Donald Trump, 78, of the Republican Party will return to the White House, according to statistics tallied.
Trump fetched a total of 51.05% (71,765,162 voters). Kamala secured 47.46% (66,718,500 voters).
In a speech from Florida before the race was called, the former president said he would usher in a “golden age of America.” Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, 60, is expected to speak later today.
Vote counting is still underway in key states, including in the battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada. Republicans will win control in the Senate, a flip that shifts the balance of power in Washington.
The candidate requires to fetch 270 electoral votes to win the Presidency. Trump secured 277 electoral votes while Kamala got 224 as of early Wednesday after all votes were counted.
“Trump’s victory will also cause a political “earthquake” regarding issues of race, immigration, social security, artistic identity and climate change,” says political analyst Marwan Bishara.
Meanwhile, a number of Russian officials have welcomed the Republican victory although the Kremlin has remained uncharacteristically muted.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stressed that the election results were “a domestic matter” for the United States, adding that Russia would not rush to conclusions on Trump’s presidency based on the president-elect’s initial statements.
Trump said on Wednesday morning, “I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop the wars,” has long been seen as sympathetic to Russia and to Putin personally, having previously boasted that he could end the war in Ukraine “in one day”.
Peskov said that Putin was “open to dialogue” with the United States. “But let’s not forget that we are talking about an unfriendly country that is both directly and indirectly involved in a war against our state.”
The head of the Russian State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky, said, Donald Trump’s victory means that US citizens had voted for “prioritising national interests and solving domestic problems rather than ‘world wars’.”
