Former President Donald Trump won a second term in the White House, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in a race where concerns about the economy trumped concerns about reproductive rights and democratic norms.

With the win in Wisconsin, Trump received the 270 delegate votes needed to clinch the presidency.

Victory confirms that he approaches politics with naked eyes. He attacked his Democratic opponent in deeply personal—often misogynistic and racist—terms, while proposing an apocalyptic picture of a country overrun by violent immigrants. The crude rhetoric, combined with the image of extreme masculinity, resonated with angry voters, especially men, in a deeply polarized country.

“I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president,” Trump told cheering supporters in Florida even before his victory was certified. he said.

While Trump did better in every state than he did in the 2020 election, Harris did not fare as well as Joe Biden did when winning the presidency four years ago. Once reinstated, Trump will also work with a Senate that will now be in Republican hands, with control of the House of Representatives yet to be determined.

“We’ve been through a lot together, and today you showed up in record numbers to achieve victory,” Trump said. “This was something special and we will repay you,” he said.

The results cap a historically turbulent and competitive election season that included two assassination attempts targeting Trump and the election of a new Democratic candidate just a month before the party’s convention. Trump will inherit a host of challenges when he takes office on January 20, including increasing political polarization and global crises that test America’s influence abroad.

Her victory over Harris, the first black woman to lead a major party, marks the second time she has defeated a female opponent in a general election. Harris, the current vice president, rose to the top of the list after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race over concerns about her advanced age. Despite an initial surge of energy around his campaign, he struggled on a tight timeline to convince frustrated voters that he represented a break from an unpopular administration.

Trump becomes the first former president to return to power since Grover Cleveland regained the White House in the 1892 election. He is the first person convicted of a serious crime to be elected president, and at 78, he is the oldest person ever elected to the office. The vice president, 40-year-old Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, will be the highest-ranking millennial in the U.S. government.

Trump will be much less scrutinized when he returns to the White House. He has plans to quickly implement a comprehensive agenda that will change nearly every aspect of American government. GOP critics in Congress have largely been defeated or retired. Federal courts are now filled with judges he appointed. The U.S. Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-appointed justices, issued a decision earlier this year granting presidents broad immunity.

Trump’s language and behavior during the campaign have led to growing warnings from Democrats and some Republicans about the shocks to democracy his return to power would bring. The dictator has repeatedly praised leaders, warned that he would deploy the military to target political opponents whom he described as “enemies from within,” threatened to take action against news organizations for negative coverage, and suggested suspending the Constitution.

Some of those who served in the first White House, including Vice President Mike Pence and Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, John Kelly, either refused to support him or issued dire warnings about his return to the presidency.

While Harris focused much of her initial message on themes of joy, Trump channeled a strong sense of anger and resentment among voters.

He discussed frustrations over high prices and fears about crime and immigrants entering the country illegally under Biden’s watch. He also noted the wars in the Middle East and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to preside over and encourage Democrats to preside over a world in chaos.

It was a formula that Trump perfected in 2016, when he saw himself as the only person who could solve the country’s problems and often borrowed the language of dictators.

“In 2016, I declared that I am your voice. Today I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your revenge,” he said in March 2023.

This campaign has often turned absurd, with Trump amplifying outlandish and debunked rumors that immigrants were stealing and eating domestic cats and dogs in an Ohio town. At one point, he began the rally with an elaborate story about legendary golfer Arnold Palmer, praising his genitals.

But perhaps the decisive moment came in July, when a gunman opened fire on a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A bullet grazed Trump’s ear, killing one of his supporters. Trump, his face covered in blood, stood up and raised his fist in the air, chanting “Fight!” Fight! Fight!” Weeks later, a second assassination attempt was thwarted when a Secret Service agent spotted the barrel of a gun sticking out of the green while Trump was playing golf.

Republican Donald Trump addressed his supporters after winning critical states on election night.

Trump’s return to the White House seemed unlikely when he left Washington in early 2021 as a diminutive figure whose lies about his defeat led to a violent insurrection at the US Capitol. He was so lonely at the time that few people other than his family bothered to attend the send-off he organized for him at Andrews Air Force Base, complete with a 21-gun salute.

Democrats who control the U.S. House of Representatives quickly impeached him for his role in the insurrection, making him the only president to be impeached twice. He was acquitted by the US Senate, where many Republicans argued that he no longer posed a threat now that he had left office.

But Trump has tried to maintain political relevance — with the help of some elected Republicans — at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, who was then leading his party in the U.S. House of Representatives, visited Trump shortly after leaving office and confirmed his continued role in the party.

As the 2022 midterm elections approach, Trump has used the power of his support to assert himself as the undisputed leader of the party. His preferred candidates almost always won primaries, but some suffered defeat in elections they thought were in Republican hands. These disappointing results were driven in part by the backlash to the U.S. Supreme Court decision, with the support of Trump-appointed justices, that struck down a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. The midterm elections have raised questions within the GOP about whether Trump will remain party leader.

But if Trump’s future was in doubt, that changed in 2023 when he faces a slew of state and federal charges for his role in the insurrection, his handling of classified information and election interference. He used the accusations to portray himself as the victim of an overreaching government; This argument resonated with the GOP base, which has become increasingly skeptical — if not outright hostile — of institutions and established power structures.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is challenging Trump for the Republican nomination, complained that the indictments “sucked all the oxygen” out of this year’s GOP primary. Trump easily secured his party’s nomination without ever participating in a debate against DeSantis or other GOP candidates.

Here is a look at the candidates breaking new ground after the 2024 elections.

While Trump dominated the Republican race, a New York jury found Trump guilty in May of 34 felonies in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election by paying hush money to a porn actor who said the two had sex. He faces sentencing later this month, but his victory raises serious questions about whether he will face punishment.

He was also found liable in two other civil cases in New York: one for inflating his assets and the other for sexually harassing columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996.

Trump will face additional charges in a deadlocked election interference case in Georgia. He is being indicted federally for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election results and improperly handling classified materials. When Trump becomes president on January 20, he could appoint an attorney general who would expunge federal charges.

As he prepares to return to the White House, Trump has vowed to quickly implement a radical agenda that will change nearly every aspect of American government. This includes plans to launch the largest deportation effort in the nation’s history, use the Justice Department to punish its enemies, dramatically expand the use of tariffs and retake a zero-sum approach to foreign policy that threatens to upend long-standing foreign alliances. Including the NATO pact.

When Trump arrived in Washington in 2017, he knew little about the levers of federal power. His agenda has been blocked by Congress and the courts, as well as by senior staff who act as guardrails.

This time, Trump said he will surround himself with loyalists who will carry out his agenda with no questions asked and come armed with hundreds of draft executive orders, bills and in-depth policy documents.