Millions of voters across the US chose to return Donald Trump to the White House and the presidency on November 5.
Kamala Harris has called Donald Trump to concede the election, CBS says, after Trump’s historic US presidential victory.
Harris will address the nation for the first time since her defeat when she speaks to supporters at Howard University at 16:00 EST.
Donald Trump told jubilant crowds in Florida earlier: “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate.”
Of the seven crucial swing states, Trump won North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, while he’s ahead in Nevada and Arizona.
Republicans have also taken the Senate back from Democrats after flipping a string of seats.
In a statement sent out by his campaign, Donald Trump reflects on his historic win, calling it “a political victory that our country has never seen before”.
He then promises that he will “fight” for America, a repeated phrase we often heard on the campaign trail.
“I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve,” he says.
“Together, we’re going to unlock America’s glorious destiny.”
“Thank you once again for electing me in a landslide victory.”
At the end of the email, a link prompted Donald Trump’s supporters to continue to donate to his campaign.
Former Republican President George W. Bush has congratulated Donald Trump and JD Vance on their win.
In a post on X, George Bush writes: “The strong turnout in this election is a sign of the health of our republic and the strength of our democratic institutions.
“We join our fellow citizens in praying for the success of our new leaders at all levels of government.”
He also thanks Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for “their service to our country”.
George Bush never publicly backed a candidate during this election, but his daughter Barbara endorsed Kamala Harris in October – as did Dick Cheney, who served as his vice-president.
Donald Trump, now 78, will be the oldest US president at time of election, in history.
In contrast, his right-hand man, JD Vance, at 40, will be the third youngest vice-president.
In recent years, the junior senator from Ohio has been one of Trump’s most vehement defenders on Capitol Hill and in the media.
However, the two didn’t always agree.
JD Vance was once a self-proclaimed “never-Trumper”.
“My god, what an idiot” and “I find him reprehensible” are two Vance quotes from 2016 that resurfaced in July when Trump was narrowing his search for a running mate.
JD Vance always identified with Donald Trump’s disdain for elites and, ultimately, became one of his most steadfast allies when he ran for the US Senate in Ohio a few years later.
Misleading allegations, rumours and outright lies about voting and fraud are flooding online spaces in unprecedented numbers in advance of the US election.
Hundreds of incidents involving purported voting irregularities are being collected and spread by individuals, as well as both independent and Republican-affiliated groups. A small number of posts are also coming from Democrats.
The whirlwind of claims spreading online poses a challenge to election officials who are having to debunk rumours and reassure voters, while preparing to administer election day on November 5.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
In nearly every case, the posts support the Trump campaign’s false claim that the former president won the 2020 election and suggestions that he will potentially be cheated out of victory again on November 5.
When asked whether he will accept the 2024 election result, Donald Trump said during the presidential debate in September that he would if it was a “fair and legal and good election”.
A majority of Americans – 70% – expect him to reject the result if he loses, according to a CNN/SSRS poll released Monday.
Just this week, Donald Trump himself claimed widespread fraud in a key swing state.
“Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before,” Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social network. “REPORT CHEATING TO AUTHORITIES. Law Enforcement must act, NOW!”
The allegation followed officials in three Pennsylvania counties saying they were working with local law enforcement to investigate some voter registration applications for potential fraud.
While Donald Trump and allies seized on the announcements, the state’s top election official, Republican Al Schmidt, has urged caution and warned voters to be aware of “half-truths” and disinformation circulating on social media.
Hundreds of allegations of election fraud online, on social networks and on message boards and in chat groups. Some of these posts have been viewed millions of times each.
The posts have implied it’s easy for non-citizens to vote, made false claims about voting machines and sowed distrust in the ballot-counting process.
One video claimed to show recently-arrived Haitians voting in Georgia.
Meanwhile in Northhampton County, Pennsylvania, a video was posted on X showing a man dropping off a container of ballots at a courthouse, alleging suspicious activity. It turned out he was a postal worker delivering mail-in ballots, but the video was seen more than five million times.
The US presidential candidates continued to campaign across key swing states on October 20.
Footage shows a Church congregation in Georgia sing Happy Birthday to Vice-President Kamala Harris as she turns 60, and Donald Trump working the fryer and drive-thru at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have been ramping up personal attacks on each other as the White House rivals blitzed battleground states 16 days before the election.
In Pennsylvania, Donald Trump served fries at a McDonald’s as he sought to cast doubt on Kamala Harris’s biographical detail about having worked decades ago at the fast-food chain.
Kamala Harris was in Georgia, where she tweeted that Donald Trump was “exhausted, unstable, and unfit to be President of the United States”.
Polls show the two locked in a razor-tight race across the US, including in the seven battleground states that could swing the election.
