In a historic re-election, Trump wins a second term as Democrats search for answers

Donald Trump won a second term as president Wednesday after victories in key battleground states, NBC News projects, leaving Democrats wondering what went wrong.

The historic victory avenged Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, which he and many of his supporters baselessly continued to insist was stolen from him.

“I think we just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States,” Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, Trump’s running mate, said early Wednesday at the campaign’s victory party in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump and Vance spoke before most news outlets had declared him the winner, but by then the night was clearly going in his direction. Trump thanked his supporters for the “extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president.”

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Democrats were stunned as battleground state after battleground state went to Republicans. One veteran Democratic strategist said of the pang over the party: “Have you ever been to a funeral? It would be Mardi Gras compared to this.”

The loss leaves the Democratic Party without a clear leader moving forward and searching for answers to how Trump could have become the first Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years.

“How is it possible that we could lose to this guy? It’s just malpractice,” said one Democratic fundraiser.

Vice President Kamala Harris chose not to address supporters in Washington, DC, on election night after Trump won Georgia and North Carolina, the first two battleground states to fall in the race for the White House.

Cedric Richmond, a co-chairman of Harris’ campaign, told the crowd at Howard University that she would not speak publicly until later Wednesday.

“We still have votes to count. We still have states that haven’t been called,” Richmond said shortly before 1 a.m. ET. “You’ll hear from her tomorrow.”

The decision to remain silent came with a drastic shift in the mood for her campaign aides, her supporters and Democratic officials as vote totals in battleground states suggested an increasingly narrow path to victory.

At Harris headquarters on Howard’s campus, thousands stared at screens in near silence, looking stone-faced. No one waved the American flags handed out earlier in the evening. The mood went from happy and festive to worried and anxious.

A few dozen people in the crowd, clearly done watching the returns, began chanting, “Music! Music!” Soon after, a giant screen playing cable news was turned off and the DJ started playing rap music. Some Harris employees walked around with blank looks on their faces.

In an ominous development for Democrats, the percentage of voters who identified with their party hit a century low. According to the NBC News Exit Poll, 32% of voters identified as Democratic, down from 37% four years ago. The exit poll also found the highest level of voters identifying as independent or “something else” this century (34%). The share of voters who identify as Republican has moved less, standing at 34% this year.

The two candidates’ supporters are divided over the most important issues facing the country on Election Day, differences that partly reflected where they put their focus. NBC News exit polls also showed significant demographic changes in the two parties’ coalitions.

Among the most pronounced changes: Latino men favored Trump by a 10-point margin, 54% to 44%, after backing the 2020 Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, by a 23-point margin of 59% to 36%.

In a smaller shift — but a significant one in its own right — Harris had a 25-point lead among Latino women, down 14 points from Biden’s 39-point lead over Trump in 2020.

At the same time, Trump saw attrition among white suburban women, carrying 51% of them this year compared to 56% four years ago, according to exit polls. Harris also got a boost from older voters, taking the 65-plus set 50% to 49%. That reversed Trump’s 5-point 2020 victory among seniors. Also, older voters made up 28% of the electorate, up from the 22% they made up in 2020.

Most Harris voters rated democracy as their most important issue, while most Trump voters said the economy mattered most to them. In total, 35% of voters placed democracy at the top of their lists, while 31% said the economy and 14% said abortion.

Fifty-six percent of Harris voters put democracy first, while 21% listed abortion as their top priority and 13% chose the economy. Fifty-one percent of Trump voters saw the economy as the biggest issue, 20% cited immigration, and 12% said democracy.

Harris promised she would restore abortion rights, which were left vulnerable to restrictions by the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. Trump said that abortion decisions belong in the states where they now live, but that he favors bans that exempt cases of rape, incest and danger to the woman’s life.

Overall, 51% of voters in 2020 said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. But now 66% say so. At the same time, the share of voters who believe that abortion should be illegal in all cases fell from 17% in 2020 to 6% this year.

Both candidates and their campaigns expressed confidence in the closing days that they were on course to win.

“Momentum is on our side,” Harris said Monday night at his final rally in Philadelphia.

“I think we’re going to get a very big win today,” Trump said as he cast his vote in West Palm Beach on Tuesday afternoon.

Despite the candidates’ sense of success, 72% of voters in NBC News exit polls said they are either angry or dissatisfied with the state of the country, with only 26% reporting they are satisfied or excited about it.

There were signs of demographic shifts in the electorate in the early exit polls. Trump’s popularity fell among white voters, while it ticked up among black and Latino voters. In 2020, 57% of white voters viewed Trump favorably, as did 38% of Latino voters and 10% of black voters. This year, only 49% of white voters said they viewed Trump favorably, while his numbers among Latino and black voters rose to 42% and 14%, respectively.