Författare: Thomas Gift Associate Professor and Director of the Centre o

Donald Trump has been elected for a second term as US president. International affairs editor Rachael Jolley spoke with US expert Thomas Gift, founding director of the UCL Centre on US Politics, about what Americans will expect the president-elect to do once in office, and what he will prioritise.

1. What was the significance of Donald Trump’s election win?

This wasn’t just a victory for Trump. It was a resounding victory. Although the country is too polarised for a true landslide any more, this was as close as one can come to a thorough shellacking. Trump didn’t just backdoor himself into the Oval Office again. He bolted through the front, and pulled off the most consequential political comeback in modern US electoral history.

Although Kamala Harris was his opponent, this election was ultimately a referendum on Trump. Trump took the popular vote by about 5 million votes, won nearly almost single swing state, and improved his vote shares in nearly every state compared to 2020.

Moreover, Republicans retook the Senate, and there’s a good chance they’ll also keep their majority in the House of Representatives. That would give Republicans a clean sweep in this election, and, combined with a right-leaning Supreme Court, solidified control of Washington’s power corridors.

2. Why did so few experts see this coming?

One thing’s clear: Trump has been consistently underestimated. Over and over, his political resilience and ability to rebound have been discounted by Republicans and Democrats alike. Americans have heard repeatedly that Trump would eventually meet his political demise. Impeachment 1.0. Impeachment 2.0. Scandal after scandal. Allegation after allegation. A defeat in the 2020 presidential election. A major underperformance for Trump-backed candidates in the 2022 midterms. Criminal convictions. And yet, Trump defies the laws of political gravity.

Trumpism has become a force in American politics that the country perhaps still hasn’t fully come to grips with. Trump is a uniquely iconoclastic politician. His distinct brand of grievance politics has realigned the Republicans as the party of the white working class, while picking up sizeable vote percentages among minorities. That’s nothing if not politically successful.

Donald Trump victory speech.

3. Was there anything Harris could have done differently to reverse the outcome?

Although opinions differ, there’s reason to think that Harris campaign erred by casting this election as fundamentally being about “democracy.” Rightly or wrongly, data show that democracy is an abstract concern for most Americans. According to pre-election polling, majorities of Americans said they thought that democracy was at risk in the election. However, the percent of voters who said democracy was the top issue facing the country was in the low single digits.

Almost always, elections are about concrete policy issues. And that’s what we had here. There was clear dissatisfaction with the cost of living, anger with a broken border policy, and trepidation about US engagement with the wider world. This election cycle was marked by a strong anti-incumbent sentiment. Harris arguably never differentiated her platform from President Joe Biden’s or presented a compelling, specific vision beyond simply not being Trump.

4. What will Democrats learn from their defeat?

Democrats will certainly undertake a post-mortem into what went wrong for the Harris campaign. How the party could lose to a leader who’s been impeached twice, who’s been criminally convicted, who’s been tarred by scandals, and who whipped up an insurrection at the US Capitol four years ago, is a burning question.

Some point to racism or sexism. Yet Barack Obama, the first black president, was elected twice in 2008 and 2012, and Hillary Clinton, the first woman candidate to receive a major party’s presidential nomination, won the national popular vote in 2016. Others will point to procedural issues in the primaries. After Biden was pushed out of the race, Harris became the nominee despite never winning a single primary vote. But at its heart, it’s hard not to see the Democratic failures as a product of being out of touch with the American public on core kitchen-table and cultural issues.

5. What can we expect as Trump takes office?

This next four years will be Trump unleashed, and unfettered by the prospect of another election in four years (as no president is allowed to stand for three terms). First thing’s first, Trump has said that he plans to use the federal government and state apparatuses for vengeance against his political adversaries.

While some critics have projected apocalyptic scenarios, many of Trump’s threats are rhetorical, although Trump will likely push for investigations into the Biden administration. Trump will continue to fight what he calls the “deep state” – government workers who aren’t abjectly loyal to him. As part of this effort, he’s pledged to cut the jobs of tens of thousands of federal workers. Trump has said that he wants to nominate Elon Musk, an outspoken advocate for Trump, to head a task force to audit the federal government. Others within Trump’s inner sanctum – like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy and Tulsi Gabbard – will also likely be given high-profile executive appointments with mandates for reform.

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How Trump performed among Latino voters, women and young people, according to exit poll analysis

6. What are Trump’s key priorities within the US?

Much of Trump’s domestic policy platform is standard Republican orthodoxy. Trump will try to make his 2017 tax cuts, which are set to expire next year, permanent. He wants to lower the corporate tax rates from 21 to 15%. He’ll push for more deregulation within the administrative state. He also wants to impose fewer constraints on US energy production.

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How the Trump presidency might change the global economy

Perhaps most controversially, Trump has pledged to impose upwards of 10 to 20% tariffs on all imports to the US, and up to 60% tariffs on imports from China. He’s also promised massive deportations of undocumented migrants. Both would be inflationary. Tariffs would lead companies to pass higher prices onto consumers, while large-scale deportations would spike the cost of labour. Trump won’t get all of that done, but with the prospect of a Republican-controlled Congress, he’ll have a better chance of achieving major overhauls.

7. Which policies will Trump advance abroad?

Trump has vowed a return to his “America First” foreign policy, which is sceptical of international institutions and working with traditional western allies. In Asia, he’s pledged a “tough on China” approach, which plays into his plans to ratchet up tariffs on Beijing.

In Europe, Trump has promised to end the war in Ukraine on day one in office, which would likely entail pressuring Ukraine into land concessions and blocking off a future pathway to Nato for Kyiv. While Trump has threatened to pull the US out of Nato, recent legislation passed by Congress will make that more difficult.

