In a dramatic and unexpected outcome, the Fox News Decision Desk on Wednesday morning projected that former President Donald J. Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, securing a return to the White House and a second term in a historic election. Trump is the only president since Grover Cleveland to serve nonconsecutive terms.
According to Fox News, Trump was expected to surpass the 270 electoral vote mark following remarkable victories in the key battleground states of North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.
Trump, who first won the presidency in 2016 after defeating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, vowed to “Make America Great Again,” a slogan that galvanized a fervent base of support, promising Americans to revive their country from under the detritus of Democratic progressive politics. After losing re-election to President Joe Biden in 2020, amid a sweeping global pandemic and social upheaval, Trump set his sights on a 2024 comeback, rallying his supporters with a new pledge to “Make America Great Once Again.”
This victory caps an intense, nearly two-year-long campaign that defied expectations and survived the extraordinary challenges posed by two attempts on Trump’s life.
As this report is being written, the NY Times has announced that Trump is holding 267 electoral votes, meaning he only needs 3 more to win. Harris is stuck with 214.
Seeing as Trump appears to have won Pennsylvania with its 19 electoral votes, Kamala Harris’s worst mistake has been preferring Tim Walz, the progressive governor of Minnesota (10 votes) and a close friend of rabid antisemite Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, over Josh Shapiro, the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania. Gov. Shapiro would have surely delivered his state, reversing the Harris-Trump balance.
Former President Barack Obama urged Harris to pick Wolz over Shapiro, in an effort to push the Democratic party even further to the left. There should be some reckoning in the party about that one.
Another casualty is Senator Chuck Schumer (NY-D) who lost his leadership of the Senate. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, especially after Chuck urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign. I admit this one gives me a warm glow.
In the closing weeks of the campaign, Trump made an unusual stop in Pennsylvania, donning a McDonald’s uniform and serving fries at a drive-thru. The appearance, which quickly went viral, was a pointed jab at Vice President Kamala Harris, who had previously cited her own experience working at the fast-food chain in her youth.
On the trail, Harris took a sharply different tone, focusing her message on what she called the existential risks of a second Trump term. She warned voters that Trump posed a direct threat to democracy and predicted he would sign a national abortion ban if returned to office—a charge Trump dismissed repeatedly throughout the campaign.
Dear Donald and Melania Trump,
Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback!
Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.
This is a huge victory!
In true friendship,… pic.twitter.com/B54NSo2BMA
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) November 6, 2024
Trump reportedly told Prime Minister Netanyahu that he expected the conflict in Gaza to be resolved by the time he takes office in January. Trump conveyed this timeline during a private gathering with Netanyahu and his wife at his Mar-a-Lago resort in July. During the meeting, he expressed his preference for a swift resolution to the conflict. Trump specified Israel must fully secure Gaza and secure the release of the remaining hostages in Hamas captivity in advance of his inauguration.
This might mean that Israel could enhance the pressure on the 400,000 Arab civilians in northern Gaza to leave for the south of the Strip, exposing Hamas terrorists in the north to fierce Israeli attacks. It should be noted that Israel could have finished the job in Gaza before the end of October 2023, had it been allowed to use more aggressive attacks. Now that Israel has a friend in the White House, it might be the time to unleash the napalm.
Ben Caspit reports that Netanyahu and Trump’s teams are coordinating their first official phone call.