Donald Trump visited a McDonald’s in Feasterville-Trevose, a suburb of Philadelphia, where he learned to make fries, dunking the wire basket in sizzling oil, and serving meals at a drive-through window.
The restaurant itself was closed to sit-in diners during Donald Trump’s visit.
“I like this job,” said the Republican, who is himself fond of Big Macs and Filet-o-Fish sandwiches.
He again accused Kamala Harris of “lying” about having once worked at the fast-food chain.
“I’ve now worked [at McDonald’s] for 15 minutes more than Kamala,” said Trump.
The Harris campaign said that the vice-president had worked on the cash register, ice cream machine and fry machine at a McDonald’s on Central Avenue in Alameda, California, in the summer of 1983.
McDonald’s placed an ad in the 1983 edition of the yearbook at a local high school, with pictures featuring a couple of students who worked there at the time.
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.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump met in a fiery debate – their first of the 2024 US presidential election.
They debated policy but personal attacks also dominated the 90 minute event in Philadelphia.
Kamala Harris frequently rattled the former president with personal attacks that threw him off message and raised the temperature of this highly-anticipated contest.
She said people leave Trump rallies early “out of exhaustion and boredom” – he said people don’t go to hers in the first place.
Donald Trump criticized Kamala Harris’s record on immigration and the border, and also her shifting policy positions – Harris blamed him for “Trump abortion bans” and the January 6 attacks on the Capitol.
The pattern for much of this debate was Harris goading her Republican rival into making extended defences of his past conduct and comments. He gladly obliged, raising his voice at times and shaking his head.
Americans should go to a Trump rally, Kamala Harris said during an early question about immigration, because they were illuminating.
“People start leaving the rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom,” she said.
That barb clearly rattled Donald Trump, as he then spent most of his answer – on a topic that should have been one of his main areas of strength – defending his rally sizes and belittling hers.
Donald Trump went from there to an extended riff on a debunked report that Haitian immigrants in the town of Springfield, Ohio, were abducting and eating their neighbour’s pets.
But Harris turned the topic to Trump’s proposed across-the-board tariffs, which she labelled a “Trump sales tax”, and then brought up Project 2025, the controversial independent conservative plan for a future Republican administration.
As he has in the past, Trump distanced himself from the project and defended his tariff plan, noting that the Biden administration had kept many of the tariffs in his first presidency. They were valid points, but it kept him from hammering the vice-president on inflation and consumer prices.
Snap polls suggest Kamala Harris won the debate, but Donald Trump says afterwards that she “lost very badly”.
With the election taking place on November 5, Kamala Harris is slightly ahead in national opinion polls – but key battleground states are very tight.
This is a snapshot that could be momentary but the Harris tactic of putting Trump on the defensive was clear early in the evening when the topics covered were the economy and abortion.
Public opinion surveys indicate many Americans are unhappy with how the Biden administration – of which Harris is a key member – has handled inflation and the economy.
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.
President Joe Biden has withdrawn from the presidential race after weeks of mounting pressure from Democrats.
He says it’s “in the best interest of my party and the country” – but will stay on for the final six months of his term.
Jo Biden endorses Kamala Harris, his vice-president, to be the new Democratic nominee.
The decision comes after weeks of intense pressure from fellow Democrats following a stumbling and sometimes incoherent debate performance against Republican Donald Trump at the end of June.
Joe Biden, 81, had resisted calls to step aside even as concerns over his mental fitness and capacity to beat Donald Trump mounted.
The announcement paves the way for another Democrat to become the party’s presidential candidate, with Vice-President Kamala Harris the most likely successor.
He will remain president until January, when the winner of the 2024 election will take office.
Joe Biden’s full statement pulling out of the race for the White House, which he posted on X a short time ago:
“My Fellow Americans, over the past three-and-a-half years, we have made great progress as a nation. Today, America has the strongest economy in the world. We’ve made historic investments in rebuilding our nation, in lowering prescription drug costs for seniors, and in expanding affordable health care to a record number of Americans.
“We’ve provided critically needed care to a million veterans exposed to toxic substances. Passed the first gun safety law in 30 years. Appointed the first African American woman to the Supreme Court. And passed the most significant climate legislation in the history of the world. America has never been better positioned to lead than we are today.
“I know none of this could have been done without you, the American people. Together, we overcame a once in a century pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We’ve protected and preserved our democracy. And we’ve revitalised and strengthened our alliances around the world.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.
“I will speak to the nation later this week in more detail about my decision. For now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to see me re-elected.
“I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work. And let me express my heartfelt appreciation to the American people for the faith and trust you have placed in me.
“I believe today what I always have: that there is nothing America can’t do – when we do it together. We just have to remember we are the United States of America.”
