Donald Trump claims victory as next president of the United States - he might yet win by a landslide

The Republican Party candidate took to the stage in Florida to claim victory, saying it was “an extraordinary honour” to be returned to the White House.

“We have also won the popular vote,” he said, “and that was great.” His supporters at the West Palm Beach election night victory party chanted “U SA, U SA”.

“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate. We have taken back control of the senate, wow.”

Fox News had forecast that the Republican Party candidate will be the overall victor in the race to the White House. And CNN said that Mr Trump, who was first elected president in 2016 before being unseated by Joe Biden four years later, has won the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, making Kamala Harris’s route to the Oval Office almost impossible.

Mr Trump had already won two of the key ‘swing states’ North Carolina and Georgia, and is ahead in most of the other five.

Even before the predictions by the big broadcasters, analysts at the various TV outlets had been explaining why the Democratic Party nominee faced an uphill battle to win other battleground states such as Wisconsin.

Here in the swing states of the so-called sun-belt of Arizona and Nevada, where the News Letter has been reporting from rallies held by Mr Trump and the Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris, Mr Trump is thought to be the clear favourite to win too (click here to read Ben Lowry’s report from a Trump rally in Las Vegas, and to read his report of a Harris rally in Phoenix click here).

This makes the vice-president Kamala Harris’s path to the White House for the Democratic Party so hard, requiring her to win Michigan and all other uncertain states, as to be highly improbable. It seems, instead, that she will lose all the battleground states.

In Washington DC a man from the Harris campaign to say earlier that she would not be coming out tonight but would address followers and the wold later this morning (Wednesday).

In contrast, Mr Trump in Florida is said to be en route from his Mar A Lago home in Florida to head to his candidacy’s nearby election night party in West Palm Beach. Elon Musk, the billionaire inventor who became a influential advocate for Mr Trump, posted a message on X, his social media platform formerly known as Twitter, that said: ‘Game, set and match’. The post had received half a million likes from X followers within an hour of being put up.

Mr Trump seems to be on course to win the popular vote – the total number of votes cast across the US. He lost it to Hillary Clinton in 2016, despite winning that election on the electoral college (each state has a certain number of electoral college votes), and also lost the popular vote to Joe Biden, who won both the largest number of votes and the electoral college.

If so, Mr Trump has won a far-reaching political victory, confounding the polls that great bulk of which had Ms Harris ahead. (click here to read Ben Lowry’s article on Monday, explaining why he thought Mrs Harris was not far enough ahead in the polls)

Early returns and voter exit polls suggest that Mr Trump has improved his support level among Hispanics, who tend to vote for Democrats by a large margin, and African Americans, who overwhelmingly go Democrat.

The Harris campaign was hoping to make up for that shortfall by gaining support among white women due to issues such as Mr Trump’s support for stricter laws on abortion. But if the latter has happened, it has not happened on a large enough scale to tip the overall scales in her favour.

CNN are now predicting that the Republican Party will also win the US Senate, which the Democratic Party. With Mr Trump as president, he will have sweeping control of political policy in America. The Democrats will not be able to block much of his agenda, such as appointments to the Supreme Court.

Mr Trump ran a campaign saying that immigration was out of control and that he would deport illegal migrants to stop the ‘invasion’. He also spoke against ‘woke’ politics such as what he described as men being allowed to compete in women’s sport. Mr Trump further said that Mr Biden had destroyed the economy through inflation and other failures.

Ben Lowry (@Benlowry2) is News Letter editior