Last week, on November 5th, Americans made their way to the polls to vote for their future president for the next four years. Late that Tuesday night, it was announced that Donald Trump had won the presidential election.
To win the electoral college, the candidate needs 270 out of the 538 votes assigned throughout the fifty states. Trump received 312 votes while Kamala Harris received 226 votes. In terms of the popular vote, Trump also won with around 75 million votes, while Harris received around 72 million. This was a shock to many people since polls had predicted a much closer call between the two.
When it comes to third parties like the Green party or Independent candidates, no one received any electoral votes. However, Green party candidate, Jill Stein, was able to get around 700,000 individual votes.
Donald Trump won the election by a pretty wide margin, so let’s take a look at some statistics to see how he secured the win. Fifty-one percent of voters from ages 18 to 29 were reported to have voted for Harris, while the majority of voters over the age of 45 were reported to have voted for Trump. It was also reported that 54% of women voted for Harris which is 3% less than the amount of women that voted for President Joe Biden in 2020. Forty-six percent of Latinos voted for Trump, and out of all Latinos, 55% were men. Lastly, 80% of Black people voted for Kamala Harris.
In terms of swing states, there were seven states predicted that could have swayed the election; Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia. Trump ended up winning all of them. However, our very own home state, Virginia, ended up voting blue which it has been for the previous four presidential elections.
Not only did Republicans get a hold of the presidency, they also managed to take over the House and Senate. Out of the one hundred seats in the United States Senate, the Republican party gained four, bringing their party to 53 senators. The Democrats lost four, dropping them to 47 senators.
Regarding the House of Representatives, there are still five seats undecided almost two weeks after Election Day. As of now, there are 218 Republican representatives, and 212 Democratic representatives.
Early last week, the President-elect announced Susie Wiles to be his chief of staff. Wiles is the first woman to ever hold that position. She also worked with the president on both his 2016 and 2024 campaigns. Donald Trump is expected to continue to announce more members of his new team.