed in advance.For today’s First Edition newsletter, my colleague Nimo Omer spoke with Guardian US live news editor Chris Michael about what a Donald Trump presidency might look like. Here’s a snippet:“Autocrats are rejoicing,” Chris says about Trump’s victory. “That probably tells you all you need to know”. Trump has on many occasions praised Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un. His admiration for other strongman leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, China’s Xi Jinping and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is well documented and long held.Trump has said that he would end Russia’s war in Ukraine “in one day”, though he has not provided specific details on how. Expectations are that Ukraine will see a significant reduction in military aid from the US – the Trump team have made clear they have no intention of indefinitely maintaining commitment to Kyiv as the war continues to drag on.Over on the Guardian’s business live blog, my colleague Graeme Wearden writes that the a looming new trade war triggered by Donald Trump could push the eurozone economy from sluggish growth into “a full-blown recession”.That’s according to the investment bank ING, who fear the recession could begin even before Trump – who has said he wants to impose a 10% tariff on all non-US goods – is sworn in next January.China warned on Thursday there would be “no winners in a trade war” after the re-election in the US of former president Donald Trump, who has pledged huge new tariffs on Chinese imports.“As a matter of principle, I would like to reiterate that there will be no winners in a trade war, which is also not conducive to the world,” foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). 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Good morning.Kamala Harris conceded the US election to Donald Trump overnight. In a speech at Howard University, the vice-president urged supporters not to lose hope, saying “this is a time to organise, to mobilise and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together”. Harris, hoarse from the frenzied campaign that began a little over 100 days ago, contrasted sharply with Trump following his defeat in the 2020 election, which he never formally conceded.Harris’s speech capped a turbulent election, marked by Trump’s dramatic political comeback. He won decisively, carrying both the electoral college and the popular vote. The Republican party also flipped control of the Senate and while the House of Representatives has not yet been called, the Republicans remain confident. With control over all three branches of government, Republicans could have a much smoother path for passing legislation.As Democrats begin soul-searching (and the inevitable blame game), Trump’s new GOP prepares to take power. For today’s newsletter, I spoke with Guardian US live news editor Chris Michael about what a Trump presidency might look like. But first, the headlines.Five big stories
Environment | It is “virtually certain” that 2024 will be the hottest year on record, the European Union’s space programme has found. The prognosis comes the week before diplomats meet at the Cop29 climate summit and a day after a majority of voters in the US, the biggest historical emitter of planet-heating gas, chose to make Donald Trump president.
Middle East | Many Israelis were reeling after Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to dismiss his popular defence minister, Yoav Gallant, in the midst of a multifront war. The prime minister said he had fired Gallant over what he described a “crisis of trust”. Gallant, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party and a senior general, has been replaced by the foreign minister, Israel Katz, a Likud lawmaker and loyalist who has little military background.
Politics | The Reform UK MP Lee Anderson has apologised after parliament’s watchdog on bullying and harassment told him to do so for telling a security guard who asked for his ID to “fuck off, everyone opens the door to me”.
Economy | Rachel Reeves has committed not to increase taxes at Labour’s next budget and said the government would need to “live within the means” of her spending plans if public services came under mounting pressure.
Health | Doing just five extra minutes of exercise a day could help lower blood pressure, a study suggests. High blood pressure affects 1.28 billion adults worldwide and is one of the biggest causes of premature death. It can lead to strokes, heart attacks, heart failure, kidney damage and many other health problems, and is often described as a silent killer due to its lack of symptoms.