VP Kamala Harris says she intends to “earn and win” the nomination and do “everything in my power to… unite our nation to defeat Donald Trump”
Kamala Harris, now 59, was the first woman and the first black person to serve as California’s attorney general, the top lawyer and law enforcement official in America’s most populous state.
She gained a reputation as one of the Democratic Party’s rising stars, coming to power after being elected as California’s junior US senator in 2017 before setting her sights on the presidential nomination in 2020.
However, her adept debate performances were not enough to compensate for poorly articulated policies.
It was Joe Biden who returned Kamala Harris to the national spotlight by putting her on his ticket as the Democrat vice-presidential candidate in that same race.
After Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the election, she focused on several key initiatives and has been instrumental in some of the Biden administration’s most touted accomplishments, including the launch of a nationwide “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour, highlighting harm caused by abortion ban, and calling on Congress to restore the protections of Roe v Wade for abortion rights.
While she struggled to achieve broad appeal among Americans, in recent weeks – as speculation about Biden swirled – she has found a renewed base of support.
President Biden’s aides had been planning campaign events next week upon his return to the White House before he announced his decision to end his election campaign.
The president informed senior White House and campaign aides of his decision to exit the 2024 race shortly before the letter was publicly released, according to a senior White House official.
He told his team he had been reflecting on it over the past couple of days.
Former President Bill Clinton and Hilary Clinton, who ran against Trump in 2016, also endorse Harris – saying Democrats must “fight with everything we’ve got to elect her”
Former President Barack Obama says Democrats will name an “outstanding nominee”, but does not endorse Kamala Harris or any candidate.
Americans go to the polls in four months – on November 5.
Top Democratic fundraiser George Clooney has issued a damning call for Joe Biden to quit the presidential race, hours after senior Democrat Nancy Pelosi swerved questions about whether he should continue.
George Clooney said that the president had won many battles in his career, “but the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time”.
His comments came after Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker, joined growing disquiet in the party, saying that time was “running short” for Joe Biden to decide whether to stay in the race against Donald Trump after his disastrous debate.
President Biden has stated, repeatedly, that he is determined to remain as the Democratic party’s candidate and beat Donald Trump in November.
George Clooney wrote in The New York Times that it was “devastating to say it” but the Mr Biden he met at a fundraising event three weeks ago was not the “‘Joe ‘big ****ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020.”
“He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,” the actor said.
The fundraising event, held in Los Angeles, brought in a single-night record of roughly $30 million for the Biden campaign.
“Our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw.”
“This is about age. Nothing more,” he continued. “We are not going to win in November with this president.”
George Clooney added that his concerns matched those of “every” member of Congress he had spoken to.
Asked to respond, Joe Biden’s campaign referred to a letter the president sent Democrats in Congress that said he was “firmly committed” to his candidacy and beating Donald Trump.
Yet public dissent continues to grow within Joe Biden’s party as he faces scrutiny while hosting the NATO summit in Washington.
Nancy Pelosi, still one of the most powerful Democrats on Capitol Hill, on July 10 appeared to disregard Joe Biden’s insistence that he was determined to continue.
When asked if he should stay in the election race, she told MSNBC’s Morning Joe: “I want him to do whatever he decides to do.”
“It’s up to the president to decide if he’s going to run. We are all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short.”
A Biden campaign spokesperson referred to Nancy Pelosi’s comments on July 9, in which she said that she had “always been committed” to the president.
Around a dozen elected Democrats have suggested he abandon his campaign since his June 27 debate with Donald Trump.
On July 9, Michael Bennet of Colorado became the first Democratic senator to publicly dissent.
Although he did not call for Joe Biden to quit outright, he said Donald Trump would win the election, possibly by a “landslide”.
Pat Ryan, a congressman from New York, later wrote on X: “For the good of our country, for my two young kids, I’m asking Joe Biden to step aside.”
Overall support from elected Democrats remains robust, however.
Gavin Newsom, the California governor who was named by George Clooney as a potential replacement, said he was still “all in” with Joe Biden.
The Congressional Black Caucus, a group of roughly 60 politicians, and newer House members like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, have publicly backed him.
President Joe Biden has assured Democrat donors that he can still win November’s presidential election against Donald Trump, after a poor debate performance fuelled concern about his candidacy.
Joe Biden, 81, attended a series of fundraising events in New York and New Jersey on June 29, and defended his performance in CNN’s Presidential Debate.
Speaking at one event, President Biden admitted: “I didn’t have a great night, but neither did Trump.”
“I promise you we’re going to win this election,” he said.
Joe Biden’s debate performance was marked by hard-to-follow and shaky answers – raising fresh fears among some Democrats over whether he is the right candidate to contest this high-stakes election.
