Vice President Kamala Harris has yet to formally concede the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump, even as mounting pressure builds with the election results increasingly clear.
Current tallies show Harris on track to perform worse than Hillary Clinton did in the 2016 election and possibly secure the weakest Electoral College result for a Democrat since the 1988 election.
The unexpected shift in results surprised many observers. Leading up to Election Day, several polls suggested Harris had a slight edge. However, Trump defied these predictions, securing not only a significant Electoral College lead but also a notable share of the popular vote. As of Wednesday morning, Trump holds 51 percent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.5 percent, with most ballots already counted. This outcome, if it holds, would mark the first Republican popular vote victory since George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election, signaling a resurgence in Republican voter enthusiasm not seen in decades.
Despite numerous major news outlets projecting Trump as the winner, Harris has not yet publicly acknowledged the results. Her campaign announced that she plans to address the nation in a speech from Howard University, her alma mater, on Wednesday afternoon.
The victory makes Trump the first president in over 130 years—and only the second in U.S. history—to win a non-consecutive second term. This comeback is particularly striking given his controversial exit from office in 2021 amid accusations of inciting the Capitol riot and his subsequent legal troubles, including a conviction on multiple business fraud charges earlier this year. Photo by Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, Wikimedia commons.
