Blue Wall Turns to Rubble; Democrats Despondent; Harris Speaks at 4:00 p.m.

At 2:24 a.m., a mere 144 minutes after one of the most tumultuous election days in American history, Donald Trump was guaranteed a second term as president as the Associated Press called Pennsylvania for the Republican presidential nominee, the first candidate since Grover Cleveland to lose the presidency and then recapture the White House.

“We’ve achieved the most incredible political thing, political victory, that our country has never seen before—nothing like this,” Trump told supporters. Even opponents could agree that Trump’s rise from his 2020 electoral defeat, January 6 disgrace, and multiple legal defeats, including 34 felony counts handed down by a Manhattan jury and legal liability for defamation and sexual assault, represented a comeback of stunning proportions. And it wasn’t even that close, as he defeated Kamala Harris, the vice president and Democratic nominee who secured her spot atop the ticket after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race this summer following a devastating performance in the first presidential debate. She became the first major party candidate to win a nomination without entering a primary since Hubert Humphrey in 1968.

At 4:00 p.m., Harris is expected to appear before supporters at Howard University in Washington, D.C., her undergraduate alma mater and site of last night’s Democratic watch party, to publicly concede the race to Trump. She reportedly conceded to him earlier in the day.

Pennsylvania, long considered the most pivotal swing state, embodied the Democratic disaster that was the 2024 presidential election. The Republican presidential ticket of Trump and Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio did far better than that of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the 2020 Democratic nominees who won the Keystone State. The GOP performance rose in Chester and Delaware counties, suburban areas of Philadelphia that were key to Democratic hopes, across the state’s conservative interior, and even in inner-city Philadelphia where Vice President Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, hemorrhaged Black and Hispanic votes. By Tuesday afternoon, Trump had won the remaining “blue wall” states, Wisconsin and Michigan. He was leading in Arizona and Nevada, where the races had yet to be called.

Earlier in the evening, Democratic anxieties grew as maps of Georgia, a state Biden won narrowly against Trump four years ago, fell into the Republican column, as did closely contested North Carolina, another state where the Democrats’ much-anticipated wave of women angered by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority evisceration of abortion rights in 2022 failed to materialize to the degree needed to overcome Trump’s strength.

Harris did not match Biden’s 2020 performance with white, non-college-educated women, Black men, and especially among Latinos. Trump appeared to have outright won a majority of Latino men. 

Trump’s red run of the electoral map was paired with other Republican successes, particularly in the U.S. Senate, which the GOP handily recaptured as members of the Democratic class of 2006, Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, lost their bids for fourth terms to conservative challenges. Senators Bob Casey of Pennsylvania from the 2006 Democratic class also lost, but Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin seemed likely to prevail. Representative Elisa Slotkin of Michigan, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, held a minuscule lead as she battled former Representative Mike Rogers for the seat being vacated by Debbie Stabenow, the Democrat first elected in 2000. Jacky Rosen was neck and neck in Nevada with her GOP challenger Sam Brown. Democratic hopes for unseating GOP incumbents were dashed as Senator Ted Cruz bested Colin Allred. In Florida, Senator Rick Scott easily laid waste to his Democratic challenger, Debbie Muscarel-Powell, and in Nebraska, the Republican incumbent, Senator Deb Fischer, held on against the surprisingly strong independent bid from Dan Osborn, a union official.

Control of the U.S. House of Representatives remains uncertain. Some endangered House Democrats seemed likely to hold on, such as Marie Glusenkamp-Perez of Washington, one of the last of the once-thriving Blue Dog caucus. Meanwhile, Mary Petola, Alaska’s sole representative in Congress and the first Democrat elected to the seat since 1970, faced a tough battle.

There were some bright spots for Democrats as Ruben Gallego seemed likely to prevail in his bid for Arizona’s open U.S. Senate seat, and fellow party members made history as Andy Kim of New Jersey became the first U.S. Senator-elect of Korean-American ancestry. In Maryland, Angela Alsobrooks, the Prince George’s County Executive, and in Delaware, Lisa Blunt Rochester, the state’s at-large U.S. representative, both African American women, were elected to the U.S. Senate. Democrat Sarah McBride was elected to fill Delaware’s House seat, making her the first openly transgender member of Congress. Ballot measures enshrining and extending the right to legal abortion passed in Maryland, Missouri, New York, and Colorado. In Florida, a measure extending legal abortion to 24 weeks carried a majority but failed to meet the state’s 60 percent threshold.

The size of the Republican victory blunted talk about tactical errors dooming the Democrats. A different vice-presidential running mate couldn’t have staved off their defeat or different targeting of the $1 billion raised by the Harris-Walz ticket and supporting political action committees. Anger over inflation during Biden’s term seemed to drive the wrong track number, which remained an albatross for Harris, the first African American and South Asian woman nominated by a major party. The summer ouster of Joe Biden didn’t make a difference. It’s impossible to know if a truncated selection process might have produced a winning presidential ticket, but that seems unlikely. Governments worldwide suffered the voters’ wrath following the global inflationary wave, including in the United Kingdom, Italy, and France.

The stakes in the presidential race could not have been higher. Trump has vowed to overturn Bidenomics with tax cuts disproportionally accruing to the wealthy, massive global tariffs, and end industrial policy measures like the CHIPS and Science Act and the energy investment in the Inflation Reduction Act. As president, Trump will add more conservative jurists and may get one more Supreme Court appointment.

Regarding foreign policy, Trump represents the sharpest break with the post-World War II consensus on global alliances. He’s almost sure to end American military support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression, scuttle any global climate accords, and work to withdraw the U.S. from NATO, which Washington helped form in 1949.

On issues the Washington Monthly has examined in depth, Trump and Vance have promised further privatization of the VA Health System, opposed collective trade-and-security agreements, and, despite making noises about taking on monopolistic corporations, will likely use antitrust policy to reward friends and punish enemies.

This story was updated at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Tuesday, November 6.

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