The entrepreneur-turned-politician said that there is a spiritual revival of American identity after Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election 2024. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election will renew national self-confidence, an Indian-American politician and a close confidant of the President-elect Vivek Ramaswamy has said, expressing hope that his comeback will signify America’s comeback.

In a historic election on Tuesday (November 5, 2024), Mr. Trump defeated his Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris and was elected the 47th President of the United States, becoming only the second commander-in-chief in over a century to win two nonconsecutive presidential terms.

“America has this great tradition. We believe in our own manifest destiny…We are born to be the greatest nation that sets an example for everybody else of what’s possible for human capacity,” Vivek Ramaswamy told the Tucker Carlson Show in an interview.

“I think that that’s the kind of leader we need right now to bring that back. And that’s Donald Trump as a person. So, in some ways, Trump’s story is America’s story. Trump’s comeback is now hopefully America’s comeback,” Mr. Ramaswamy said in response to a question.

“A Trump win,” he said, “will result in the renewal of national self-confidence.”

“I think that we’re going to be more sure of ourselves as Americans. I think we already are,” the entrepreneur-turned-politician said.

“The markets reflect confidence. The revival of our self-confidence is the most important thing…Everything else, we could talk about the issues, fixing the border, restoring law and order, enforcing the law, ending rampant crime in the country, and growing the economy all of those things require a certain level of self-confidence in America, require a certain sense of spine in who we are to be able to say, an economy grows when people are willing to take risks,” he said.

He said there is a spiritual revival of American identity.

“That was the pinnacle of what we saw on Tuesday (November 5, 2024) night. There was a moment, there was a moment,” he said.

Mr. Ramaswamy revealed that he, Vice President-elect J. D. Vance and his spouse Usha Vance were classmates in Yale Law School.

“We were in the same class. Me, Usha, and J D, we’re all classmates. And my wife was in med school at the same time. So we were all friendly,” he said.

Mr. Trump, he noted, has learned a lot from that first term.

“This time around, he is laser-focused on making sure that the people he puts into those positions actually share broadly his vision for the country, broadly share an allegiance,” Mr. Ramaswamy said.

Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. File
| Photo Credit: ANI

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has written to outgoing U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris congratulating her on her spirited presidential campaign and said her unifying message of hope will continue to inspire many.

Democrat Kamala Harris lost to Republican Donald Trump in the hotly contested U.S. presidential polls.

“I would like to congratulate you on your spirited presidential campaign. Your unifying message of hope will continue to inspire many,” Mr. Gandhi said in his letter to Ms. Harris.

“Under the Joe Biden administration, India and the United States have deepened cooperation on issues of global importance,” the former Congress chief said.

“Our shared commitment to democratic values will continue to guide our friendship. As the Vice President, your determination to bring people together and find common ground will be remembered,” Mr. Gandhi said in his letter dated November 7, 2024.

“I wish you the very best on your future endeavours,” he added.

Washington:

Opinion polls underestimated the level of Donald Trump’s support for the third US presidential election in a row, predicting a neck-and-neck race with Kamala Harris when in the end the Republican edged the vice president across battleground states. Trump’s win involved surging support in a number of demographics and regions, but experts said pollsters failed to accurately predict races in states where the results differed significantly from the last election in 2020.

“They did fine in battlegrounds, but… they failed to provide the essential information that Trump was surging across the board,” said Michael Bailey, a professor of political science at Georgetown University.

More than 90 percent of US counties voted in higher numbers for the Republican billionaire than they did in 2020, according to The New York Times.

Overall, the polls had predicted razor thin margins in races in the seven battleground states that decide close US elections. As of Wednesday, Trump was projected to win five of those states by between one and three percentage points. 

The former president was well on his way to sweeping all seven states, according to those projections.

“Trump may have been mildly underestimated but I think the polls ended up doing pretty well, collectively — this was not a huge miss,” said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia. 

“The polls suggested Trump had a decent chance to win, and he won.” 

The pollsters’ performance was under the microscope this year, after two big misses in succession: they had failed to anticipate Trump’s victory in 2016, and had overestimated the margin by which President Joe Biden won against him in 2020.

“Trump was underestimated by about two points this time around” in key states, said Pedro Azevedo, Head of US polling at AtlasIntel.

In Pennsylvania, the latest polling average from RealClearPolitics put the Republican in the lead by 0.4 percentage points. As of Wednesday, he was ahead by two points.

In North Carolina, polls predicted a 1.2-point margin for Trump, and he won by three points over Harris. 

In Wisconsin, the vice president was given a 0.4-point lead, but the projected results showed Trump leading the count by 0.9 points.

The main problem has not changed since Trump’s arrival on the US political scene about a decade ago: a fringe of his electorate refuses to take part in opinion polls, and firms have failed to be able to accurately gauge their impact.

In the most recent polls conducted by The New York Times with Siena College, “white Democrats were 16 percent likelier to respond than white Republicans,” NYT data analyst and polling guru Nate Cohn wrote two days before the election. 

