Donald Trump has won the U.S. presidential election. What now? Here’s what we know so far

What you need to know

Latest updates

• Donald Trump will be the 47th U.S. president, Americans learned Wednesday after a GOP victory in Wisconsin tipped the balance. Mr. Trump also took Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, swing states where Kamala Harris and the Democrats had hoped to prevail.
• Republicans also won a majority in the U.S. Senate, previously held by the Democrats, by flipping three key races in Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. The makeup of the new House of Representatives is still in flux.
• Ms. Harris urged unity in a concession speech at Howard University following her defeat to Mr. Trump and said she would support him in a peaceful transition of power. Also, President Joe Biden called Mr. Trump to congratulate him and invite him to the White House. Mr. Biden will address the nation on Thursday.
• In his statement congratulating Mr. Trump, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lauded the “shared history, common values, and steadfast ties” between Canada and the United States, pointing out how they renegotiated a free-trade deal in Mr. Trump’s first term.

Go deeper

• No U.S. election has been quite as polarizing as this one, U.S. correspondent Nathan VanderKlippe explains, describing the fraught atmosphere as ballots were counted from coast to coast Tuesday night.
• Seven states passed ballot amendments to restore pre-Roe v. Wade reproductive rights – including Missouri, which took steps to roll back a ban on abortion in all stages of pregnancy – but three states chose to keep restrictions.
• After a surge in the U.S. dollar and stock futures, markets are planning ahead for the protectionist policies Mr. Trump has promised. The Globe’s Darcy Keith surveyed economists, analysts and investors about what they foresee.

Commentary and analysis

• In the aftermath of a searing, historic election, it is incontrovertible that major tectonic changes in the character of the United States are in motion.
• We are living in the time of Nero: The United States has willingly given power to a vengeful gangster, and the crisis ahead will be unlike any other in our lifetimes, Andrew Coyne writes.
• Re-electing Mr. Trump is an unmistakable cry of rebellion – and possibly the biggest political trick of the age, David Shribman writes.
• When newcomers who are no longer welcome in the United States come north instead, how will Canada respond, after having only recently cut immigration numbers? Claude Lavoie writes.

The results so far

To win the White House, a candidate needs more than 270 of the Electoral College votes that states use to pick the president. Most states are “red” or “blue,” meaning their loyalties to the Republicans or Democrats do not change. Here’s how the rest – the purple, or swing, states – tipped the balance of the 2024 election.

How the swing states swung

• Michigan: Trump won Michigan in 2016 by just over 10,000 votes, marking the first time a Republican presidential candidate had secured the state in nearly three decades. AP declared Trump the winner shortly before 1 p.m. (ET).
• Pennsylvania: With more Electoral College votes than any other swing state, this was a sought-after prize for Republicans and Democrats, whose support largely splits on rural-urban lines. GOP gains in Philadelphia and suburban counties made the difference, Associated Press said in its analysis of why it called the state for Mr. Trump.
• Wisconsin: Mr. Trump and Joe Biden each won this Rust Belt state by margins of only a few thousand votes in 2016 and 2020, respectively. Results were close this time too, but AP called it for Mr. Trump just after 5:30 a.m. (ET).
• Georgia: Recent Black migration to the South gave Democrats hope to keep this state, but it was not enough. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, made “microscopic but difference-making improvements” in rural Georgia, AP explains.
• North Carolina: This is Mr. Trump’s third victory in the red southern state, though since the last time was so close, the Democrats believed they had a chance here.

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States still in flux

There are two swing states that, while leaning Republican, do not yet have final results. Even if she won them both, Ms. Harris would not have enough Electoral College votes to get the presidency.

• Nevada: This state has a fickle track record in presidential elections over the decades, but has been blue since 2008.
• Arizona: Mr. Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric has many adherents in this historically red border state, but Mr. Biden narrowly won it in 2020 and the Democrats have spent four years making gains here.

The balance of Congress

In general elections, the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs, as are 34 spots in the Senate. Previously, those bodies had slim majorities for the Republicans and Democrats, respectively. The Senate is headed for a 52-seat GOP majority after the party flipped constituencies in Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. Meanwhile, the makeup of the new House is still contested and could take weeks to finalize.

What will Trump and the Republicans do now?

