Republican Donald Trump has been declared the winner of the US presidential election

A fter weeks of campaigning and a race locked in a dead heat, Republican Donald Trump has been declared the winner of the US presidential election. The first former president to be convicted of a felony, Trump will also be the first to take office while several criminal cases against him are still pending.

Donald Trump stormed to victory in both the popular vote and the electoral college last night in an undeniable sign of enthusiasm from the American people. While the final votes are still being tallied, Trump has so far won 292 electoral college points - 22 more than he needed. 

And he still retains the lead in the popular vote - with 51 percent, over Harris's 47.5 percent, throwing cold water on any idea that Democrats could repeat their 2016 complaints that he was the less popular choice across the country. 

And Harris did worse on Tuesday than Joe Biden in the 2020 contest among key voting groups including women, the working class and Latinos. That is what the numbers from exit polls show.

But the election results also comes down to this: Trump had vision for America while Harris had word salad, voters trusted him more to fix the economy, and the American people thought Biden put the country on the wrong track. It all added up to Donald Trump overcoming a criminal conviction, indictments, and an assassin's bullet to return to the White House.

And Trump did it in a landslide. The election that was predicted to be a nail biter instead was a red tsunami. Trump didn't just win the electoral college but the popular vote, garnering 71.2 million votes to Harris' 66.4 million. Tellingly, Harris garnered less overall votes than Biden in 2020. That year their ticket won 81 million votes.