That disparity had grown over the course of the 2024 campaign, he added.

Although pollsters like The New York Times/Siena tried to compensate for these flaws with statistical adjustments, it was clearly not enough.

“It is apparent that polls significantly underestimated Trump’s growth among Hispanic voters,” said Azevedo, pointing to Trump’s larger-than-expected victories in Nevada and Florida.

“This is also the case among white voters,” he said, adding that while most polls expected Harris to “improve her margins” in this demographic, Trump outperformed the polling and ran up his numbers in rural areas.

Iowa was a prime example of this, with a poll three days before Election Day giving Harris a three-point victory in the solidly Republican state. In the end, Trump won it comfortably by 13 points, Azevedo said. 

J. Ann Selzer, the author of that inaccurate Iowa poll, said the difference could have been made by late-deciding voters.

“The late deciders could have opted for Trump in the final days of the campaign after interviewing was complete,” she told the Des Moines Register newspaper.

“The people who had already voted but opted not to tell our interviewers for whom they voted could have given Trump an edge.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump addresses supporters during his rally for the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election in Palm Beach County Convention Center, in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., November 6, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Donald Trump claimed victory and pledged to “heal” the country Wednesday (November 6, 2024) as results put him on the verge of beating Kamala Harris in a stunning White House comeback.

His exuberant speech came despite the fact that only Fox News had declared him the winner, with no other U.S. networks having made the call so far.

Also Read: U.S. Elections 2024 results highlights

As jubilant supporters cheered and chanted “USA”, Mr. Trump took to the stage at his campaign headquarters in Florida along with his wife Melania and several of his children.

“We are going to help our country heal,” the Republican former President said.

“It’s a political victory that our country has never seen before.”

U.S. networks have called the swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina for the 78-year-old, and he led the Democratic Vice President in the others,, although they have not been called yet.

Gloom swiftly descended on Ms. Harris’s camp.

“You won’t hear from the vice president tonight but you will hear from her tomorrow,” Cedric Richmond, Ms. Harris campaign co-chair, told a watch party in Washington as supporters left.

In a further blow to Democrats, Mr. Trump’s Republican Party also seized control of the Senate, flipping two seats to overturn a narrow Democratic majority.

A Trump victory threatens to cause shockwaves around the world, as U.S. allies in Europe and Asia fear a return of his nationalist policies and his praise of autocrats like Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

But the U.S. dollar surged and bitcoin hit a record high while most equity markets advanced as traders bet on a victory for Mr. Trump as the results rolled in.

Mood shift

Polls for weeks had shown a knife-edge race between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump, who would be the oldest ever President at the time of inauguration, the first felon President and only the second in history to serve non-consecutive terms.

Mr. Trump also faces sentencing in a criminal case over hush money payments on November 26, while the controversy over his denial of his 2020 election defeat by Joe Biden still persists.

But in the end victory came surprisingly quickly.

The mood shifted sharply at Ms. Harris’s watch party in Howard University — her former college and a historically Black university in Washington — as the results came in.

“I am scared,” said Charlyn Anderson. “I am anxious now. I am leaving, my legs can barely move.”

In contrast, the celebrations intensified at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and the watch party nearby.

Tech tycoon Elon Musk, who has backed Mr. Trump and stands to lead a government efficiency commission under him, posted a picture of himself with the Republican.

“Game, set and match,” Musk said on X, the social media network he owns along with the Tesla electric vehicle firm and the Space X company.

Millions of Americans had lined up throughout Election Day — and millions more voted early — in a race with momentous consequences for the United States and the world.

They were deciding whether to either hand a historic comeback to Mr. Trump or make Harris the first woman in the world’s most powerful job.

In a stark reminder of the tension — and fears of outright violence — dozens of bomb threats were made against polling stations in Georgia and Pennsylvania.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said the threats appeared to originate in Russia, which is accused by Washington of trying to meddle in the election. The threats were all hoaxes but succeeded in disrupting proceedings.

Dark rhetoric

Ms. Harris (60) had aimed to be only the second black and first person of South Asian descent to be President.

She made a dramatic entrance into the race when Mr. Biden dropped out in July, while Mr. Trump — twice impeached while president — has since ridden out two assassination attempts and a criminal conviction.

She hammered home her message that Mr. Trump was a threat to democracy and her opposition to Mr. Trump-backed abortion bans.

Mr. Trump has vowed an unprecedented deportation campaign of millions of undocumented immigrants, in a campaign full of dark rhetoric.

The election is being watched closely around the world including in the war zones of Ukraine and the Middle East. Trump has indicated he will cut aid to Kyiv’s battle against the Russian invasion.

U.S. Rep. John Curtis speaks to supporters, on Tuesday (November 5, 2024) in Provo, Utah.
| Photo Credit: AP

U.S. Rep. John Curtis will succeed Mitt Romney in the U.S. Senate after the Republican breezed to victory over his Democratic opponent in deeply red Utah.

