Donald Trump Defeats Kamala Harris in 2024 Presidential Election

Mar. 15, 2025

Donald Trumphas defeated Vice PresidentKamala Harristo win the 2024 presidential election,The Associated Pressreports.

On Wednesday, Nov. 6, Wisconsin carried the former president over the finish line in the race to 270 Electoral College votes, making him the first convicted felon elected to the nation’s highest office, and only the second commander in chief elected to serve two non-consecutive terms.

At 78 years old, the Republican will be theoldest person to take the oath of officeat his inauguration on Jan. 20. His running mate, freshman Ohio Sen.J.D. Vance, 40, will preside over the Senate as the country’s first millennial vice president.

In defeating Harris, 60, Trump blocked her historic bid to become the nation’s first female president, first Asian American president and second Black president.

J.D. Vance and Donald Trump at a July 20 rally in Grand Rapids, Mich.Anna Moneymaker/Getty

Anna Moneymaker/Getty

He reframed his history-making conviction on 34 felonies as a courageous feat, dismissing mounds of evidence to spin a narrative that he was a heroic survivor of unfair persecution.

Donald Trump’s mug shot in his Fulton County, Ga., election subversion case.Fulton County Sheriff’s Office

Fulton County Sheriff’s Office

First in the Republican primary race, then in the general, Trump launched abarrage of personal attacksagainst his opponents to secure the victory. His top GOP primary challenger,Nikki Haley, and Democratic nominee Harris are both women of Indian descent, and their identities and intelligence became frequent fodder for his attacks.

As Haley’s popularity among Republican voters saw a spike in late 2023, Trump mimicked hisbirtherism conspiraciesaboutBarack Obama’s citizenship to spread false rumors that Haley was ineligible for the presidency. Nicknaming her “birdbrain,” he often highlighted that her given name is Nimarata Nikki Randhawa, wrongly pronouncing it as “Nimraba” or “Nimrata.”

When his attention shifted to Harris after securing the Republican nomination, Trump deployed similar tactics, offering various pronunciations of her first name,questioning her raceand repeatedly attacking the former prosecutor’s intelligence, including saying she’s"dumb as a rock"and reportedlycalling her the R-wordbehind closed doors.

Donald Trump looks out at a crowd of supporters at an Oct. 22 campaign rally in Greensboro, N.C.Cornell Watson/Bloomberg via Getty

Cornell Watson/Bloomberg via Getty

The 2024 presidential election was unlike any other since the United States' founding. What began as a match-up between the two oldest presidents in history — Trump andJoe Biden— quickly shifted over the summer, when atroubling debate performancesparked concerns among Democrats that Biden, 81, was too weak to serve four more years.

A pressure campaign in July fromhigh-ranking Democratsandnotable public figuresled Biden towithdraw his reelection bidin an unprecedented moment for someone who had already been elected in the primaries. Within hours Harris hadwon over enough support from Biden’s delegatesto secure the party’s nomination in his place.

Harris' unforeseen ascension to the top of the ticket gave Democrats an immediate surge in polling, putting Trump on defense for the first time in the campaign cycle and kicking off a nail-biting three months that offered little clarity about who was in a stronger position to win the Electoral College.

Donald Trump sits in a Manhattan courtroom on the first day of his criminal trial on April 15, 2024.Jabin Botsford-Pool/Getty

Jabin Botsford-Pool/Getty

Trump’s campaign was one of the most turbulent and scandal-ridden in modern times, complete with an endless stream ofdamning headlinesandfour criminal casesrelating to hishandling of classified documents,falsifying of business recordsandefforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The twice-impeached ex-president was involved in multiple civil lawsuits, which ultimately held him liable forbusiness fraud,defamationandsexual abuse.

In May, Trump becamethe first U.S. president convicted of a crime, when he was found guilty of 34 felony charges for attempting to bury evidence of an illegal conspiracy to influence the 2016 election.

REBECCA DROKE/AFP/Getty

Favorability polls quickly determined that Vance was theleast-liked vice presidential nomineein recent decades, though his selection did not ultimately deter Trump’s base.

Donald Trump introduces his 2024 running mate, J.D. Vance, at the Republican National Convention.Jim WATSON/getty

Jim WATSON/getty

Trump and his allies spent the past two years claiming that Democrats would try to “steal” the 2024 presidential election, building off Trump’s baseless lie that he actually won the 2020 election, not Biden, despite no evidence that fraud occurred.

The former president repeatedly hinted that he would refuse to accept defeat in the 2024 election, and Washington braced for his allies to attempt to overturn the results like they did in 2020 if Harris won. Even before ballots were counted, some Republicans suggested that voter fraud had already occurred.

“They are fighting so hard to steal this damn thing,” Trump said at one of his final campaign events. “It’s a damn shame, and I’m the only one that talks about it because everyone’s afraid to damn talk about it, and then they accuse you of being a conspiracy theorist.”

Harris, meanwhile, vowed to respect the outcome of the election. Throughout her 107-day presidential campaign, which she framed as a “new way forward” from Trump’s longtime grip on American politics, the vice president sounded alarm bells over her opponent’s increasinglythreatening rhetoricabout liberals, immigrants andthose who have spoken outagainst him.

source: people.com