The Biden campaign accepted that the debate had not gone as they had hoped, but said he would not step aside for another nominee.
Photo AP
Campaign chairwoman Jennifer O’Malley Dillon said on June 29 that internal post-debate polling showed “voters’ opinions were not changed”.
Former President Barack Obama, a close friend of Joe Biden, said on social media that “bad debate nights happen”.
“This election is still a choice between someone who fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself,” Barack Obama wrote.
Hours after the debate, Donald Trump told his supporters that he considered the debate a “big victory” for his campaign.
“Joe Biden’s problem is not his age,” the 78-year-old Trump said.
“It’s his competence. He’s grossly incompetent.”
A post-debate poll by liberal pollster Data for Progress found that 62% of likely voters who watched or read about the debate found Donald Trump won. Only 30% of those polled said Joe Biden won the debate.
Until further polling is conducted, fundraising could be another indication of continued enthusiasm for Joe Biden’s candidacy.
In a memo, chairwoman Jennifer O’Malley Dillon said the campaign had raised more than $27 million from June 27 to June 28.
Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump.
The surprise video announcement came ahead of this week’s New Hampshire Republican primary, where the Florida governor was polling in the single digits.
Once considered a strong contender for the nomination, Ron DeSantis said he did not “have a clear path to victory”.
In response, Nikki Haley said she was now the “only one” able to beat President Joe Biden.
Ron DeSantis said his campaign “left it all out on the field” in a nearly five-minute long video announcement on X, formerly Twitter.
“If there was anything I could do to produce a favorable outcome – more campaign stops, more interviews – I would do it,” the governor said, as he ended his seven-month campaign.
Ron DeSantis added that he was endorsing the former president because it had “become clear” that “a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance”.
While Ron DeSantis acknowledged “disagreements” with Donald Trump, he said he is “superior to the current incumbent, Joe Biden”.
Speaking to voters in New Hampshire, Donald Trump said his campaign had “got some word that one of our opponents, a very capable person, is dropping out”.
“In doing so, [Ron DeSantis] endorsed us,” the former president added, to loud cheers in the room.
He went on to say that he believed “most of” Ron DeSantis’ votes, “or certainly many of them”, would go to his campaign – but added “we don’t need them”.
After Ron DeSantis’ announcement, Trump’s campaign called “for all Republicans to rally behind President Trump” and slammed Nikki Haley as “the candidate of the globalists and Democrats who will do everything to stop the America First movement”.
Ron DeSantis also took a swipe at Ms Haley, calling her a member of “the old Republican guard of yesteryear – a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism”.
Nikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the UN, responded by insisting she is the conservative – the “only one” – who can beat President Joe Biden.
Ron DeSantis narrowly finished ahead of Nikki Haley in last week’s Iowa caucus with 21% of the vote, compared to her 19%. Donald Trump received 51% of the vote.
Former Vice President Mike Pence has withdrawn from the 2024 presidential race, saying “this is not my time”.
Mike Pence made the announcement at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas on October 28.
“We always knew this would be an uphill battle, but I have no regrets,” he wrote in a statement.
Mike Pence, 64, is the first major Republican candidate to suspend his campaign in a race led by former President Donald Trump.
He had languished in recent polls and had struggled to gain the support of Republican voters.
The former vice president’s campaign had also racked up large amounts of debt, with Mike Pence ending September owing $621,000 and having only US$1.2 million in the bank – significantly less than other Republican rivals.
“I am leaving this campaign, but I will never leave the fight for conservative values,” he wrote in a statement addressed to his supporters.
Photo Getty Images
Mike Pence lost the support of many Republican voters when he publicly broke with Donald Trump over the January 6 Capitol riot in 2021, and when he presided over the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election results in Congress.
Donald Trump admonished Mike Pence for lacking “courage” when he refused to overturn the Democratic leader’s election victory.
Some rioters were heard chanting “hang Mike Pence” as they stormed the halls of Congress in 2021, and since then many Trump loyalists have viewed him as a traitor.
The former vice-president said in March that Donald Trump’s encouragement of the rioters had “endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day”.
In his resignation, Mike Pence did not endorse any other Republican candidates for the presidential election.
But he called on Americans to choose a leader that “will ‘appeal to the better angels of our nature’ and not only lead us to victory but also lead our nation with civility and back to those time-honoured principles that have always made America strong, prosperous and free.”
Mike Pence’s decision to withdraw from the Republican presidential campaign came shortly before the third presidential debate on November 8.
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.
This website has updated its privacy policy in compliance with EU GDPR 2016/679. Please read this to review the updates about which personal data we collect on our site. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our updated policy. AcceptRejectRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