In the Middle East, Trump professes strong support for Israel’s right to self-defence, and while he supports an end to the Gaza war, he is arguably less sympathetic to protecting Palestinian rights and aspirations than the Biden administration. Trump will also likely endorse a “maximum pressure” policy on Iran, and will push for a normalisation deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, backed by a US defence pact.

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Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are promising big initiatives if elected: tax cuts (and hikes), lots of giveaways, and major pieces of legislation bearing on issues such as abortion, healthcare, the environment and foreign military assistance. Regardless of who wins the presidency, the one thing all these items have in common? They can’t pass without Congress, which comprises the House of Representatives (the lower body) and the Senate (the upper body).

The Senate is currently controlled by Democrats, 51 to 49, while Republicans hold a majority in the House of Representatives, 220 to 212. Website FiveThirtyEight, which aggregates polls, forecasts that the Republicans are far more likely to win the Senate 2024. In the House, the race is expected to be much closer.

Given the numbers, it’s the Senate that most worries Democrats and excites Republicans. Democrats are likely to lose representation in Republican-leaning West Virginia, and could lose additional seats in Ohio, Montana, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. There’s a chance for Democrats to pick up seats in Florida and Texas, but both races are still trending Republican.

Who wins the Senate could constrain the next president, if the party of opposition is in control. In the Senate, the filibuster, a tactic to delay or block legislation, can make it hard to enact many new laws with a simple majority (51 votes). In theory, a simple majority is enough to pass a bill, but if a Senator introduces a filibuster, an extra 60 votes are needed to override it and stop debate so a vote on legislation can be held.

Still, just having a Senate majority is crucial, particularly if there is a tie-breaking vote. (The vice-president is president of the Senate and only has a vote if the vote is tied).

Here are four key ways in which who wins the Senate matters.

1. Legislative agenda

Both the Harris and Trump campaigns have laid out sweeping proposals, especially for the economy, much of which will require Senate backing. While a filibuster-proof 60 votes is usually needed to pass laws, a special process called “budget reconciliation” can (with the consent of the official in charge of the rules, the Senate parliamentarian) be used to approve some budgets – relating to specific tax, spending and debt bills – with a minimum of a tie-breaking majority.

Harris’s plan focuses on building what she calls an “opportunity economy,” which includes US$25,000 (£19,200) in down-payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, US$6,000 tax credits for families with newborns, and federal bans against excessive prices for food and other groceries. Harris has also pledged to raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, and floated taxing unrealised gains – such as the appreciation in equities, real estate and other assets – for the very rich, a 25% minimum tax on total income exceeding US$100 million.

What is the filibuster?

Trump’s economic blueprint includes making his 2017 tax cuts permanent. He’s called for the elimination of taxes on tips, overtime, and social security benefits. Additionally, Trump has vowed to slash the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%. Perhaps Trump’s most consequential economic proposal – imposing 10-20% tariffs on all imports into the US and 60% tariffs on goods from China – could be done unilaterally without Congress.

2. Supreme Court

Some of the biggest battles over the next four years are likely to be fought in, and over, the federal judicial system. The Senate must consent to Supreme Court appointments. During his first term, Trump pushed through three court appointments – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – which helped solidify a six-three conservative supermajority on the bench. Biden named one justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson.

While no justice has signalled an intent to step down soon, either Trump or Harris could have the opportunity – planned or unplanned – to install one or more new justices. The two oldest-serving members of the court are conservatives Clarence Thomas, 76, and Samuel Alito, 74. For Republicans, the next presidential term could offer an opportunity to cement a right-leaning bench for decades to come.

If Trump wins and the Senate goes Republican, there will be pressure from conservative corners for the older right-leaning justices to retire and to replace them with young blood. By contrast, if Harris wins and the Democrats control the tiebreak, they could begin to redirect a court that’s been drifting rightward for years.

3. Future of the filibuster

Left-wing Congress members have advocated for ending the filibuster throughout President Joe Biden’s term. This “nuclear” option would mean doing away with a Senate rule, which was used in the first Congress in 1789. Ending the filibuster would signal an all-out partisan war that would have wide-ranging ramifications on Capitol Hill not only for the next presidency, but further into the future.

The filibuster has already been diluted in recent years by both Democrats and Republicans. In 2013, Democrats removed the 60-vote threshold to confirm many executive branch nominations, a move they said was necessary due to Republican blockading. In 2017, Republicans responded by killing the filibuster over Supreme Court appointments.

If elected, Harris has indicated that she would support ending the filibuster to reinstate reproductive rights that were eliminated after the overturning of Roe v Wade. However, she has talked little about the issue since becoming the Democratic nominee for president. It’s also unclear that more centrist Democrats would support the move.

4. Foreign policy

While there’s bipartisan support in Washington for both aiding Israel’s military and taking a “tough on China” approach, the incoming Senate will be essential in determining if the US approves additional funds to Ukraine.

With the retirement of Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell, a vocal advocate for supporting the war, it’s unclear if such a measure would even come up for a vote under Republican leadership. But a Harris administration or a Democrat-led House or Senate, or both, would continue to lobby for US funding.

One important, but less-discussed, issue that may also arise before the Senate is the ratification of a defence pact between the US and Saudi Arabia. Both the Trump and Biden administrations have envisioned a Saudi-Israel deal normalising relations between the two countries, with a US security pact for Saudi Arabia to back the agreement.

Any future treaty would require a two-thirds Senate majority, a high bar to clear. Twenty Democratic senators raised concerns to Biden about the potential deal in 2023, while Republican senators voted to block Trump’s proposed armed sales to the Saudis in 2019.

Both at home and abroad, it’s not just who wins the White House that will determine the political trajectory of the United States. Races in the Senate could have far-reaching implications under either a President Harris or President Trump. Läs mer…