It happened. After an 18-month journey through the angriest parts of the American psyche, a surge of white voters appears to have carried Donald Trump to victory in the United States presidential election. The AP called the race moments ago after projecting Trump to win Wisconsin; they called Pennsylvania for him about an hour ago. (Multiple reports indicate that Clinton has called Trump to concede the race; it’s still possible, however, that she will win the popular vote, which would mark the second time in 16 years that a Democratic candidate won the national vote and lost the Electoral College.)
Nationally, a significant and Clinton-friendly increase in Latino voter turnout, especially in early voting, was overtaken as the day by surprise results driven by heavy turnout in largely white areas. Among the many amazing things about this result: Trump was right that pre-election polls, which generally had him losing by a fairly wide margin in the Electoral College, were way off. And Hillary Clinton’s get-out-the-vote ground game and large ad-spending advantage were not enough to overcome Trump’s strategy of earning mass attention through bombastic statements.
Donald Trump is going to be the president—and, as it happens, Republicans have held the House and Senate. It’s going to be a hell of a four years, folks.
This post has been updated to note Clinton’s concession.
