how Donald Trump’s US election victory unfolded

At around 9am on Tuesday, the lifeguards at Palm Beach, the Florida town home to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and his results party later that night, raised red flags to warn of an emerging riptide in the Atlantic Ocean.

It would be many hours, however, until the real surge hit, after the former president secured an election victory so decisive even he seemed surprised. By 2.25am on Wednesday, when Trump took to the stage and started describing the extent of his victory, he cut himself off and declared: “Look what happened! Is this crazy?”

The streets of Palm Beach, with its Rolls-Royces and bars serving $22 martinis, were typically quiet on the morning of Election Day. Conversations were dominated less by Trump’s potential reconquest of the US political system and more about how his security had blocked off the island’s access to Mar-a-Lago.

A couple at The Breakers hotel, where rooms go for $1,000 a night, wondered out loud how they’d get to their steak dinner to celebrate their anniversary. At French bistro Le Bilboquet, a woman urged her husband not to discuss politics with a stranger and focus on complimenting the Cajun chicken.

The first stir of the day came when Trump arrived at a polling station. Rudy Giuliani, the ex-president’s former lawyer, showed up in the late morning in a Mercedes convertible he was ordered to hand over to Georgia poll workers as part of their successful defamation suit. When Trump left, more than 20 black SUVs, fire trucks and motorcycles zoomed down the street, with neighbours videotaping the spectacle to bemoan the traffic.

Before the 2024 campaign, Trump was never broadly popular. His approval rate never reached 50 per cent while in office, the first time in Gallup’s polling history for a US president. He left office in 2021 with the support of only a third of Americans — a new low — after a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol because of his repeated false claims that he had won the 2020 election.

Yet several criminal cases and two assassination attempts later, Trump has reached new heights — helped by Joe Biden dropping out due to his age and Kamala Harris’s rise to the top of the Democratic ticket.

“This is a pretty unprecedented race,” said Alex Witkoff, a real estate investor and family friend of the Trumps, on Tuesday afternoon. “This is the first time that if the polls are right, he wins.”

The party began that evening at the Palm Beach Convention Center, with a half-hearted cheer emerging from the less-than-half-full venue at about 7.15pm as CNN called the deep red state of Indiana for Trump. Hundreds of untouched Maga hats filled tables in the entrance, the commentary from the television echoing across hard floors and high ceilings.

Former staffers from Trump’s 2016 campaign — including Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie — were among the first people inside.

Meanwhile, at Mar-a-Lago, Elon Musk, former Marvel Entertainment chair Ike Perlmutter and dozens of other top allies and donors ate dinner, according to Gilson Machado Neto, Brazil’s former tourism minister. There was no music, just the TV playing, and a menu of Caesar salad and snook fillets.

“He [Trump] was very, very calm, very quiet,” said Machado. “He has a good feeling that he’s done the best that he could do.”

Trump supporters roared at about 10pm when another round of early vote tallies came from Pennsylvania, showing the former president chipping away at Harris in the all-important swing state.

Investor and Trump donor Hal Lambert predicted that the stark increase in inflation under the Biden-Harris administration would be Harris’s downfall.

“The elites are with Harris and that’s not where the votes are,” said Lambert.

By 11pm, things started shaking loose. Trump took the lead over Harris in Pennsylvania, along with the southern states he needed. At the convention centre, all free red hats had been taken, with some wearing two at once.

Tech investor and podcast host David Sacks, a member of the pro-Trump Silicon Valley elite, told the Financial Times Trump’s chances seemed positive but acknowledged he didn’t know: “I’m on X just like everybody else.” 

The Associated Press then called North Carolina, the first battleground state, for Trump.

At about 11.40pm, major donors at Mar-a-Lago began offering one-word summaries: “Positive”; “Festive”; “Electric”. Trump adviser Tim Murtaugh summed up the mood: “We would rather be us than them at this point.”

Murtaugh told the FT that Trump was “unique” in US history, marvelling at his ability as a Republican to attract Arab, Jewish, Black, Latino and union voters. He said the former staffers who turned against Trump were “trying to figure out how to pivot for their own professional betterment”.

“Their choices speak more about them than him,” added Murtaugh. “We’re all aware of who those people are.”

By the time Georgia was called for Trump at around 1am, hundreds of people had started entering the roped-off area in front of the podium. “Right now, the trajectory is good,” said Trump’s campaign spokesman Brian Hughes.

Not long afterwards, Alex Pfeiffer, another Trump campaign spokesman, hugged his friend. “We did it,” he said. “Oh my God,” said a woman in red shoes and a red pantsuit.

When Trump walked on stage in the early hours of Wednesday, he was poised to win all seven battleground states, bringing with him one of the strongest Republican Senate majorities in memory and the power to comfortably confirm his cabinet and judicial nominations.

Trump is now the first US president to win, lose and win back the White House in more than a century. His running mate JD Vance called it “the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America”. 

Trump himself hailed not only his victory but “an unprecedented and powerful mandate”, adding: “This will truly be the golden age of America.”