WEST PALM BEACH—It was one of the closest elections in American history, until it wasn't. Donald Trump handily defeated Kamala Harris on Tuesday, becoming the first president since Grover Cleveland in 1892 to win a second, non-consecutive term. Trump supporters at the campaign's Election Night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center were cautiously optimistic and prepared for a long night. The mood turned increasingly joyful as the results rolled in and the New York Times forecast needle ticked steadily rightward. When Trump finally took the stage around 2:30 a.m., ecstasy ensued.

"America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate," Trump said, noting that Republicans were projected to regain control of the U.S. Senate and maintain their majority in the House of Representatives. "This will truly be the golden age of America. This is a magnificent victory for the American people that will allow us to make America great again." J.D. Vance praise his running mate for mounting "the greatest political comeback" in history, and pledged to oversee "the greatest economic comeback" in history. 

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As of early Wednesday, Trump was projected to win the Electoral College by a considerable margin. He was also projected to narrowly win the popular vote, a result that practically no one predicted. If that projection holds, Trump would be the first Republican candidate to win the popular vote since George W. Bush in 2004. Harris was also trying to make history, but she appeared poised to fail even more dramatically than Hillary Clinton failed in 2016. If elected (which she wasn't) Harris would have been the shortest president since James Madison in 1808, as well as the first president with a male spouse.

Trump's decisive victory was propelled by the most diverse Republican coalition in recent memory. Exit polls showed Trump making significant gains with black voters and Latino voters (including Puerto Ricans), young voters, Muslim voters, urban voters, and suburban voters, while increasing his margins with male voters, rural voters, and voters without a college degree. The NBC News exit poll showed Trump winning nearly a third of the non-white vote. The results will certainly complicate the efforts of Democrats and their media allies to denounce American voters as racist misogynists, but it won't stop them from trying.

The former (and future) president's gains were especially pronounced among Latinos. In Michigan, the CNN exit poll showed Trump winning the Latino vote by 25 percentage points, a 36-point swing compared to 2020. He didn't just win in Florida, he cruised to victory by a 13-point margin and became the first Republican to win Miami-Dade County since 1988. Joe Biden won it by 7 points in 2020; Trump won it by double digits. Hillary Clinton won Starr County, a heavily Latino area in south Texas, by 60 points in 2016. Trump won it by 16 points. He's the first Republican to win the county since 1892. Trump didn't win New York, but he did improve his margin in deep-blue Manhattan by double digits.

Harris, meanwhile, largely underperformed compared with Biden's margins in the previous election. Her closing message, which consisted of comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler and touting the endorsement of Liz Cheney, was evidently unpersuasive. Her campaign stopped talking to the media around 11 p.m. as the election started to slip away. The mood turned sour at the Harris watch party outside Howard University in Washington, D.C., where businesses spent the preceding days boarding up their windows in anticipation of violent anti-Trump unrest.

Shortly before 1 a.m. on Wednesday, campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond took the stage and told supporters to go home because Harris would not be speaking. "Thank you for believing in the promise of America," he said. "We still have votes to count." (But not really.) Many observed that Richmond's announcement was eerily similar to Clinton campaign manager John Podesta's demoralizing announcement at the glass-ceilinged Javits Center in 2016.

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Democrats were optimistic heading into Election Day, particularly so after famed Iowa pollster Ann Selzer found Harris leading the state by 3 points. In the end it wasn't even close. The networks quickly called Iowa for Trump, who was projected to win the state by double digits. Trump's impressive showing boosted GOP candidates across the country. Republicans took control of the Senate thanks to victories in Ohio and West Virginia. GOP candidates are currently leading in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Montana, and Nevada. If those results hold, Republicans would gain a commanding 56-seat majority in the upper chamber.

"This will forever be remembered as the day the American people regained control of their country," Trump said. "We going to achieve the most incredible future for our people." 

Biden, who reluctantly quit the race and endorsed Harris in July after embarrassing himself on the debate stage, could not be reached for comment.