In depth: ‘All bets are off’View image in fullscreenReproductive rightsThroughout his campaign Trump “flip-flopped” on the issue of abortion, Chris Michael says. Sometimes he would brag about the singular role he played in overturning Roe v Wade; other times he publicly created distance from multiple anti-abortion positions and insisted that it was an issue for individual states to decide.In Tuesday’s elections, seven states passed measures that enshrine abortion rights in their constitutions – but this will not be the end of the story. Anti-abortion activists will likely challenge the reversal of bans in court, and will fight even harder to push legislation through before more bans are repealed.Crucially, if Trump returns to the White House with Republican control of the Senate and House of Representatives, it could have significant implications for abortion access. “Trump has said he would veto a national abortion ban if one reached his desk, but who knows —he could change his mind,” Chris points out. As his tone suggests, few have been reassured by Trump’s promise not to sign a federal ban. This scepticism stems not only from Trump’s history of lying but also from accusations that his camp is playing a verbal sleight of hand, replacing the term “national ban” with phrases like “national minimum standard”, which would essentially achieve the same goal.“But even if he doesn’t do that, the GOP could theoretically use this obscure piece of law called the Comstock Act,” Chris adds. This 150-year-old anti-obscenity law bans mailing abortion-related material and was outlined in Project 2025, an extreme 922-page policy document published by a rightwing thinktank as a way to bypass congress altogether and use the legislation to ban the mailing of abortion pills – in effect a national ban.Since Roe v Wade established a constitutional right to abortion, the Comstock Act could not be enforced. However, after Roe was overturned in 2022, anti-abortion groups have pushed the idea that the Comstock Act is valid once more.ImmigrationBorder control has always been the key Trump issue. Who can forget “Build the wall” and images of children in cages under the child separation policy. This time around, his crackdown on immigration is set to be even more controversial – and wide-ranging.As ever, much vitriol has been aimed at undocumented immigrants. But the president-elect has expanded his ire to potentially include those who legally live in the US. Trump has outlined a mass deportation plan that could target up to 20 million people. According to estimates, there are 11 million undocumented immigrants. There is little detail on how such an unprecedented policy would be put into practice, but as Trump appoints officials in the coming months, they will have a much easier time pushing through these changes regardless of the indirect consequences and larger fallout.Trump’s rhetoric has also become more violent, racist and xenophobic than ever. He has warned that mass deportations will “be a bloody story” and claimed immigrants are “poisoning the blood of the country”. Such language echoes the rhetoric of fascists like Mussolini and Hitler, whom Trump reportedly praised while in office, even lamenting that he didn’t have commanders as loyal to him as Hitler did. Trump’s words carry deeply troubling implications for immigrants who are fearful of reprisals from his second administration.The international stageView image in fullscreen“Autocrats are rejoicing,” Chris says about Trump’s victory. “That probably tells you all you need to know”. Trump has on many occasions praised Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un. His admiration for other strongman leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, China’s Xi Jinping and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is well documented and long held.Trump has said that he would end Russia’s war in Ukraine “in one day”, though he has not provided specific details on how. Expectations are that Ukraine will see a significant reduction in military aid from the US – the Trump team have made clear they have no intention of indefinitely maintaining commitment to Kyiv as the war continues to drag on. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, congratulated Trump on his “impressive” election victory on Wednesday. “I appreciate President Trump’s commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach in global affairs.”Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was among the first leaders to congratulate Trump on his victory. A Trump win is great news for Netanyahu, as Julian Borger writes in this analysis. His return to the White House “removes a substantial barrier to Israel’s full control and potential annexation of at least part of Gaza and the West Bank”.The US is an anchor for many international organisations and treaties: Nato, the Paris climate accord (again) and other institutions could face upheaval due to Trump’s isolationist worldview. Trump has dismissed the climate crisis as “a big hoax” and has pledged to cut funding for Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which he derided as the “green new scam”. Instead, Trump plans to pivot heavily toward resource extraction, prioritising oil and gas drilling – including on public lands and in national parks. In July, he emphasised this shift, vowing to “drill, baby, drill”. Analysts warn that a Trump presidency could add billions of tonnes of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere, which would have devastating global consequences.With the Cop29 climate conference beginning next week, the pressure is even higher for decisive action.Democratic normsIn recent months, Trump was labelled a fascist by Kamala Harris and his longest serving former chief of staff, retired general John Kelly.