New Delhi:
Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris will give a speech in which he will admit defeat in the US presidential election to Republican candidate Donald Trump, the White House said.
Harris will deliver the speech at 4pm local time (2.30am IST on Thursday) at Howard University in Washington.
On Wednesday, the vice president had canceled her election night speech after it became clear that former President Trump would surpass the magical threshold of 270 votes in the Electoral College and return to the White House as the 47th president of the United States.
Despite polls predicting the election was too close, Trump rolled Harris and then picked up key swing states including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin, paving the way for his return to the Oval Office.
He also won the popular vote, becoming the first Republican in two decades to do so, after George W. Bush in 2004.
Delivering a victory speech to a room full of roaring supporters in Florida, Trump said: “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate.”
Powerful, failed campaign
Harris, who had 224 electoral college votes to Trump's 280 as of Wednesday evening, campaigned vigorously in her bid to become the first female president of the United States. The 60-year-old former prosecutor also made history as the first Black woman and the first South Asian woman to receive the presidential nomination of a major party. She raised $1 billion in less than three months and was endorsed by celebrities such as Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Oprah, as well as several Republicans.
But her campaign failed to overcome Trump and his MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement's message on the economy and immigration, which proved to be key concerns for voters participating in this year's elections. Several polls showed that people felt they were better off under Donald Trump than under the Joe Biden-Harris administration during his presidency (2016-2020).
Experts said that as vice president of an unpopular administration, Harris could not successfully portray himself as a candidate for change, something Trump did very effectively. Asked on a daytime show what she would do differently from Biden, Harris had said: “Nothing comes to mind.”
Many believed Harris was also handicapped by the fact that she had only a few weeks left to campaign after Biden dropped out of the race in July. Trump, on the other hand, took his message to voters even before the 2016 election and continued to hold a place in the US national consciousness even after he left office in 2020.
Record setter
At 78 years old, Trump is the oldest person to be elected president of the US and only the second to be elected for two non-consecutive terms – after Grover Cleveland in 1897. The former president survived an assassination attempt during the campaign and, after the victory, described the political movement led by him as the greatest of all time.
“We are going to help our country heal, restore our borders, we made history tonight for a reason. We have won the most incredible political victory. I want to thank the American people. I will fight for you and your family in my body with every breath,” he said.
Stock markets in the US and several other countries, including India, rose after his victory.
(With input from Reuters)
