by Dennis Dalman
In the wee hours of Nov. 6, it was already obvious former President Donald Trump had scored a major historic victory, winning the Presidency for a second time by defeating challenger Kamala Harris.
In the Newsleaders readership area, Trump won by hefty margins in Sartell, St. Joseph and St. Stephen.
Trump will take his oath of office Jan. 20 at the nation’s Capitol.
In Minnesota, Harris did, however, win the state with 51.2 percent of the total vote, along with her vice-presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Although Trump lost Minnesota, he garnered more votes in the state than any previous Republican presidential candidate.
As of Nov. 7, with 99 percent of the nationwide vote counted, Trump had won in 30 of the 50 states while Harris had scored victories in the District of Columbia and 19 states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.
The election was historic because it’s the first time in U.S. history a former president won re-election four years after being defeated in his bid for a second term. In 2016, Trump won over candidate Hillary Clinton. In 2020, he lost to Joe Biden, and Nov. 5 was the day of his comeback victory.
Another historic aspect is Trump is the only President who had been impeached twice, then went on to win another election. He was found not guilty in the U.S. Senate of impeachment charges.
Some not-so-good historic facts are Trump is the first convicted felon to win the U.S. Presidency. He was found guilty earlier this year in a jury trial in New York City of covering up hush payments made to a pornographic film actress, though he has not been sentenced in that case at this point. He was also found civilly liable for sexual abuse and defamation in a lawsuit brought by a woman, E. Jean Carroll. Trump has been indicted four times for alleged crimes, including charges he tried to overthrow results of the 2020 election. Trump has claimed for four years that those charges were all politically motivated.
Trump won in all seven of the hotly contested battleground states. Several days after the election, not quite all votes had been counted nationwide, but it was clear he’d won both the popular vote and the vital electoral-college vote – well in excess of the 270 needed to win.
As of Nov. 8, Trump had 295 electoral-college votes, and Harris had 226. The popular vote was 73,541,647 for Trump (50.9 percent of the total) and 69,219,123 votes for Harris (47.6 percent of the total).
It was also apparent early on Nov. 5 election night that Republicans regained control of the U.S. Senate. The race for the U.S. House is very close with many more votes to be counted as of Wednesday. Republicans have held a very slim minority in the House.
On election night, Trump spoke to a big crowd at the Palm Beach, Fla. Convention Center, telling his supporters “We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible . . . America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate.”
Kamala Harris called Trump to congratulate him, then later told him this: “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign.”
Of the other pairs of seven third-party competitors, they received very few votes compared to Harris-Walz and Trump-Vance. In Minnesota, for example, the votes ranged from a low of 3 for the Socialist Workers Party (Rachele Fruit, Dennis Richter) to a high of 195 for We The People Party (Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Nicole Shanahan).
