Former President Donald Trump is on the precipice of defeating Vice President Kamala Harris after early and decisive wins in North Carolina, Georgia, and the 2024 electoral prize of Pennsylvania.
Trump’s win in Pennsylvania essentially prevents Harris from winning 270 electoral votes for the White House.
The former president, speaking at his campaign headquarters just after 2:30 a.m. EST on Wednesday, declared a “magnificent victory” that will “allow us to make America great again.”
“It’s a political victory that our country has never seen before,” he claimed. “I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president.”
“I will fight for you, for your family and your future. Every single day I will be fighting for you, and with every breath in my body, I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe, and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve,” Trump continued. “This will truly be the golden age of America.”
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Trump’s running mate, called Election Night the culmination of the “greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America.”
Trump also specifically thanked billionaire Elon Musk for lending political and financial support to the campaign.
The writing was on the wall earlier in the evening for Harris. In a scene that echoed 2016, Harris campaign Co-Chairman Cedric Richmond told supporters at her election night party at Howard University in Washington, D.C., to head home after the double defeats in North Carolina and Georgia.
“We still have states that have not been called yet,” Richmond told the crowd. “We will continue overnight to fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken. So, you won’t hear from the vice president tonight, but you will hear from her tomorrow.”
In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s chairman, John Podesta, performed a similar role, delivering a similar speech to a despondent crowd at New York City’s Javits Center.
“It’s been a long night, and it’s been a long campaign. But I can say, we can wait a little longer, can’t we?” he said. “Everybody should head home. You should get some sleep.”
