Donald Trump declares victory in the US election as he addresses jubilant supporters in Florida.
“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” he says to cheering crowds.
The Republican has picked up the battleground states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, leaving Kamala Harris with only a narrow path to victory.
Just before Donald Trump began speaking, Fox News projected that he had won the election; other US TV networks are yet to do so.
A return to the White House would be an extraordinary comeback for Trump after he lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
Kamala Harris’s campaign says she won’t speak today, as dejected supporters left her watch party earlier.
Meanwhile, Republicans are projected to take back the Senate.
Most probably Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. He will be only the second man in history to serve two non-consecutive terms as president.
At 78 years old, Donald Trump is facing multiple scandals over his career, multiple court cases – criminal and civil, a conviction, a sentencing in three weeks’ time, and escaping death but a fraction from an assassin’s bullet.
However, it looks like a majority of the American people to send him back to Washington into the White House.
Donald Trump has announced that he does not expect to run for election again in 2028 if he is defeated in this November’s presidential poll.
The 78-year-old former president has been the Republican candidate for three national elections in a row and has reshaped the party greatly over the last eight years.
In an interview with Sinclair Media Group, Donald Trump was asked if he could foresee another run in the event that he loses to Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris.
“No, I don’t. I think… that will be it,” he said.
“I don’t see that at all.”
However, he added that “hopefully, we’re going to be very successful”.
US law bars presidents from serving more than two terms, and so Donald Trump is not expected to run in 2028 if he wins, either.
In the past, Donald Trumo has rarely acknowledged the possibility of losing the election, more often firing up supporters with speeches and social media posts pledging victory at the polls.
But this is the second time in four days he has mentioned a chance of defeat.
During an event held by the Israeli-American Council on September 19, he brought up losing, and suggested that any such loss would partly be the fault of Jewish voters.
“Do they know what the hell is happening if I don’t win this election?” he said, according to various media reports.
“And the Jewish people would have to do a lot with that if that happens because at 40% [support] that means 60% of the people are voting for the enemy.”
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
The comments were condemned by the Harris campaign and by the nonpartisan American Jewish Committee and Anti-Defamation League.
Donald Trump’s acknowledgments of a possible loss may reflect how the Democratic Party’s prospects have changed since Kamala Harris became its nominee following President Joe Biden’s decision to quit the race.
The Harris campaign raised more than $190 million in August, compared to $130 million brought in by the Trump campaign and affiliated organizations.
In key battleground states which look set to prove decisive to the overall result, Kamala Harris has a narrower lead of 51% to 49%, which is a slight improvement from the even 50% in a similar poll conducted last month by CBS.
Another poll released on September 22 by NBC shows Kamala Harris with a five percentage point lead over Trump across the US.
It also found that 48% of registered voters see her positively compared to 32% in July – the largest jump since then-President George W. Bush’s favourability surged after the 9/11 attacks.
Republican candidate Donald Trump has reacted to President Joe Biden’s decision to pull out of the presidential race, posting on his platform Truth Social: “Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for president, and is certainly not fit to serve – and never was!”
“He only attained the position of President by lies, Fake News, and not leaving his Basement.
“All those around him, including his Doctor and the Media, knew that he wasn’t capable of being President, and he wasn’t,” he writes.
“We will suffer greatly because of his presidency, but we will remedy the damage hehas done very quickly. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
President Joe Biden, 81, has announced he’s ending his campaign for re-election to the White House.
It follows weeks of pressure from within his party, sparked by a faltering debate performance against Donald Trump in late June.
The president said his decision was “in the best interest of my party and the country” and that it had been the greatest honour of his life to serve as the American president.
Joe Biden said he would see out the remainder of his term in the White House and has endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris to take the top of the ticket as the Democratic candidate for president in the November election.
His political opponents, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, have called on him to step down straight away. Joe Biden’s rival for president, Donald Trump, says the Democrat is “not fit to serve”.
However, Joe Biden has received tributes from prominent figures within his party, such as California Governor Gavin Newsom, and beyond – such as Star Wars actor Mark Hamill, who said he “restored honesty, dignity and integrity” to the White House after Trump.
Donald Trump has been criticized by Joe Biden’s campaign team for sharing a video on social media featuring a truck bearing the image of the president with his hands and feet tied together.
The Biden campaign team accused the former president of “regularly inciting political violence” ahead of November’s election.
A spokesman for the Trump campaign said Democrats have been calling for “despicable violence” against Donald Trump.
Donald Trump posted the video on his social media site Truth Social on March 29.