“In a weird way, the one thing that isn’t an issue, for now, is the ‘stop the steal’ movement,” Chris says. “Trump was preparing to contest the results of the election and to undermine democracy itself in order to stay in power but because he’s legitimately won, he doesn’t have to do that. So the whole machinery that was built up around this grievance has potentially had the wind taken out of its sails.”Trump, a man famous for never letting go of grudges, will probably continue with his mission to undermine and hollow out democratic norms and institutions. Trump has said in many interviews and rallies that he would mobilise the federal government against his personal political enemies and the army against citizens that he called “the enemy within”. A second Trump administration likely poses a severe threat to independence of the justice department and other institutions like the FBI and the CIA.Trump has also pledged to dismantle what he calls the “deep state” – in other words the federal bureaucracy – by firing thousands of non-political civil servants and replacing them with loyalists. This purge “poses a threat to the checks and balances system” that stood in the way of his most destructive instincts in his first term, says Chris.Freedom of the press, a cornerstone for any functioning democracy, will also likely be in jeopardy. Trump has threatened to jail reporters who do not give up sources and strip broadcasting licences from news outlets as punishment for coverage that he did not agree with. A CNN review of the president-elect’s interviews and speeches over the past two years found that he has called for every major American TV news network to be punished.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNow the fevered campaigning is over, the real work begins. Trump will be appointing his top team in the coming weeks, which could even include anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr and Elon Musk. For now “all bets are off”, Chris says.For more details on the consequences of a second Trump presidency, read our Guardian series The StakesWhat else we’ve been readingView image in fullscreen
In the second edition of our Black diaspora newsletter, The Long Wave, Nesrine Malik reflects on Kemi Badenoch’s ascension to leader of the Conservatives, and asks if it really is a win for Nigerians. Charlie Lindlar, acting deputy editor, newsletters
The story of the GP Thomas Kwan, sentenced to 31 years in jail yesterday for trying to poison his mother’s partner while disguised as a nurse, is truly bizarre, as Mark Brown describes it: “An Agatha Christie-inspired Columbo episode with a splash of Breaking Bad.” Toby Moses, head of newsletters
“I’m just running free as a bird to give everyone a giggle” – Simon Hattenstone looks back at the rich history of streaking, meeting those who got their kit off for a cause … or because they just felt like it. Charlie
As anyone who has seen the viral clips of Maggie Smith in the Nothing Like A Dame doc knows, she was a character – her friend Fiona Golfar confirms it in this lovingly told recollection. Toby
“Horrible direction, an appalling script, dreadful performances: it really does have it all” – Catherine Bray is unfestive and unsparing in her review of the so-bad-it’s-still-bad Christmas film Holiday Twist. Charlie
SportView image in fullscreenFootball | Hakan Calhanoglu scored a first-half penalty to give Inter a 1-0 Champions League win over Arsenal, the Gunners’ first European defeat of the season. Aston Villa also lost 1-0, to Belgian side Club Brugge, after Tyrone Mings gave away a bizarre second-half penalty.Boxing | Imane Khelif, who won Olympic gold in women’s boxing amid a gender eligibility row, is taking legal action over media reports allegedly detailing her leaked medical records. Reports published in France this week claimed the 25-year-old has XY (male) chromosomes.Golf | Rory McIlroy has suggested Donald Trump’s return to the White House could accelerate peace talks between traditional golf tours and the Saudi Arabia-backed Liv Golf. McIlroy even floated the idea of Elon Musk becoming involved in golf’s elongated merger plans.The front pagesView image in fullscreen“American dread” says the Guardian while the Mirror asks “What have they done … again?”. The Express goes full Maga: “He’s been shot, convicted of a crime and branded a fascist … but he’s still the people’s choice”. The Times has “Trump promises golden age after sweeping Harris aside”. “Landslide” – that’s the i while the Daily Mail is a bit obvious: “A comeback to Trump all comebacks!”. The Telegraph calls it “Trump’s clean sweep”. “Trump is back” reports the Financial Times, while in the Metro it’s “America’s golden Age”. And finally, the Sun goes with “You’re rehired”.Today in FocusView image in fullscreenWhat will Trump do in power?The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith, explains how Donald Trump won a second term and what he intends to do with it.Cartoon of the day | Ella BaronView image in fullscreenThe UpsideView image in fullscreenWhen Abi Wilkinson moved to the US after her partner got a new job, she assumed she could continue her work as a freelance journalist stateside. But when visa issues initially prevented her from continuing in her career, she gained a new perspective. She writes for A moment that changed me: “I don’t think I had fully understood how much my self‑esteem was tied to my work and how preoccupied I was with how I was perceived by strangers.”When her work permit did come through, Wilkinson “decided to prioritise mental wellbeing over status, ambition or self-aggrandising notions about significance. I found a job as a nanny. I was happier than I had been in years.”Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every SundayBored at work?And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.
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Kamala Harris made her concession to Donald Trump official, but vowed to keep fighting for the issues that she campaigned on.“While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign,” the vice-president said.“The fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness and 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.”Harkening back to some of the promises of her failed campaign, Harris said:
I will never give up the fight for a future where Americans can pursue their dreams, ambitions and aspirations, where the women of America have the freedom to make decisions about their own body and not have their government telling them what to do.
We will never give up the fight to protect our schools and our streets from gun violence and, America, we will never give up the fight for our democracy, for the rule of law, for equal justice and for the sacred idea that every one of us, no matter who we are or where we start out, has certain fundamental rights and freedoms. That must be respected and upheld.
Harris just wrapped up her speech by saying that even if the country struggles in the years to come, it will emerge stronger:
There’s an adage an historian once called a law of history, true of every society across the ages. The adage is: only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time, but for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case. But here’s the thing, America, if it is, let us fill the sky with the light of a brilliant, brilliant billion of stars.
