And so it ended, almost abruptly.
Many pundits—me included—expected days of uncertainty, vote counting and legal wrangling. But before sunrise Wednesday, it was over. Donald Trump engineered the most astonishing political comeback in American history.
The former and future president appears to have swept all seven battleground states. He also is well ahead of Kamala Harris in the national popular vote, 51% to 47.5% as of Wednesday afternoon. If he carries every state he now leads, he will have a more substantial Electoral College victory: 312 votes to her 226. That’s a clear mandate.
President-elect Trump achieved his victory by assembling a new coalition. He added to the GOP’s traditional base working-class noncollege voters of all races; young voters, especially young men; the biggest share of the Hispanic vote since at least 2004; and the largest black percentage for Republicans in decades. He expanded his majorities in rural counties and small towns while building his numbers in cities and suburbs. His percentage of the vote ballooned in blue states like New York, New Jersey and Illinois.
Mr. Trump created this coalition by opposing Biden-Harris policies on the economy, inflation, the border and wokeness while promising to restore America’s greatness. He was aided by the sense that the economy was better and more prosperous when he was in office. And with two-thirds of Americans believing our country was on the wrong course, he became the change candidate.
When his re-election journey began in 2022, it seemed impossible to all but him, his family and true believers that he would win. The lawsuits, indictments and later the conviction would have doomed any other candidacy.
But he persevered, and his supporters grew in numbers. He knew what appealed to people in a way others—including me—didn’t see. A friend explained it to me on Monday as we walked a New York street. Pointing to nearby construction workers, he said the former president cares about people like them and they feel that. Millions of Americans who don’t believe politicians care about them, their challenges and their aspirations see Mr. Trump as their champion.
Mr. Trump also benefited from the mental and physical incapacity of the sitting president seeking a second term. It’s a scandal that Joe Biden and his inner circle thought it was in the country’s best interest that he run when he had declined so precipitously. They hid the fact that age had robbed Mr. Biden of what America needed in the Oval Office.
Challenges await Mr. Trump. The international scene is chaotic and dangerous, from Ukraine to Taiwan to the Middle East. He will have a Republican Senate but there’s still a slim chance of a Democratic House. It will likely take days to settle the final contests in California that may determine which party has the lower chamber’s majority.
America remains deeply polarized, and some of Mr. Trump’s proposed policies—such as the expensive sales taxes that his tariff ideas constitute—could prove unpopular. This could boomerang on him in the 2026 midterms. And second terms are rarely easy.
Early Wednesday morning Mr. Trump promised: “Every citizen, I will fight for you, for your family and your future.” He pledged “with every breath in my body, I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve.”
If the new president focuses his prodigious energies on this, he can achieve good things in the next two years. But if he makes a priority of settling scores with opponents—which he promised to do during the campaign—he’ll waste his limited time and precious political capital.