According to the caption, it was filmed in Long Island, New York, on March 28 when the former president attended the wake of a New York City police officer who was killed during a traffic stop.
The video shows two passing trucks on the road, both covered in US flags and flags claiming support for the police.
The second truck was emblazoned with the words “Trump 2024”, and the rear of the vehicle features an image of Joe Biden with his hands and feet tied.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
Donald Trump’s promotion of the video drew criticism from Joe Biden campaign’s team.
“Trump is regularly inciting political violence and it’s time people take him seriously – just ask the Capitol police officers who were attacked protecting our democracy on January 6,” spokesman Michael Tyler said, referring to the storming of Congress by the former president’s supporters after he falsely claimed the 2020 election had been stolen from him.
But Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, responded: “That picture was on the back of a pickup truck that was travelling down the highway. Democrats and crazed lunatics have not only called for despicable violence against President Trump and his family, they are actually weaponizing the justice system against him.”
The Republican presidential nominee faces four criminal cases, with an election subversion case and New York hush money case the most likely to be heard in court before the election on 5 November.
Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty in all the cases, and claimed he is being politically persecuted.
The row over the tailgate image is the latest in a series of heated exchanges between the two presidential candidates in the run-up to the polls.
In his bid to return to the White House, Donald Trump has ramped up his rhetoric, frequently referring to those convicted for their part in the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 as “hostages”.
He also came under criticism for comments in Ohio earlier this month in which he warned of a “bloodbath” if he wasn’t elected. He made the reference after talking about foreign car imports and their economic impact.
The Biden campaign seized on the comments but Donald Trump accused them and the media of taking him out of context.
Judge Scott McAfee, who oversaw an election interference case against Donald Trump in Georgia, has thrown out some criminal charges, but left most in place.
The judge found six counts in the 41-count indictment against Donald Trump and some of his co-defendants, including Rudy Giuliani, lacked detail.
But he said the charges can be refiled at a later date.
Donald Trump was among 19 people charged with a conspiracy to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.
“The lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned’s opinion, fatal,” Judge McAfee wrote in his order on March 13.
He said the charges do not provide the accused with enough information to prepare their legal defences “intelligently”, adding that “this does not mean the entire indictment is dismissed”.
Judge McAfee was randomly assigned the Trump case in 2023, just six months after being appointed as a judge by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican.
He previously worked as a prosecutor, including for the Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat who led the investigation into the former president.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
Judge McAfee’s ruling affects three of the 13 charges against Donald Trump.
They relate to a call Donald Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he told him: “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.”
One of the charges accused the former president of soliciting public officials to break the law by violating their oath of office.
However, Judge McAfee said the indictment was not specific enough about exactly what Donald Trump wanted the officials to do.
The other dismissed charges apply to some of his most prominent co-defendants: Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Mark Meadows.
In his order, Judge McAfee said the charges “contain all the essential elements of the crimes but fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission, i.e., the underlying felony solicited”.
It comes as a win for Donald Trump and his co-defendants, who had filed to dismiss the charge. Prosecutors could now choose to refile the charges with more information in their allegation, or let the ruling stand and focus on the other charges.
The group had initially faced 41 total charges. Donald Trump is facing up to 20 years in prison in Georgia if convicted of the most severe charge of racketeering.
In a statement, Donald Trump’s lawyer in the Georgia case, Steve Sadow, called the ruling “a correct application of the law, as the prosecution failed to make specific allegations of any alleged wrongdoing on those counts”.
Donald Trump, who is running for president against Joe Biden in November, has slammed the case as politically motivated.
Nearly three months after announcing his campaign, Donald Trump made his first campaign foray out of his adopted home state of Florida on January 28.
In New Hampshire, he addressed a meeting of the Republican Party and announced the outgoing state party chair would be a senior adviser to his campaign. And at the state capitol in Columbia, South Carolina, he received the endorsements of the state’s governor, Henry McMaster, and Senator Lindsey Graham.
Lindsay Graham, a Trump confidante who expressed some disillusionment after the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, is now back firmly in the fold.
Donald Trump once again denied his 2020 defeat and told supporters that he – unlike any possible Republican alternatives – would be the most effective nominee in 2024.
“To change the whole system, you need a president who can take on the whole system and a president who can win,” he said from the state capitol’s main hall.
In both stops, the former president touted what he said was his record of success during his presidency and attacked President Joe Biden’s record on crime, immigration and the economy.
Image source Wikipedia
Across the street, Todd Gerhardt, a Republican district executive committee member from nearby Charleston, sold honey in Trump-shaped plastic bottles.
