Former President Donald Trump recaptured the White House in Tuesday’s election, beating Vice President Kamala Harris behind a broad coalition that led him to victories in swing states including the top prize of Pennsylvania.
The Republican was projected to win the presidency by the Decision Desk HQ, the Bangor Daily News’ national election results partner, at 1:21 a.m. Pennsylvania clinched the race for Trump, giving him at least 270 electoral votes to beat Vice President Kamala Harris. He was also on track to win the popular vote for the first time in his three campaigns.
The 2024 election already has exposed the depths of a fractured nation as the candidates navigated political shifts based on class, race and age under the near-constant threat of misinformation and violence. Early data suggests that Trump may benefit from some of the shifts more than Harris. He also likely benefited from concerns about the economy.
“My wallet is getting thin,” Greg Carroll, a 61-year-old truck driver from Milford who voted for Trump, said at the polls on Tuesday.
Trump easily won the one elector from Maine’s 2nd District for the third straight election. Incomplete returns show that Donald Trump’s criminal convictions, additional pending indictments and any concerns over his most incendiary rhetoric simply were not a sufficient concern to keep tens of millions of Americans from voting for him.
Slightly more than half of voters in an Associated Press survey said Harris has the moral character to be president, compared with about 4 in 10 who said that about Trump. It’s quite possible, as Trump has said many times on the campaign trail, that his legal peril actually helped him.
As it stands, Trump may never actually face sentencing in a New York business fraud case in which he was convicted of 34 felonies. For now, his sentencing is scheduled for later this month.
He’s already had one federal indictment in Florida dismissed, sparing him from a trial on whether he flouted U.S. law on protecting national security secrets. He has also made clear he would use his power as president to spike the federal case against him for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. That would leave a Georgia racketeering case pending against Trump and others accused of trying to subvert the 2020 election result.
Trump, 78, is the oldest president ever elected. He would also be the first defeated president in 132 years to win another term in the White House, and the first person convicted of a felony to take over the Oval Office. He survived an assassination attempt by millimeters at a July rally in Pennsylvania, while Secret Service agents foiled a second attempt in September.
Harris, pointing to the warnings of Trump’s former aides, labeled him a “fascist” and blamed Trump for putting women’s lives in danger by nominating three of the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that guaranteed federal abortion rights.
Maine Democrats had a visceral reaction to Trump’s candidacy at urban polling places on Tuesday. In Brunswick, 45-year-old master electrician and Harris supporter Lucky Strano said, “The biggest motivator is how much I hate Trump and MAGA.”
“I just feel she’s right for the country,” Christine Ciskowski, a 68-year-old retiree from Brunswick who also backed Harris. “Especially women’s rights, too, that’s a big thing for me. It’s very scary. Her mentality over Trump — unfortunately, I hate to say that, but he’s a scary person.”
Trump said Tuesday that he had no plans to tell his supporters to refrain from violence if Harris wins, because they “are not violent people.” His angry supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after Trump falsely claimed that President Joe Biden stole the 2020 election.
Harris did phone interviews with radio stations in the battleground states on Tuesday, then visited Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington carrying a box of Doritos — her go-to snack.
“This truly represents the best of who we are,” Harris told a room of cheering staffers.
The Associated Press and BDN writers Michael Shepherd, Billy Kobin and Jules Walkup contributed to this report.
