Donald Trump has defied the odds and been elected President of the United States, beating Hillary Clinton in a surprise victory. The Republican candidate not only won most of the so-called “battleground states” but also a number of states which have voted Democrat in the last six presidential elections.
Although it looks like Ms Clinton won the popular vote contest, Mr Trump received a comfortable majority in the Electoral College vote, which is what determines the outcome in US presidential elections. It is a fact, however, that the polls in this electoral campaign were clearly wrong, suggesting perhaps that many supporters of Trump were hesitant to admit who they would vote for.
No doubt Mr Trump hit a chord with a large sector of the electorate, particularly white working class voters, who felt they had been forgotten by the establishment. Many voters clearly associated Ms Clinton with this establishment, and preferred to vote for Mr Trump, who ran as an outsider who would shake up Washington.
While Ms Clinton may have been seen as the better candidate and a ‘safer pair of hands’, it is Mr Trump who will replace Barack Obama in the White House. He is now President-elect, no longer a candidate running for the presidency, and he needs to move away from some of the polarising rhetoric he used during the campaign, unite his country and reassure the world of America’s commitment to global engagement.
Mr Trump made a reasonably good start in his acceptance speech yesterday, where he was gracious to his defeated rival and promised to “represent every citizen of our land” and to continue engaging with the world. He also said it was “time for America to bind the wounds of division”.
These are fine words but of course only time will tell what type of a president he will be. Mr Trump was never a typical Republican and over the next few days he urgently needs to spell out his vision of America and its position in the world.
Mr Trump’s election is potentially a great shock to the global world order. In the campaign he promised to renegotiate a number of trade agreements that the US is a signatory to and he opposed both the landmark Paris Climate Change Agreement and the nuclear deal with Iran. A return to protectionism could deal a blow to the global economy, and America’s withdrawal from the Paris and Iranian deals could have a very destabilising effect on the geo-political situation. And Mr Trump’s public statements about Islam do not augur well for America’s relations with the Islamic world, which is so important in the fight against jihadist terrorism.
Mr Trump is known to be a pragmatic businessman, which could be a silver lining in this election. He was never really ideologically right-wing, although he did manage to rally the Conservative base of the Republican Party to his cause, so it is possible that the pragmatic side of him will emerge in his presidency. Who he appoints as his closest advisers as well as to key Cabinet positions will also give us a better idea of how he intends to run his presidency.
This unexpected result, coming in the aftermath of Brexit, should also serve as a warning to all mainstream political parties in Europe that they must reconnect with their citizens and address their concerns. Failure to do so will only strengthen populist parties across the continent and with elections around the corner in Austria, France, the Netherlands and Germany; this is something which European centrist parties must come to terms with.