Donald Trump declares victory in US presidential election
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This is a special edition of the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Paul Moss and it's just after nine o'clock GMT and Donald Trump has now declared victory, promising Americans a new golden age. This was a movement like nobody's ever seen before. The greatest political movement of all time. There's never been anything like this in this country and maybe beyond.

And now it's going to reach a new level of importance because we're going to help our country heal. We're going to help our country heal. We have a country that needs help, and it needs help very badly. We're going to fix our borders. We're going to fix everything about our country.

He's projected to have won most of the swing states and also seems set to enjoy Republican control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Speaking to supporters in Florida, Mr Trump said America had given him an unprecedented mandate. He's been congratulated by leaders from around the world. In this podcast, we'll have reaction from around the US, hear from a Republican strategist, and our correspondent in Washington assesses what the result will mean.

Thank you.

Polls suggested it was all on a knife edge, but in the end, the result was far from close. Donald Trump has all but stormed his way back to the presidency of the United States, taking a number of battleground states. Within hours of polls closing, it was clear he denied Kamala Harris any realistic path to the White House. As we record this podcast, Mr Trump was on the cusp of confirmed victory with 266 electoral college seats.

He needs only four more to be crowned the winner and 47th president-elect of the United States. Our correspondent in Washington, Jessica Parker, reports on a historic night in American politics.

We are off to the races. We have our first poll closures. A countdown watched around the world as projections for this US presidential election started to come in. We have the very first projection. The state of Kentucky is projected for Donald Trump. At first, unsurprising outcomes. States going red or blue, Republican or Democrat, as expected. But then... Well, we have a

Major projection. The first swing state projection of the night. Here we go. North Carolina projected for Donald Trump. Closely followed by another. Georgia projected there as a win for Donald Trump. When the key swing state of Pennsylvania was called for Trump. We can project Pennsylvania for Donald Trump.

It sparked elation at the Republican campaign watch party in Florida, where Donald Trump took to the stage. We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible, and it is now clear that we've achieved the most incredible political thing. Look what happened. Is this crazy? But it's a political victory that our country has never seen before, nothing like this. I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honour of being here.

elected your 47th president and your 45th president. While the mood amongst Democrats has become increasingly downbeat. I want to say good evening to all of the Harris campaign. Cedric Richmond and the Kamala Harris team spoke at their campaign HQ watch party in Washington, D.C. We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not been called yet. 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.

Earlier, a DJ played outside a polling station in Erie, Pennsylvania, a swing county in a battleground state. 56-year-old Darlene proudly wore a Trump Vance T-shirt. She's eager for the Republican candidate to be back in the White House. We don't need another four more years of high inflation, gas prices, lying, close the border, murder.

America comes first. But 66-year-old Ken sees things very differently. I don't want an autocrat. I don't want someone who is convicted of a felon to be the number one person in our political environment. This is a divided nation, reflected in what's been a nail-biter of a race.

though the results so far suggest Donald Trump is poised to make a huge political comeback.

Jessica Parker reporting. Mr. Trump will be only the second person ever to return to the U.S. presidency after losing an election. The last time it happened was 1892. So how did he do it? Justin Webb spoke to Jake LaTurna, a Republican congressman for Kansas. It's a crazy night, honestly. We did not know what would happen. Everything was tied. Everything was close.

And the truth of the matter is, is when you take a step back and look at it, it does make more sense than it seems. Kamala Harris had a lot of headwinds. And what I mean by that is, is that over two thirds of the American people think that we're heading in the wrong direction. Joe Biden had an approval rating in the high 30s or low 40s. There has not been anything.

a vice president elected immediately after their boss in the last 90 years, other than George H.W. Bush in 1988, and Ronald Reagan had an approval rating in the 60s. So she had a lot of headwinds. And then the biggest issues that people cared about, the economy and immigration, Trump had an edge on both of those. But going into this,

