Republicans anticipate a clean sweep of the White House and congress

Congressional Republicans are salivating at the prospect of taking control of both chambers of congress, which would give Donald Trump largely untrammelled power to implement his agenda.

Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice-President Kamala Harris leaves the stage after conceding the election. Picture: Getty Images

Donald Trump’s Republicans are poised to seize control of both houses of congress, which would turbocharge his second term as president as a defeated Kamala Harris vowed to continue the fight, telling her supporters not to despair in a conciliatory speech that emphasised the importance of a peaceful transition of power.

In her first address to her supporters since Mr Trump’s resounding victory, a sometimes emotional Ms Harris conceded the election, but said: “I do not concede the fight that fuelled this campaign. Here’s the thing: Sometimes the fight takes a while. The light of America’s promise will always burn bright,”

“This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves,” she said, without indicating whether she planned to run again in 2028.

Her comments, which came ahead of an expected speech by President Joe Biden on Thursday (Friday AEDT), came amid intense soul-searching by Democrats trying to understand how they suffered such a crushing defeat, losing all seven of the swing states to Mr Trump as well as the popular vote, and quite possibly both chambers of congress.

Donald Trump, Kai Trump, Caitlyn Jenner and Elon Musk the day after the presidential election. Picture: X

Counting was continuing in the last two swing states of Arizona and Nevada, where Mr Trump held a 52 per cent to 47 per cent lead in each and was expected to win.

If Republicans can win the House of Representatives as well as the Senate, it will give the incoming president at least two years during which he can implement his election mandate and pass it through a friendly congress.

Ms Harris on Wednesday called Mr Trump to congratulate him, a business like call that reportedly lasted a few minutes.

A much smaller crowd came to hear Ms Harris speak at Washington’s Howard University, her alma mata, than the previous night when she did not address the large election night crowd despite an obvious loss.

She said the Biden administration would “engage in a peaceful transfer of power and indirectly chided Mr Trump by saying that accepting defeat was “a fundamental principle of American democracy.”

Mr Trump won the votes of Latino men by a margin of eight percentage points, four years after losing them to Joe Biden by 23 points. It’s a result that showed his campaign’s efforts to court those voters paid off and that the late focus on a comedian mocking Puerto Rico at Mr Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, who said the US territory was “trash”, didn’t cause the damage Ms Harris’ campaign hoped it would.

The gains were concentrated most heavily among Latinos under age 65, raising questions about Democrats’ ‘rainbow’ coalition of racial and sexual minorities would be enough to sustain victories in the future.

Mr Trump also made gains in key places among black men, more than doubling his 2020 performance in North Carolina.

He also won strong support among working-class voters. The Gap VoteCast survey, which included more than 120,000 registered voters nationally, showed he won 55 per cent of voters without a college degree. That was up from 51 per cent in 2020.

Abortion rights, which Democrats hoped to be the most important issue of the election, was on the ballot in 10 states, where large numbers of voters appeared willing to support broad protections for the procedure, even as they voted for Mr Trump. In Missouri, the Republican won 58.5 per cent of the vote, while the state voted in favour of a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights.

In key swing states that decided the election, Mr Trump cut into traditional Democrat strongholds: urban areas and high-income suburbs in Pennsylvania; Black voters in Wisconsin; and Arab voters in Michigan. And he dramatically expanded his margins in rural counties in Georgia and Wisconsin, easily overcoming Ms Harris’s advantage in metro areas, including in Atlanta and Milwaukee. It remains unclear whether Mr Trump’s win marks a permanent shift in the Republican electorate or one that is unique to him. But the most dramatic shift came among Hispanic voters, who swung to Mr Trump by 25 points nationally. Ms Harris won a slight majority of these voters nationally, 53 per cent to 45 per cent, according to preliminary exit polling.