The light, the light of optimism, of faith, of truth and service … and may that work guide us, even in the face of setbacks, toward the extraordinary promise of the United States of America.
Her husband, Doug Emhoff, then appeared at her side, and the couple waved at the crowd before heading offstage to the sound of Beyoncé’s Freedom, a staple at events in her unsuccessful campaign for president.With a nod to future elections that could help Democrats regain political power, Kamala Harris urged her supporters to stay engaged in the democratic process.“The fight for our freedom will take hard work, but like I always say, we like hard work. Hard work is good work. Hard work can be joyful work. And the fight for our country is always worth it,” Harris said.She also made a point of addressing young people, who broke for Donald Trump in surprisingly large numbers in yesterday’s election.
To the young people who are watching, it is OK to feel sad and disappointed, but please know it’s going to be OK. On the campaign, I would often say, ‘When we fight, we win.’ But here’s the thing, here’s the thing, sometimes the fight takes a while. That doesn’t mean we won’t win. That doesn’t mean we won’t win. The important thing is, don’t ever give up.
Many Democrats dread Trump returning to office, but Harris encouraged them not to be overcome by grief:
So, to everyone who is watching, do not despair. This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves. This is a time to organize, to mobilize and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together.
Kamala Harris made her concession to Donald Trump official, but vowed to keep fighting for the issues that she campaigned on.“While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign,” the vice-president said.“The fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness and 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.”Harkening back to some of the promises of her failed campaign, Harris said:
I will never give up the fight for a future where Americans can pursue their dreams, ambitions and aspirations, where the women of America have the freedom to make decisions about their own body and not have their government telling them what to do.
We will never give up the fight to protect our schools and our streets from gun violence and, America, we will never give up the fight for our democracy, for the rule of law, for equal justice and for the sacred idea that every one of us, no matter who we are or where we start out, has certain fundamental rights and freedoms. That must be respected and upheld.
Kamala Harris said she had spoken to president-elect Donald Trump, and would work with him to peacefully transfer power.“Now, I know folks are feeling and experiencing a range of emotions right now. I get it, but we must accept the results of this election,” the vice-president said.“Earlier today, I spoke with president-elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory. I also told him that we will help him and his team with their transition and that we will engage in a peaceful transfer of power.”That would be a shift from when Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020, and tried for weeks to block the Democrat from taking office, culminating in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.Harris then thanked everyone who worked for her campaign, which lasted just over three months.“To my beloved Doug and our family, I love you so very much. To President Biden and Dr Biden, thank you for your faith and support. To Governor Walz and the Walz family, I know your service to our nation will continue, and to my extraordinary team, to the volunteers who gave so much of themselves to the poll workers and the local election officials. I thank you. I thank you all,” Harris said.Kamala Harris acknowledged the disappointment of her election loss to Donald Trump yesterday, but called on her supporters to “keep fighting”.“My heart is full today. Full of gratitude for the trust you have placed in me, full of love for our country and full of resolve,” the vice-president said.“The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for, but hear me when I say, hear me when I say, the light of America’s promise will always burn bright, as long as we never give up, and as long as we keep fighting.”Kamala Harris has just walked on stage to make her concession speech before a crowd of supporters in Washington DC.She is speaking at her alma mater, Howard University. Her campaign had its election night party there yesterday, but as it became clear that Donald Trump was winning, Harris canceled a planned address that evening.She conceded to Trump in a phone call earlier in the day, an aide said.Tim Walz and his wife, Gwen, were just spotted in the crowd at Howard University.The Minnesota governor was Harris’s running mate in her unsuccessful bid for president.Bernie Sanders, the independent senator and leading progressive voice in Congress, says Democrats’ failure to embrace policies that would help the average American led to the party’s terrible performance in yesterday’s election.“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right,” said Sanders, who was re-elected to a fourth term representing Vermont yesterday.Sanders caucuses with Democrats in the Senate and campaigned for Kamala Harris, but has broken with Joe Biden over his support for Israel, and encouraged him to adopt progressive economic policies.In his statement, Sanders encouraged Democrats to learn lessons from a debacle that saw Donald Trump defeat Harris, and the GOP regain control of the Senate:
Today, despite strong opposition from a majority of Americans, we continue to spend billions funding the extremist Netanyahu government’s all out war against the Palestinian people which has led to the horrific humanitarian disaster of mass malnutrition and the starvation of thousands of children. Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.In the coming weeks and months those of us concerned about grassroots democracy and economic justice need to have some very serious political discussions.