It seemed like a deadlock, very tied. And so it is surprising. Yeah. And right across the board, too. So we talked a lot about the swing states. What's really striking is that it appears to be doing very well in the non-swing states as well, including in states where Kamala Harris has won. But Donald Trump has really reduced Democratic majorities to the extent that he might win the popular vote. He might win the popular vote. Exactly right. And what's so difficult for some people to understand is

is that it is not as though all of these tens of millions of Americans like everything that Donald Trump says or like everything that Donald Trump does. But for many of them, particularly the first time voters, they feel for the first time in their life, somebody is willing to fight for them. Somebody is going to disrupt the system and

They've never felt like a politician understood them, spoke like them, used the same vernacular that might be a little crude. Definitely not what polite society wants to hear at the cocktail party.

But that's how a lot of folks speak. And so it's surprising. But for a lot of folks, they felt right at home with Donald Trump and they felt like he was going to deliver on the economy and on immigration. And if he is president again now, he will have the Senate on his side. We don't yet know about the House of Representatives. But if they also stay with the Republicans, because there is already a majority there, that is a clean sweep that makes him very powerful. It sure does. The House, it is too early to call that.

I feel confident the Senate will go into Republican hands. The House, though, where I currently serve, I'm a little more anxious about, only because we were outspent so much across the country. And Donald Trump was effectively able to create space between himself and the abortion issue that is so big in the United States. And a lot of these House races, candidates were not able to do that.

and they were outspent. And so it's going to be days and perhaps weeks until we know who has the majority in the House. If he has won, what does it say about the modern United States? One of the fascinating things, yes, he will have won white people. He certainly will have won non-college educated white people, but he's made significant roads into other groups, other communities, and

which the Democrats are shocked by. In the exit polling that I saw, he won the white vote by less than he did in 2020 when he lost. The reason he's winning this election is because he is winning with young people. And by winning, I mean he's losing by less in some of these instances, to be clear. But he's doing better with young people, particularly young men. He's doing much better with Hispanics, and he's doing much better with the black vote.

So it is confusing, but he has worked meticulously to lean into these particular demographics. If you look at his media strategy, the big time media outlets that every presidential candidate has done for years and years and cycles and cycles, he didn't do. He didn't do the big 60 minutes interview that every president has done. Right.

He did Joe Rogan's podcast. He did Theo Vaughn's podcast. He did Dave Ramsey. You know, like this is not a normal media strategy, but they decided we are going to meet people where they are. We're going to be innovative. We're going to be creative. And it's a weird thing. I'm a young guy, but I've been in politics a long time. And so when I see a new media strategy like this, I instantly get nervous.

because I think, for goodness sakes, what are you doing on a podcast? But the truth of the matter is the person that holds Walter Cronkite's seat, the CBS Evening News, is getting far fewer viewers than does Joe Rogan. Republican Congressman Jake LaTurna. So what went so badly wrong for the Democrats? A North America correspondent, Anthony Zercher, gave us this assessment.

I think the knives are going to come out for Joe Biden. The blame is going to be placed squarely on Joe Biden for not relinquishing the reins of power and abandoning his reelection bid much, much earlier. That would have allowed a more robust primary process where someone could build a campaign up and introduce themselves to the American public on a longer time frame than Kamala Harris had. I think at least at the moment, Democrats look at Kamala Harris's campaign as

have said that she ran a fairly effective one, that she played a bad hand about as best as she could. She had a clear campaign message. She did well in the debate. Maybe she didn't pick the right vice presidential running mate, but this was such a solid win for Donald Trump that Josh Shapiro, even if he delivered Pennsylvania, and he may not have been able to, that wouldn't have turned some of these other battleground states around. So the second guessing with her may not be as pronounced as

Anthony Zurcher.

And that's all from this extra edition of the Global News Podcast. There'll be another one in a few hours with commentary and analysis of what a Donald Trump presidency will mean for big issues such as the economy, immigration and climate change, and we'll gauge reaction from around the world. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. This

This edition was mixed by Gabriel O'Regan and the producer was Nicky Verrico. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Paul Moss. Until next time, goodbye.

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