WASHINGTON – Former President Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States on Wednesday after he won the key state of Wisconsin; defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in a critical battleground. The win delivers 10 Electoral College votes to Trump.
He narrowly won Wisconsin in 2016, becoming the first Republican since Ronald Reagan to capture the state. He lost it in 2020 to Democrat Joe Biden. Both Harris and Trump made Wisconsin a central focus of their campaigns. In 2020, Trump attempted to overturn his loss in the state through lawsuits and recounts but failed.
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NBC News and The Associated Press declared Trump the winner at 5:34 a.m. EST.
Wisconsin was one of the three Midwestern “blue wall” states that supported Trump in 2016 and President Joe Biden in 2020 and remained a competitive presidential battleground in 2024. Both Trump and Harris and their running mates made frequent stops in Wisconsin, including several in the populous Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay areas. The margin of victory in past presidential contests was less than a percentage point in the 2020, 2016, 2004 and 2000.
Trump’s victory was an extraordinary comeback for a former president who refused to accept defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts.
With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency.
The victory validates his bare-knuckle approach to politics. He attacked his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, in deeply personal — often misogynistic and racist — terms as he pushed an apocalyptic picture of a country overrun by violent migrants.
The coarse rhetoric, paired with an image of hypermasculinity, resonated with angry voters — particularly men — in a deeply polarized nation. As president, he’s vowed to pursue an agenda centered on dramatically reshaping the federal government and retribution against his perceived enemies.
Only one other American president did it the way Trump will — with a gap of four years between terms.
That was Grover Cleveland, who served as the 22nd president after the 1884 election, and as the 24th president after the campaign of 1892.
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Cleveland was governor of New York when he was tapped as the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 1884. He was “viewed as the epitome of responsibility and stability,” said Daniel Klinghard, professor of political science at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachussetts.
A narrow victory in the popular vote gave him enough votes in the Electoral College to be named president. Four years later, even though he once again had a slight lead in the popular vote, he lost the Electoral College count to Republican Benjamin Harrison.