There’s a large crowd gathered at Howard University to see Kamala Harris speak, and among the group is former House speaker Nancy Pelosi.She won re-election last night to her heavily Democratic district centered on San Francisco, but has handed leadership of the House Democratic caucus to Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who also won another term yesterday.Kamala Harris is due to acknowledge Donald Trump’s presidential election victory in a speech to supporters at Howard University in Washington DC.The vice-president should be taking the stage at her alma mater in a few minutes. She has already conceded the election to Trump in a phone call earlier in the day, according to an aide.Republicans currently control the House, and appear favored to continue holding the majority, Cook Political Report finds.But it doesn’t look likely that the GOP will expand their already tiny majority by much, and with counting ongoing, there’s still a chance that Democrats claw their way back to control:If there is any good news to be had in an election that saw stinging defeats for Democrats at the presidential level and in the Senate, it may be found in the House of Representatives, and specifically the races that have yet to be called in California.Just moments after the polls closed in the Golden state, the Democratic stronghold was called for Kamala Harris and the party’s candidate for Senate, Adam Schiff, was declared the winner.But despite a clear majority of blue votes at the top of the ticket, zooming in on the state’s sprawling list of local races showcased deeper divisions, with many contests remaining too close to call.Among them are important seats that could help determine which party controls the House:
As of Wednesday morning, incumbent Republican Mike Garcia was up just two points over Democratic challenger George Whitesides with 67% of votes reported in the district north of Los Angeles.
In the seat left open by Democratic representative Katie Porter after her run for Senate – an area considered “Reagan country” that includes conservative-leaning Huntington Beach – Republican Scott Baugh and Democrat Dave Min are neck and neck with 71% of the vote reporting.
Representative Ken Calvert, the longest-serving House Republican from California, is up one point over Democrat Will Rollins with 69% reporting.
Incumbent Republican David Valadao has a stronger grip on his seat with 55% to Democrat Rudy Salas’s 45%, with just over half of the votes recorded.
The rematch between Republican representative John Duarte and Democrat Adam Gray – whom he narrowly beat in 2022 – is close again with Duarte at 51.4% to Gray’s 48.6% with about half of the Central valley district votes tallied.
Republican representative Michelle Steel leads over her challenger, Democrat Derek Tran, with 52.5% to his 47.5%, but the AP hasn’t yet called the race.
There are also a slew of initiatives put to voters in the state that are still being decided. The “no” votes are leading on Prop 6, which prohibits involuntary servitude as forced prison labor, Prop 32, which increases the minimum wage to $18 an hour, and Prop 5, which lowers vote thresholds required to approve bonds for affordable housing and public infrastructure.The count can take weeks in California, where there’s a strong reliance on mail-in ballots, which are sent out to all registered voters.Among those who gathered at Howard for the vice-president’s concession speech was Joanne Howes, a founding member of Emily’s List, an influential fundraising group that supports Democratic female candidates who back abortion rights.“Terrible,” she said when asked how she was doing. “I’ve been at this a long time and this time I really thought we were going to do it.” At 80, Howes said she was less hopeful now than she had ever been that she would see a female president.“I am so angry at white women. I thought they were going to get it this time,” said Howes, who is white. “And those white women who voted for those ballot measures and then went to vote for Trump – figure that out.”After appointing the justices who overturned Roe v Wade, Donald Trump was found liable for sexually abusing E Jean Carroll. Despite a campaign to remind women that their vote was a private matter that did not need to be shared with their husbands, national exit polls showed white women chose Trump by a sizable margin.“We’re going to feel sad and sorrowful, but then we have to get up again,” she said. “We can’t just accept that our democracy is over.”When he was first elected president in 2016, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by less than one percentage point of the vote in the three “blue wall” states: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.It was a frustrating result for Democrats, leaving many with the feeling that, if only Clinton had handled her campaign slightly differently, she would have been president.Democrats are still digesting Kamala Harris’s defeat last night, but it has become clear that voters were decisive in choosing Trump over the vice-president. As the below chart shows, he improved his margins in the blue wall states, and turned back Harris’s efforts to win Georgia, as Joe Biden had in 2020, and North Carolina. We still don’t have the results for Nevada and Arizona yet, but he’s leading the count in those states, too.The chart is also a good reminder of how strong Democrats once were in the blue wall, and in Nevada. Have a look:Democratic congresswoman Elissa Slotkin will be Michigan’s next senator, the Associated Press reports.It’s yet another sigh of relief for Democrats in a battleground state that gave its electoral votes to Donald Trump yesterday. Though they have already lost their majority in the Senate, Slotkin’s victory for the open seat being vacated by Democrat Debbie Stabenow means they have fewer seats to retake to gain the majority in future elections. More
