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His victory is among the most unconventional, consequential and divisive US elections, which has given the Republican president-elect a mandate to shape the country’s post-second world war consensus on everything from global trade and foreign affairs to democratic norms, immigration and China policy.
“This will truly be the golden age of America,” said Trump, speaking to supporters in Florida. “We’ve achieved the most incredible political thing, look what happened, is this crazy? It’s a political victory that our country has never seen before, nothing like this.”
Defying polls that had predicted a knife-edge race potentially taking days or weeks to resolve, the 78-year-old was declared the winner just 90 minutes after the final polls closed in Alaska.
The tipping point was his victory in the swing state of Wisconsin that brought his total to 277 electoral college votes – more than the 270 required to win the White House.
By securing both the popular and electoral votes, Trump banished the idea that an “exceptional” United States was somehow exempt from the wave of anti-incumbency that has washed across other democracies.