Todd Gerhardt was an early supporter of Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign, organized a 2016 rally for him on South Carolina’s posh Kiawah Island, and recently visited the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate for a fundraiser and to provide his honey for the campaign’s gift bags.
It’s no coincidence that the first two stops of Donald Trump’s third presidential campaign were South Carolina and New Hampshire. The two states could prove to be central to Trump’s strategy to retake the White House.
While Iowa is the first state to hold a Republican presidential nomination contest in 2024, Donald Trump finished third there in 2016 and the evangelical Christians who dominate the state’s Republican electorate could be eying other possible candidates, like former Vice-President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
New Hampshire and South Carolina, however, provided Donald Trump with a one-two punch that catapulted him to the front in 2016 – a lead he never relinquished.
They could do the same in 2024. In fact, every Republican presidential nominee since 1980 has won the South Carolina primary, making it unique among the traditional early-voting states.
South Carolina could prove to be a unique challenge for Donald Trump this time around, however. He faces potential challenges from Senator Tim Scott as well as the state’s former governor, Nikki Haley.
An Emerson Poll conducted earlier this week found 55% of Republican voters supporting Donald Trump, well ahead of the 29% for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has not announced a presidential bid but is viewed to be the former president’s most formidable rival. A Monmouth poll in December had Mr DeSantis ahead by double-digits.
Earlier this week, Meta announced that it was lifting the suspension it had placed on Donald Trump’s accounts in the aftermath of the attack on the US Capitol by his supporters. Although the former president has yet to resume posting to his accounts, his return could provide yet another opportunity for voter outreach – and fundraising – as his still minimally staffed campaign gears up for its 2024 run.
If rallies and Facebook donations were the fuel for Donald Trump’s past White House bids, his South Carolina stop was a different kind of operation.
With only 300 announced attendees, it was a decidedly low-key event compared to his typical arena gatherings, with their carnival atmosphere. Attire tended toward sport coats and dresses, not Make America Great Again hats and Let’s Go Brandon t-shirts.
To win a third Republican presidential nomination, however, Donald Trump will need the support of the political rank-and-file in states like New Hampshire and South Carolina, as well as his rally-going loyalists. And while Donald Trump’s national polls show continued strength, a recent South Carolina survey had nearly half of Republican voters expressing a preference for “someone else” besides Donald Trump.
Former President Donald Trump has announced his presidential candidacy on November 15, declaring: “America’s comeback starts right now.”
At his Mar-a-Lago estate, Donald Trump, 76, said: “We have to save our country.”
His announcement comes as some fellow Republicans blame him for the party’s lacklustre performance in last week’s midterm elections.
President Joe Biden, who defeated Donald Trump two years ago, has said he may run for re-election in 2024.
Speaking to an invited crowd from the ballroom of his Mar-a-Lago private club in Palm Beach, Donald Trump said: “We are a nation in decline.
“For millions of Americans, the past two years under Joe Biden have been a time of pain, hardship, anxiety and despair.”
He continued: “In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.”
“Donald Trump” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Gage Skidmore
Shortly before the speech, the former president filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission formally declaring his presidential candidacy and setting up a fundraising account.
Meanwhile, outside Mar-a-Lago, supporters gathered to wave Trump 2024 flags.
Donald Trump’s speech lasted for more than an hour and touched on many of the same themes he has been repeating on stage for months.
These included border security, energy independence and crime, as well as attacks on Joe Biden’s record in office.
His wife, Melania Trump, joined him on stage at the end of the speech. But there were fewer family members present than at some of his past events and Ivanka Trump and Donald Jr did not attend.
At the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, President Biden was asked whether he had a reaction to Donald Trump’s announcement.
“No, not really,” he said. Last week, he was filmed laughing when a reporter suggested Donald Trump’s support base remained strong.
Donald Trump’s unusually early declaration for the election of November 5, 2024 is being seen as a tactic to steal a march on potential rivals for the Republicans’ White House nomination.
Although he is the first to enter the race and instantly becomes the front-runner, he is expected to face challengers.
They may include his own former VP Mike Pence, 63, and rising star Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, 44.
In his remarks, Donald Trump largely steered clear of rehashing his baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him by mass voter fraud.
He left office after one term in 2021, refusing to acknowledge his defeat by seven million votes.
His debunked conspiracy theories riled up supporters who rioted at Capitol Hill in the final days of his presidency as lawmakers met to certify President Biden’s victory.
Donald Trump became the first president ever to be impeached twice, although congressional Democrats were thwarted in their bid to remove him from office by Senate Republicans.
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