Mr. Trump’s election-night speech promised unity, healing and a “golden age for America,” which has not been the general tone of his campaign thus far. He’s spent months claiming, falsely, that he should have won in 2020, and threatening reprisals and imprisonment of his political adversaries. The policies he’s proposed would touch every aspect of American life, from immigration and crime to economics and foreign policy, and while he’s distanced himself from Project 2025 – a think tank’s proposal to cement Republican power for years to come – it remains to be seen how his plan would overlap with theirs. Here are some of the key issues at play.

• Immigration: Mass deportations of undocumented migrants would be one of the first tasks of a Trump presidency, according to the ex-president, who’s also doubled down on plans to wall off the U.S.-Mexico border.
• Justice: Mr. Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in a hush-money case earlier this year, but his victory has effectively halted other criminal cases against him over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. As president, Mr. Trump will not have the authority to shut those cases down, but he is seeking stronger presidential oversight of the Justice Department and law enforcement.
• Abortion: While Mr. Trump often takes credit for appointing the judges who overturned Roe v. Wade, once the foundational U.S. abortion case, he’s equivocated on what he might do about the issue in office. Under the current status quo, states decide whether to ban procedures or not, and several passed ballot initiatives on Tuesday that would enshrine abortion rights in their constitutions.
• Trade and taxes: Mr. Trump is a protectionist who says “tariff” is his favourite word, and has mused about increases of 10 to 20 per cent on all imports to the United States, with even steeper penalties for Mexican cars and Chinese goods.
• Foreign policy: Ukraine, which is fighting to take back the lands Russia invaded in 2014 and 2022, stands to lose much under a Trump isolationist policy that, he says, would end the conflict through a negotiated settlement with Moscow.

To follow through on any of these policies, he will first need to assemble a cabinet and White House staff over the coming weeks. Mr. Trump had a highly changeable cabinet in his first term, when he was quick to fire officials who disappointed or appeared to defy him. Here’s a list of possible contenders for the secretaries of state, defence, treasury and other posts in a second Trump administration.

What will Canada do now?

The last time Mr. Trump was in the White House, he upended a decades-old North American trade pact whose replacement, USMCA, is coming up for renegotiation in 2026. Ottawa has spent years preparing for that, but Mr. Trump’s return makes the outcome harder to predict. Throughout the campaign, Mr. Trump did not specify whether allies such as Canada would be exempt from the tariffs he wants; if they’re not, the estimated costs to Canada’s economy could be in the tens of billions of dollars, with the fossil-fuel and auto sectors hit particularly hard.

Some form of U.S. protectionism was to be expected whether Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris won, David McNaughton, Canada’s ambassador to the United States from 2016 to 2019, told The Globe ahead of the election. The difference is in how Canada can find something to bargain with to uphold its interests. “Trump is very transactional,” he said. “... he needs to be seen to win. The fact of the matter is that the agreement that we have that’s in place [USMCA] was one that he and his team negotiated. So it’s hard for him to say it’s a terrible deal.”

Reaction from around the world

Even before Mr. Trump’s re-election was officially confirmed, right-wing allies such as Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Viktor Orban of Hungary were lining up on social media to support him. Other reactions were more measured: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – once pressed by the Trump administration to investigate Mr. Biden’s son in exchange for military aid – responded like this:

Other statements from world leaders

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Next dates to watch

There are still a few more steps before Mr. Trump is confirmed as the president; until then, he is called the president-elect.

• November to early December: Each state has its own rules for contesting results, and when those contests must be settled in court. Expect things to get litigious: In 2020, Mr. Trump filed more than 60 lawsuits, all unsuccessful.
• Dec. 17: Electors in each state meet to cast their votes. In all but two states, it’s winner-take-all; when Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris won a state’s popular vote, they got all its Electoral College votes. Maine and Nebraska can split college votes between candidates based on how congressional races turned out.
• Jan. 6: The House and Senate get together to count the electoral votes. This is the stage of the process where, in 2021, Trump supporters raided the Capitol to stop lawmakers from finalizing a Biden victory. Recent bipartisan changes to the Electoral Count Act make it harder for losing candidates to meddle in the count, as Mr. Trump wanted vice-president Mike Pence to do.
• Jan. 20: At an inauguration in Washington, the president- and vice-president-elect are sworn in and begin their terms.

More U.S. election coverage

Video: Trump’s re-election in depth

The Decibel podcast

Commentary

Carlo Dade: Start reading policy papers from U.S. right-wing think tanks, Canada

Robyn Urback: Donald Trump, Mr. Invincible, has triumphed once again

Konrad Yakabuski: Trump’s comeback was fuelled by America’s angst