United States Trumped

Trump says he will be president for all Americans; claims forgotten men and women of US to no longer remain forgotten; Clinton says ‘we owe him an open mind and the chance to lead’; Obama says they are now all rooting for his success; Republicans retain control of Senate, House

WASHINGTON: In an absolute shocking outcome, Republican candidate Donald Trump stunned the world as he won the United States presidency on Tuesday.

Trump, 70, ran a decisive and divisive campaign for over a year, in which he challenged establishment and even threatened to throw his opponent in jail. Various polls and experts had suggested that the American values he had defied would make it harder for him to win the election.

Trump appeared with his family early on Wednesday before cheering supporters in a New York hotel ballroom, saying it was time to heal the divisions caused by the campaign and find common ground after a campaign that exposed deep differences among Americans.“It is time for us to come together as one united people,” Trump said. “I will be president for all Americans.”

“The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer,” he told his supporters in his victory speech. He said he had received a call from Clinton to congratulate him on the win and praised her for her service and for a hard-fought campaign.

His comments were an abrupt departure from his campaign trail rhetoric in which he repeatedly slammed Clinton as “crooked” amid supporters’ chants of “lock her up”.Hillary Clinton had maintained a sharp edge in early results, but Trump’s win was forgone conclusion once he attained the required electoral votes from Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

President-elect Trump will succeed President Obama in January as America’s 45th president. He has already vowed tojoined by her husband, former president Bill Clinton, and daughter Chelsea.

Speaking in front of a row of American flags, she told supporters her loss was painful “and it will be for a long time,” and that she had offered to work with Trump on behalf of the nation.

President Barack Obama, who campaigned hard against Trump, invited him to the White House for a meeting on Thursday. “We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country,” Obama said at the White House, saying he and his staff would work with Trump to ensure a successful transition. “We are not Democrats first, we are not Republicans first, we are Americans first.”

Trump will enjoy Republican majorities in both chambers of the US Congress.Television networks projected the party would retain control of the 100-seat Senate and the House of Representatives, where all 435 seats were up for grabs.

“He just earned a mandate and we now just have a unified Republican government,” House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters in Wisconsin, crediting Trump’s Election Day momentum with helping Republican victories that maintained the party´s control of Congress.

Despite losing the state-by-state electoral battle that determines the US presidency, Clinton narrowly led Trump in the nationwide popular vote, according to US media tallies.Republican National Committee senior strategist Sean Spicer told MSNBC that Trump and his senior aides were meeting at Trump Tower in New York on Wednesday to “start the proper transition” to a Trump presidency.

Prevailing in a race that opinion polls had clearly forecast as favouring Clinton, Trump won avid support among white non-college educated workers with his promise to be the “greatest jobs president that God ever created”.

“Such a beautiful and important evening! The forgotten man and woman will never be forgotten again. We will all come together as never before,” Trump wrote on Twitter early on Wednesday.

In his victory speech, he said he had a great economic plan, would embark on a project to rebuild the American infrastructure and would double US economic growth.The presidency will be Trump’s first elected office, and it remains to be seen how he will work with Congress.

A Reuters/Ipsos national Election Day poll offered some clues to the outcome. It found Clinton badly underperformed expectations with women, winning their vote by only about 2 percentage points.

And while she won Hispanics, black and young voters, Clinton did not win those groups by greater margins than Obama did in 2012. Younger blacks did not support Clinton like they did Obama, as she won eight of 10 black voters between the ages of 35 and 54. Obama won almost 100 per cent of those voters in 2012.