Trump rides wave of anti-establishment
sentiment to one of the most improbable political victories in modern US
history
By
Dan Roberts, Sabrina Siddiqui, Ben Jacobs, Lauren Gambino and Amanda Holpuch
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Donald
Trump’s victory speech in full – video
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Donald Trump shattered expectations on
Tuesday with an election night victory that revealed deep anti-establishment
anger among American voters and set the world on a journey into the political
unknown.
The Republican nominee has achieved one of
the most improbable political victories in modern US history, despite a series
of controversies that would easily have destroyed other candidacies, extreme
policies that have drawn criticism from both sides of the aisle, a record of
racist and sexist behaviour, and a lack of conventional political experience.
After surprise early victories in Florida,
North Carolina and Ohio, it fell to the rust belt states of the industrial
midwest to determine the result of his stunning upset.
Wisconsin and Michigan, two states hit hard
by a decline in manufacturing jobs and lost by Hillary Clinton to Bernie
Sanders in the Democratic primary, were led by Trump as the race headed for an
early morning cliffhanger.
At 2.30am, the Associated Press projected
Trump had won Wisconsin and called the overall race for Trump, who passed the
270 electoral college votes he needed to secure the presidency.
Shortly afterwards, Clinton called Trump to
concede but did not make a public address.
Trump left Trump Tower for the short journey
to the Hilton Midtown, where the president-elect then took to the stage and
insisted he would “deal fairly with everyone”.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, complicated
business, complicated business,” began Trump to raucous chants of “U-S-A,
U-S-A” from his excited supporters.
“I have just received a call from Secretary
Clinton. She congratulated us – it’s about us and our victory – and I
congratulated her on a very hard-fought campaign.
“Now it is time for Americans to bind the
wounds of division,” he added. “It is time for us to become together as one
united people … I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president
for all Americans.”
Earlier, the Clinton campaign chairman, John
Podesta, appeared before distraught supporters to announce that she would not
be appearing to give a concession speech. “Everybody should head home,” he told
them. “Get some sleep. We’ll have more to say tomorrow.
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“It’s been a long night and a long campaign,”
he added. “We can wait a little longer, can’t we? They are still counting votes
and every vote counts, several states are too close to call so we are not going
to have anything more to say tonight.”
Clinton called Trump to concede around
2.30am, Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, told New York Magazine.
Conway said Trump told Clinton: “You’re a smart tough lady and you ran a great
campaign. Thank you for calling. I respect you.”
Trump also spoke with Barack Obama, who
called to congratulate Trump early on Tuesday morning. The White House said the
president called Clinton and “expressed admiration for the strong campaign she
waged throughout the country”. .
Obama is set to speak more about the results later
on Wednesday and has invited the president-elect to the White House on
Thursday.
“This is a historic night,” said the
vice-president-elect, Mike Pence, in the first official Republican response,
introducing Trump. “The American people have spoken and the American people
have elected their new champion.”
Republicans have also secured majorities in
the House of Representatives, the Senate and will probably get to reappoint a
fifth Republican nominee to the supreme court – potentially leaving the new
president with few checks and balances.
Investors reeled from the prospect of a
victory that would reverberate around the world and futures markets pointed to
a fall of nearly 600 points in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
As results started to come in, two candidates
with very different views of America were watching television just two minutes’
walk from each other: the Clintons at the Peninsula Hotel in midtown Manhattan
and the Republican team in Trump Tower.
But the mood in the Trump camp shifted early
after signs of a strong performance in Florida and Clinton supporters began
contemplating the consequences of a result few thought was possible.
At a “victory party” for Clinton supporters,
under the veil of a glass ceiling that was meant to be an epic symbol of a
historic night when gender barriers were swept aside, there was a bleak mood.
Thousands of people who filled the Jacob
Javits convention center in Midtown Manhattan – and the thousands more lining
the blocks outside – had eyes glued to the TV. A woman clasped her hands over
her mouth in disbelief as the newscasters announced Trump had won North
Carolina.
The mood dropped markedly as results began to
roll in: Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, all for Trump. Outside the Javits
Center at the so-called “block party”, a couple embraced. The woman wiped a
tear from her face and the man stroked her hair.
Another man, who identified himself only by
his first name, Theo, called the results “scary and troubling”. “You don’t
think there could be so much hate in this country – there is.”
After Podesta spoke, a stream of stunned
supporters, some in block-colored pantsuits, others toting tired children, many
wiping tears from their eyes, exited the building that was meant to be a symbol
of barriers broken.
“What happened? What did we just do?” asked
Gloria Lowell, the mother of an adopted son from Guatemala.
Staffers hugged each other and wiped tears
from their eyes. They had prepared for this outcome – but no one truly believed
it.
Susie Shannon travelled from California to be
at the Javits Center on Tuesday night so that her eight-year-old daughter,
Gracie, could say she was there when Hillary Clinton was elected president.
They left the center in the early hours of
Wednesday morning stunned.
“We waited for hours to come here tonight,”
she said in shock, holding her daughter’s hands. “I wish Clinton herself had
come out and spoken to us. It would have been nice to hear from her.”
Meanwhile, the crowd at Trump’s watch party
in the Midtown Hilton grew increasingly excited as the evening went on. Loud
cheers erupted every time that returns from Florida and Ohio were shown on the
television screen. The mood grew increasingly optimistic as attendees huddled
anxiously around their televisions clasping their drinks and their cellphones
in equally tight grips.
Many shouted “lock her up” when Clinton’s
name was mentioned and berated members of the media for being slow to report
election results.
Meanwhile, in Oregon and California,
demonstrators took to the streets to protest about Trump’s victory. Hundreds
gathered in Oakland, Portland and Los Angeles overnight, but there were no
immediate reports of arrests.
Exit polling by CNN suggested 88% of voters
had made up their minds more than than week ago, before last-minute FBI
inquiries into Clinton’s emails temporarily raised fears of a late Trump surge.
World leaders offered messages of
congratulations, with some offering more subdued support, to Trump on Wednesday
morning.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who
Trump repeatedly praised on the campaign trail, sent a telegram to congratulate
the president-elect, the Kremlin said. Putin reportedly expressed “his hope to
work together for removing Russian-American relations from their crisis state”.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, did not
publicly congratulate Trump, but offered the president-elect “close
cooperation”.
“Germany and America are connected by common
values: democracy, freedom, respect for the law and for human dignity
irrespective of origin, skin color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or
political conviction,” Merkel said. “On the basis of these values, I offer the
future president of America, Donald Trump, a close working relationship.”