Source: CHARLY TRIBALLEAUMANDEL NGAN / Getty
***UPDATE***
In the hours since this story was first published, the key swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin were still counting votes in addition to the states of Nevada, Arizona, and Alaska. Early this morning, the state of Wisconsin was officially called. NewsOne reports that Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2024 election with 277 electoral college votes to win the presidency for a second term. This win has been declared the “greatest political comeback in American history.”
Source: Brandon Bell / Getty
If you threw up in your mouth a little bit, we totally understand. Hell, if you projectile vomited, we understand that too. Two of the aforementioned states, Wisconsin and Michigan had counted over 90% of the total votes around 5 a.m. EST while Nevada had tallied 84% of their votes, Arizona had only tallied 54%, and Alaska had 73% of their votes reported.
Source: Stefano Guidi / Getty
Unfortunately, none of these numbers were helpful to Vice President Harris as Trump held sizeable leads in all five states.
This is the first time a Republican candidate has won both the popular vote and the electoral college since George W. Bush did it 20 years ago in 2004.
***END UPDATE***
Source: Anadolu / Getty
Although the voting public was warned numerous times that this presidential race would be very close, it was apparent very early in the evening that there were no words that could assuage people’s overwhelming anxiety. For almost her entire campaign, Vice President Harris presented herself as the underdog not only because she knew the strength of the malignantly misguided MAGA crowd but because she only had 107 days to convince America to cast a vote for her.
Source: Andrew Harnik / Getty
The night opened with all eyes firmly affixed on the contentious swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona. The states in the South and Midwest that were expected to go to Trump did, early and often. The states that were expected to go to Harris did as well. There wasn’t a “surprise” until MSNBC called the state of Georgia for Donald Trump seeding him 16 precious electoral votes in the race to 270. President Biden won Georgia in 2016 by a very narrow margin for a state that is deeply red historically.
Shortly after midnight, VP Harris’ campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond spoke tepidly to a crowd of supporters on Howard University’s campus to announce that Madam VP would not be speaking but that she would address the nation the next day.
We gotta keep it a buck, Richmond’s tone of voice did not exactly represent a show of confidence for those hoping to see Harris become the first woman to lead the United States as president. That said, elections aren’t won or lost based on tone of voice or body language. The only thing that matters are votes that were cast, and there are still plenty of those to be counted.
Until then, we wait. We drink. We smoke. We eat. We tweet. We text the group chat, but we wait. Remember, the 2020 election wasn’t called until three days after election day.
