Donald Trump Elected 45th President of the United States

Donald Trump Elected 45th President of the United States

Donald John Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States on Tuesday after a harsh election season against his rival, Hillary Clinton. His Vice President will be Mike Pence, the Governor of Indiana.

Donald Trump, a famous business mogul, television star, and politician, managed to beat Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Senator from New York, Secretary of State, and First Lady to her husband, Former President Bill Clinton. This was Clinton’s second bid for the presidency.

Trump was victorious with 276 electoral votes, while Clinton lagged behind at 218. Swing states such as Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio contributed to Trump’s large electoral lead, however the difference popular vote in these states was very slight, by only several thousand votes. Clinton won the popular vote.

In many ways, Clinton was unable to avoid her scandals. Just 11 days prior to the election, FBI Director James Comey announced he would be reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail servers because of an apparent, and undisclosed, new batch of emails from an unrelated investigation. Clinton’s e-mail scandal goes back to her use of a private email server during her term as Secretary of State (2009-2013), which the FBI Director did not suggest criminal charges for however called “extremely careless.”

Both presidential campaigns were plagued with controversy and scandal, though. It seemed Clinton was often able to reap the benefits of Trump’s lack of political expertise and poor judgement, which often revealed itself to the public. Nevertheless, Donald Trump was clearly able to conjure up a great amount of momentum, which propelled him to the Republican Nomination last July.

During the course of the election, Trump had many destabilizing moments for his campaign, too, often brought about by his own comments or tweets. Even in the speech for his initial bid for president, Trump suggested that Mexican immigrants were “bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Other moments include questioning John McCain’s status as a war hero, mocking a disabled reporter during a rally, and making innapropriate comments on tape about groping women.

 

The president elect will be following two terms of democratic President Barack Obama, whose favorability rating has consistently split the nation. Many political analysts agree America is as politically polarized as ever. So for some, Trump’s election comes as a relief from the current administration, while others feel uncomfortable with the changes that a Trump presidency will likely include.

“Despite not agreeing with him,” said Junior Vivek Gogineni, “I support democracy and the will of the people, and I hope for the best.”

However, polls from late summer were show the majority of Americans have distaste for both candidates, giving both Trump and Clinton unprecedented, poor reputations as the nominees of their respective parties.

Many of Trump’s proposed political policies diametrically oppose those of sitting President Barack Obama, on topics such as immigration, healthcare, and foreign policy, among other things. Trump is significantly more conservative than Barack Obama, who was elected to be the nation’s first African-American President 8 years ago. Donald Trump will be inaugurated on January 20, 2017.