Trump on track for victory as Harris underperforms
Donald Trump is on track to defeat Kamala Harris in a dramatic victory that would make him just the second person in American history to return to the White House after suffering a defeat.
A Trump victory will send shockwaves around the world, including in Canberra, as it did when he won the White House in a stunning upset over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Trump, who was impeached twice by the US House of Representatives, would make history as the first convicted felon to serve as president, having been found guilty of 34 felony counts in a May trial over hush money payments to former porn star Stormy Daniels.
Donald Trump at an election rally in North Carolina, the first crucial swing state that he won.Credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images
As of Wednesday afternoon, Australian time, the Associated Press had called the battleground states of North Carolina and Georgia for Trump and the former reality television star was leading the count in five other key swing states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona.
Trump, who was watching the results roll in at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, was preparing to address his supporters on Wednesday afternoon.
Harris’ campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond said Harris would not address Democratic supporters in Washington, DC, on election night, but would instead wait until the day after the election.
Democrats’ hopes of a strong showing for Harris were dashed quickly as the early vote returns showed Trump easily winning his home state of Florida and performing significantly above expectations in Virginia.
Trump continued to dominate among voters in the rural, white, working-class areas that have formed the bedrock of his support since he won the presidency in 2016.
Harris, meanwhile, underperformed President Joe Biden’s 2020 results in key constituencies, including suburban and inner-city voters.
Harris’ campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon sent an email to Democratic campaign staff assuring them that Harris still had a path to victory despite Trump’s lead.
“While we continue to see data trickle in from the Sun Belt states, we have known all along that our clearest path to 270 electoral votes lies through the Blue Wall states,” O’Malley Dillon said.
“And we feel good about what we’re seeing.”
The so-called “blue wall” states – Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – were seen as critical to a Harris victory, but Trump is performing better than he did in 2020 in all three states.
Only one previous US president has lost an election and returned to the White House to serve a non-consecutive term: Grover Cleveland in 1893.
The Democrats installed Harris as their nominee in July after Biden put in a widely panned debate performance against Trump, a move that led to a swift poll surge as disaffected Democrats returned to the party.
But the race soon settled into a narrow and grinding contest of attrition as Harris struggled to overcome voter anger at high inflation and unauthorised migration across the US southern border.
Questions will be asked about the role of gender in the race and whether some male voters flinched at the idea of a woman in the White House, as they did in 2016 when Clinton ran for the White House.
The Trump campaign put significant effort into winning votes among African American and Latino male voters, a bid that appeared to pay off according to exit polls.
More to come
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