Donald Trump is the President-Elect of the United States of America

Donald Trump is the President-elect of the United States of America. This was officially determined in the final minutes of November 8th, 2016. It was a ballot battle that ended with 279 electoral college votes awarded to Trump over Hillary Clinton’s 228 electoral college votes. In addition to this presidential victory, the Republican party also won the majority in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

Swing states–those able to go to either candidate–played a key role in the results. Certain states predicted to swing to Clinton flipped, surprising millions of people. Many regions that unexpectedly turned red included that of white voters from Appalachia, whereas cities and minorities tended to be blue districts on the electoral map. In fact, a major factor in Clinton’s defeat was the worse-than-expected turnout of young and African-American voters.

In major swing states such as Florida and Pennsylvania, Trump received a significant amount of votes from those disillusioned with the current state of the government and those who wanted a candidate who would pay specific attention to them. Additionally, Trump was able to receive more independent votes, which stemmed from people who do not strongly identified with either major political party.

Trump received 47 percent of independent votes as opposed to Clinton’s 42 percent and the 6 percent that were won by Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. As for Congress, Republicans received exactly the 51 votes required to win the Senate and received 239 votes out of the 218 that were required to win the House of Representatives. All things considered, it was a comprehensive Republican victory that many did not see coming. The only area in which Clinton and the Democratic party were able to trump their Republican opponent was in the popular vote where Clinton only prevailed with 48% of the vote as opposed to Trump’s 47%.

At around 3AM Eastern Standard Time, Donald Trump took the stage at the Hilton in New York City to tell his supporters that Hillary Clinton had called him to concede the election. He noted how hard Clinton had fought throughout the election and stated that she was owed a major amount of gratitude for her service to the country. He then pledged to be a president for all Americans and thanked a menagerie of people for their service to his campaign. Later that morning, Hillary Clinton addressed the nation in her concession speech. She apologized to her supporters for her defeat and stated that Trump was owed an open mind and a chance to lead.

On January 20th, 2017, Donald Trump will become the 45th president of the United States and will begin his journey to “make America great again.”