Also Read: U.S. Elections 2024 results update

Mr. Curtis defeated Democrat Caroline Gleich, a mountaineer and environmental activist from Park City, in a race that often centered around each candidate’s climate policies. The incoming senator leads the Conservative Climate Caucus on Capitol Hill and has developed a reputation for pushing back against party leaders such as Donald Trump, who falsely claim that climate change is a hoax.

He will succeed one of Washington’s most prominent centrists and an outspoken critic of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Curtis took the stage with his wife, children and grandchildren at a lively watch party Tuesday (November 5, 2024) night in Provo, the city where he was once mayor, to speak to supporters after his victory.

“You elected me to legislate, to advocate and represent you,” Mr. Curtis said. “My agenda will be your agenda. My voice will lift your voice. My vote will reflect your values. And, together, we’ll make Washington more like Utah.”

“I hope that you’ll see in my actions the dignity of working together and of unity,” he added. “As Utah’s senator, I will make this model my mandate.”

Mr. Curtis, 64, began his political career as a county-level Democratic Party official. He is the longest-serving member of Utah’s U.S. House delegation and is viewed as a moderate in the manner of Mr. Romney.

The incoming senator said he plans to carve out his own brand of conservatism in the post-Romney era of Utah politics, with a focus on bringing Republicans to the table on issues involving climate change.

Mr. Romney congratulated Mr. Curtis on his win Tuesday (November 5, 2024) night, calling him a man of honor and integrity who puts others before himself.

“John Curtis has admirably represented the interests of Utahns in the House, and I have no doubt he will continue to do so in the Senate,” Romney said in a statement on the social media platform X. “Our country needs more leaders like him.”

In the June primary, Mr. Curtis emerged from a crowded pool of candidates to defeat a Mr. Trump-backed mayor. He said Tuesday (November 5, 2024) night that he voted for Mr. Trump, sticking with his early pledge to vote for the ultimate Republican presidential nominee.

His climate caucus takes a market-based approach to environmental issues, countering Democratic policies with proposals that Mr. Curtis has said aim to lower emissions without compromising American jobs and economic principles. Ms. Gleich had accused him of pandering to the fossil fuel industry instead of supporting policies she said are needed to protect public lands, air and water.

At his watch party, Mr. Curtis treated friends and family to live music and local food vendors. On their way out the door, each attendee received a pair of socks picturing Mr. Curtis with Utah’s iconic Delicate Arch in Arches National Park.

The state has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1970.

Ms. Gleich congratulated Mr. Curtis in a statement while saying she was proud of the campaign she ran and looked forward to working with Mr. Curtis to help protect the environment.

“While the result was not what we had hoped, we focused on critical issues: climate action, public lands and reproductive freedom,” Ms. Gleich said.

Mr. Curtis told reporters that Ms. Gleich is one of the hardest working people he has met in the Utah, and he commended her for putting so much heart into her campaign.

Moderate Republicans like Mr. Curtis tend to prevail in statewide elections in Utah.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who make up about half of the state’s 3.4 million residents, have been a reliably Republican voting bloc for decades. But many have been hesitant to embrace Mr. Trump and his allies, saying the former president’s brash style and comments about immigrants and refugees clash with their religious beliefs.

Millions of Americans on Tuesday voted in the US presidential election to decide whether Democrat nominee Kamala Harris will win the race to the White House or the Republican candidate Donald Trump will retain the top post for a second time.

According to the latest projections, Trump, 78, won several strongholds, including Florida, while Harris took a number of eastern states. US networks have projected that Trump is winning 10 states and Harris five. As for electoral college numbers, which will determine the winner in this election, the former President is ahead with 101 votes and Harris trails with 71. Each candidate is aiming for the magic figure of 270 electoral college votes.

Earlier, exit polls showed that most of the voters favoured Harris, 59, over her Republican rival. According to an exit poll by NBC News, 48 per cent of voters nationwide expressed a favourable view of Harris, while 44 per cent supported Trump.

The voters were also asked to choose between five issues – democracy, economy, abortion, immigration and foreign policy.

While 34% of voters said democracy mattered most to their vote, 31% said the economy. Abortion (14%) and immigration (11%) ranked as the next-most important issues and 4% of voters named foreign policy.

An exit poll by CNN said roughly three-quarters of the electorate holds a negative view of the way things are going in the US today. According to the poll, only about one-quarter call themselves enthusiastic or satisfied with the state of the nation, with more than four in 10 dissatisfied and roughly three in 10 saying they are angry.

Exit polls, however, are not always accurate and the preliminary results are subject to change as more voters are surveyed.

The 2024 US Presidential elections are historic because if Harris, the Indian-American who is the first female vice president, wins, she would become the first woman, Black woman and South Asian American to win the presidency.

On the other hand, if the US voters choose Trump, the only president to be impeached twice and the first former president to be criminally convicted, he would become the first president to win non-consecutive terms in more than a century.