By Emma Weidmann | Editor-in-Chief
November 5, 2024 might have been the day America elected its first female president. In an echo of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 defeat, it was not that day.
Former president Donald Trump (R) won the critical swing states of North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania to pull the high-stakes game of tug-of-war in his favor against Vice President Kamala Harris (D). Trump is the first president to win non-consecutive terms since Grover Cleveland returned to the White House in 1893, and at 78 years old, he is now the oldest president-elect in American history.
“This was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time. There’s never been anything like this in this country, and maybe beyond,” Trump said.
The win comes after a long and unparalleled haunted house of a race that revealed surprises and historic headlines around every corner. An assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life punctuated July, and a disastrous presidential debate for President Joe Biden led to the incumbent dropping out of the race entirely.
On Wednesday afternoon at her alma mater of Howard University, Harris thanked supporters and conceded the race.
“My heart is full today, full of gratitude for the trust you have placed in me, full of love for our country and full of resolve,” Harris said. “The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for, but hear me when I say the light of America’s promise will always burn bright as long as we never give up and as long as we keep fighting.”
Dr. Dave Bridge, associate professor of political science at Baylor who teaches a class on campaigns and elections, said in his nonpartisan opinion, the election could have gone Harris’ way if it was held on a different day. Simple voter turnout decided the result. To that end, America is trending towards being “more closely divided and more deeply divided,” according to Bridge.
“The margin of victory in elections is becoming smaller and smaller at the presidential level, and the happiness of the winners is becoming larger, and the unhappiness of the losers is becoming larger,” Bridge said. “So the ideological divide is deeper now than it’s been in the last couple decades, and that’s really tough to reconcile with the idea that the margin of victory is smaller because the stakes are higher and the race is closer.”
At his election night headquarters in West Palm Beach, Fla., Trump said his second term will “truly be the golden age of America.” But McLennan County Democratic Party Chair Mark Hays said a second Trump administration will mean “stagnation.”
“I think our democracy is at stake,” Hays said. “We have real problems that need real results, and Donald Trump does not offer anything that sounds like solutions to these problems. He likes to attack people. He likes to attack groups of people. He does not offer any kind of logical policy.”
But the mood for Republicans in McLennan County — and no doubt across the country — was very different on Tuesday night. Bradford Holland, the immediate past chair of the McLennan County Republican Party, said the Trump win was “huge.”
“If America can stand up and say that we want to get back to where America is strong, militarily respected, [with a] strong border, we defend freedom and we defend personal rights, that’s just a revolution yet again, and I’m excited to see it happen,” Holland said.
The transition from the Biden administration to the second Trump White House will include closing the chapter on Trump’s election fraud cases.
The Associated Press reports that special counsel Jack Smith is evaluating how to wrap up the two federal cases before Trump takes office due to a Justice Department policy that says sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted, a fact that is surely sweetening the victory for the MAGA camp.
But the end of a long and divisive campaign season doesn’t necessarily mark the end of the catastrophic rhetoric that has caused election anxiety for many. Despite this, Bridge said three things are true.
“One, democracy is a good thing. Democracy always prevails, even if it’s not in favor of the candidate you want to win. In the long term, it’s still a good thing,” Bridge said. “No. 2, our institutions are durable. No matter who wins, nobody is going to run roughshod over the Constitution … the presidency, or over the federal government or over the rule of law. … And number three, Thomas Jefferson essentially said, ‘Everything’s going to be OK. You will wake up in the morning, you will go about life as normal.’ Everything will be OK.”
