‘We made history.’ Trump declares victory at election party as vote-counting continues

Donald Trump declared victory in the presidential election early Wednesday morning, basking in the cheers of his supporters in South Florida as he closed in on the 270 electoral votes needed to formally clinch the White House.

Speaking to a tightly packed crowd at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, the former president, who was ousted from the White House four years ago, called his performance “a political victory that our country has never seen before.”

“We’re going to fix our borders, we’re going to fix everything about our country,” Trump said. “We made history for a reason tonight and the reason is just that. We overcame obstacles that no thought possible.”

Flanked by his family, his running mate JD Vance and top campaign advisers, Trump promised to unite a deeply divided nation and usher in a “Golden Age of America.” Vance, speaking briefly between Trump’s remarks, said that Americans had just witnessed “the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America.”

While votes were still being counted in a handful of key battleground states, Trump went into Wednesday morning with several very real and very likely paths to the presidency, all but guaranteeing him a victory over his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

His remarks capped off a raucous and jubilant night for his supporters, campaign staffers and allies, who began gathering in the sprawling convention center in West Palm Beach early Tuesday evening to anxiously await the outcome of one of the most tumultuous presidential elections in modern history.

Harris did not deliver remarks at her election night party at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Instead, her campaign co-chairman Cedric Richmond took the stage early Wednesday to tell supporters that they would hear from the vice president later on, saying that there were still votes left to count.

Even before Trump emerged as the likely winner of the presidential race, his supporters at the election night party appeared confident in his chances of winning.

Outside the ballroom, campaign workers passed out red “Make America Great Again” hats to people walking by, while guests took turns posing for photos in front of an imposing black and red campaign background speckled with American flags.

Inside, massive television screens blared CNN and Fox News’ election night coverage as vote counts from across the country poured in. As different states were called for Trump the room broke out into cheers.

When Trump was declared the winner in Florida, his adopted home state, the crowd roared in delight. The former president carried the Sunshine State by more than 1.3 million votes, or about 13 percentage points, the largest margin of any candidate in 36 years.

“Florida is a red state,” said Jaime Florez, the Hispanic communications director for the Republican National Committee and Trump’s campaign. “It’s not the battleground that it used to be. It is a conservative state, and I don’t think there’s any question about that left.”

Pausing to turn his attention to the TV as CNN called Iowa for Trump, Florez smiled before adding that he was confident the former president was on track for a “much larger victory” than predicted.

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Sitting at a table with his eyes fixed on one of the several TV screens lining the room, Dan Backer, a 47-year-old attorney and conservative activist from Pompano Beach, said earlier in the evening that he was “cautiously optimistic” about Trump’s chances of reclaiming the White House.

“I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I think it’s going to come down to Pennsylvania, most likely, but we’ll see,” he said. “Republicans are up in early voting and mail voting and a lot of us still tend to vote today, so that’s a good sign.”

Trump ultimately captured Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes on Tuesday, putting him just one state away from formally winning the presidency. That win appeared imminent on Wednesday morning as vote counts in several states showed Trump in the lead.

Gayle Trotter, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney and political analyst, said that she didn’t “have any doubt” that Trump would come out on top. She argued that public polls, which have shown Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris deadlocked for weeks, had likely failed to capture Trump’s true popularity and predicted a stronger-than-expected showing for the former president on Tuesday night.

“I’m confident, I’m very excited, I think Trump is going to over-perform all the polls as he’s done in the past,” Trotter said. “I think they under-represent the support that he has.”

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That support proved resilient in Tuesday’s election as the former president racked up victories in key swing states, like Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania and exit polls showed him making gains among traditionally Democratic-leaning constituencies, including Latino men and some college-educated voters.

Trump, a famously adversarial politician who has frequently been accused of stoking divisions, appeared eager to embrace that broader coalition in his speech early Wednesday.

“This will forever be remembered as the day the American people regained control of their country,” Trump said. “It’s time to put the divisions of the last four years behind us. It’s time to unite.”

This story was originally published November 5, 2024, 5:09 PM.