US REPUBLICANS CLOSING IN ON A CLEAN SWEEP

Gavin Clancy and Emily Minson
 
In a famous electoral comeback, Donald Trump has re-taken the White House and will become the 47th President of the United States when he is inaugurated in January 2025.
 
President Trump has defeated his Democrat opponent, Vice-President Kamala Harris, in the November 5 election, and is on course to reclaim all six of the crucial swing states that he lost in 2020.

The Republicans are on track to potentially record a historic quadrella: in addition to seizing the Presidency, they are set to regain control of the US Senate, may narrowly retain control of the House of Representatives, and record the popular presidential vote.
 
President Trump,78, will become the first President since Grover Cleveland in 1893 to have won back the White House after a previous defeat in office.
 
Ohio Senator JD Vance will become his Vice-President.
 
The Republicans are ahead in the hotly-contested swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada and Arizona – all of which were lost by Donald Trump in 2020.
 
In addition, the Republicans held the swing state of North Carolina, potentially giving them a comfortable 300-plus votes of the total 538 Electoral College votes.
 
(In the US, Presidents are chosen by the Electoral College, which sits after the November election and represents the states through their respective quota of House of Representatives and Senate seats.)
 
In early counting, the Republicans are slightly ahead in their bid to hold their narrow majority in the 435-seat House of Representatives. Final results may not be known for a week.
 
They are also poised to reclaim the Senate, with a majority in the 100-seat US Upper House.
 
In the US, the Senate forms an integral part of the machinery of government, through its powerful committee system and its role in the nomination process for Cabinet members and Supreme Court judges.
 
The Democrats’ defeat represents the third occasion in the post-World War 2 period that a sitting Vice-President has failed to be elected directly to President, after the Republicans’ Richard Nixon in 1960 and the Democrats’ Al Gore in 2000. George HW Bush made the successful transition from the vice-presidency to the Oval Office in 1988.
 
The 2024 election result also continues the recent trend of one-term administrations, after Donald Trump was defeated after one term in 2020. Prior to the 2016 election, the Republicans held office for three terms (1981-93) and two terms (2001-09), and the Democrats from 1993 to 2001, and again from 2009 to 2017.
 
In the Australian context, the election of a new Trump administration will raise issues about the scale of the role of the US in the AUKUS defence partnership.
 
In addition, the President-elect on the campaign trail promised a range of tariffs on imports, in a bid to protect US jobs, that may prompt counter-action by trading partners of the US.
 
(Posted 1200 hours, Thursday, November 7 AEDT)
 
Gavin Clancy is a Senior Consultant with Lunik based in Melbourne; Emily Minson is a co-founder of Lunik based in San Francisco