Trump declares victory over Harris, says 'God spared his life for a reason'

Former U.S. president Donald Trump claimed victory over vice president Kamala Harris in the 2024 U.S. presidential election race on Nov. 6, 2024.

Associated Press announced Trump's victory at about 6:35pm (Singapore time) as he crossed the 270 electoral vote threshold needed to win.

Speaking in the early hours of Nov. 6, to his jubilant supporters and campaign staff at an election watch party held in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump said:

"This will truly be the golden age of America... this is a magnificent victory for the American people, that will allow us to make America great again."

Trump went on to describe his campaign as a political movement "like nobody's ever seen before".

"And, frankly, this was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time, there's never been anything like this in this country, and maybe beyond," Trump added.

Trump also thanked his supporters and the American people: "I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honour of being elected your 47th president, and your 45th president."

Trump also made reference during his speech to the two assassination attempts made on him during the campaign:

“Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason. And that reason was to save our country and restore America..."

"We're going to fix everything about our country"

One of the Trump campaign's slogans for the 2024 election, "Trump will fix it", was displayed on the podium where Trump delivered his victory rally.

Echoing the slogan, Trump said:

"We're going to help our country heal... we have a country that needs help, and it needs help very badly. We’re going to fix our borders. We’re going to fix everything about our country."

Trump repeatedly emphasised the need to "seal up" the country's borders.

"If we had to wait longer, I don't know, it was going bad, and it was going bad fast," Trump said.

Trump went on to give a shoutout to his electoral victories in many of the battleground states, including North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania, saying: "I love these places."

Trump said he also won the popular vote.

Reacting to this, the crowd chanted, "USA! USA!"

Political and economic comeback

Trump was joined on stage by his wife and family, as well as vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance.

Vance said on stage:

“I think that we just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America... and after the greatest political comeback in American history, we're going to live the greatest economic comeback in American history under Donald Trump's leadership."

After Vance finished his speech, Trump said that Vance "turned out to be a good choice", noting that he had earlier "taken a little heat at the beginning" over his pick for vice president.

Elon Musk, Dana White, Robert F. Kennedy

Trump also gave a shoutout to Elon Musk: "Let me tell you we have a new star... a star is born, Elon. He is an amazing guy."

Making reference to Musk's SpaceX programme, and a rocket launch he had apparently seen sometime two weeks ago, Trump said:

"You know he sent a rocket up, two weeks ago, and I saw that rocket and I saw it coming down, I saw it and it was... when it left it was beautiful, shiny, white, when it came down, it didn't look so pretty, it was going 10,000 miles an hour and it was burning like hell... It came down and down, and you saw all that fire burning and I thought only Elon could do this."

Musk had been aggressively campaigning for Trump in the lead-up to the election, and had earlier run into a spot of trouble over his dubious, but apparently entirely legal, daily US$1,000,000 giveaways to registered voters in battleground states.

Trump also thanked Robert F. Kennedy, a vaccine sceptic and former independent presidential candidate, saying that he would "make America healthy again".

“He wants to do some things, and we’re going to let him go to it," Trump said.

UFC chief executive officer (CEO) Dana White was also invited by Trump on stage to give brief remarks.

“This is karma, ladies and gentlemen. He deserves this,” White said.

Top photo from Jim Watson/AFP.