Trump wins another 4 years in the White House

The first polls closed at 2 p.m. Hawai‘i time in 6 states on Tuesday. The last poll, in Alaska, closed at 8 p.m. island time.

It wasn’t until about 1 a.m. island time that former U.S. President Donald Trump was declared by most media outlets as the winner of the 2024 presidential election.

The Associated Press reported Trump cleared the necessary 270 electoral college votes to become the nation’s 47th commander-in-chief with 277 after a victory in Wisconsin.

By the time the race was called he also had an overall 70,952,259 ballots cast in his favor, or 51% of the popular vote.

Trump’s path to victory included wins earlier in the night in the key swing states of Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

His challenger U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris garnered 224 electoral votes and 66,048,716 ballots in her favor, or 47.5% of the popular vote.

While the nation waited nearly 11 hours after the first polls closed to hear the outcome of perhaps one of the tightest presidential races in history, Trump wasted no time claiming his victory.

He appeared on stage at about 9:30 p.m. Hawai‘i time on Tuesday in West Palm Beach, Fla., to address supporters and the nation.

He walked out to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” after his win in Pennsylvania, putting him within 3 electoral votes of victory with a total of 267, according to the Associated Press.

He was accompanied by family members and campaign allies.

In his speech, Trump promised he would “not rest until we have delivered the strong safe and prosperous America.”

“Every single day, I will be fighting for you with every breath in my body,” he said.

The man whose career in politics has been devisive and acrimonious also told those at the early election night shindig that now is the “time to unite” the nation.

“It’s time to put the divisions of the past four years behind us,” Trump said. “We have to put our country first for at least a period of time. We have to fix it.”

Harris did not concede or speak Tuesday night. She plans to address supporters and the nation today from her alma mater of Howard University.

The Associated Press and NBC News called Hawai‘i for Harris as soon as polls closed at 7 p.m. island time in the Aloha State, without any votes counted.

The AP based its decision on the fact that the state last picked a Republican for the nation’s top office 40 years ago, when Ronald Reagan emerged victorious in 1984.

It also said Hawai‘i is a solidly blue state, with Democrats controlling all statewide elected offices and the state’s two U.S. House seats.

The second results from the Hawai‘i Office of Elections at 12.24 a.m. on Wednesday showed Harris handily defeating Trump in the state with 276,296 votes (61.6%) vs. the former president’s 160,513 votes (35.8%).

The other candidates on the ballot each received less than 1% of the vote statewide.

The vice president also won the Hawai‘i County results with 44,580 votes (65.3%), over Trump’s 22,902 (33.6%).

Green Party candidate Jill Stein was the only other presidential hopeful to get at least 1% of the vote from Hawai‘i County voters with 666 ballots in her favor.

While Harris looks to claim victory in the islands, that doesn’t change the fact that the nation is giving Trump another shot at the White House.

“We got our butts kicked tonight,” former U.S. President Barack Obama campaign manager Jim Messina told MSNBC on Tuesday night, adding the Democratic Party has a “real rural problem” and communication challenges with “a whole bunch of groups.”

Those groups include young voters and Latinos, which they thought they had a better message but “didn’t at all.”

Messina managed Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign. He said those groups no longer feel seen by Democrats, who need to do a serious analysis following the 2024 election.

“We’ve got to figure out how to move forward in a way that gets us back to being [the] majority party we used to be,” he said.

Meanwhile, California Democrat U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, while disappointed in the election results, remained optimistic for his party.

“I’m confident we’re going to rebuild in 2026 and we’ll win back the White House in 2028,” said Khanna. “And we’ve got to listen.”

This year’s general election was light on the ballot for other federal races, featuring just two others for Hawai‘i County voters to weigh in on other than the main event between Trump and Harris.

Incumbent Democrat Mazie Hirono easily won another 6 years in the U.S. Senate.

After the second printout in Hawaiʻi at 12:24 a.m. Wednesday, Hirono received 283,454 votes statewide (63.2%). Her closest competitor was Republican Bob McDermott with 135,761 votes (30.2%), followed by We The People Party candidate Shelby Pikachu Billionaire who received 7,090 votes (1.6%). Green Party hopeful Emma Jane Avila Pohlman came in last with 1.4%, receiving 6,419 votes.

Hawai‘i County voters followed suit, with Hirono getting 71.3% of the vote, or 46,147 ballots cast in her favor, compared with McDermott’s 18,696 (28.9%); Pohlman’s 1,207 (1.9%); and Billionaire’s 1,088 votes (1.7%).

The AP also called Hirono’s race for her when polls closed at 7 p.m. Hawai‘i time, before any results were released.

Incumbent Rep. Jill Tokuda will have another 2 years as representative of U.S. Congress District II, which encompasses all neighbor islands and O‘ahu, except Honolulu.

Tokuda received 139,982 votes (62.7%). Republican Steve Bond garnered 59,407 votes(27.5%), with Libertarian Aaron Toman getting 3,233 votes (1.4%) and nonpartisan candidate Randall Kelly Meyer got 2,901, or 1.5%.

Hawai‘i County voters also want Tokuda back in Washington, casting 45,225 ballots (75.4%) for her Tuesday. Bond got 17,490 votes (29.2%), while Toman received 1,193 votes (2%) and Meyer got 3,027 votes (1.4%).

Big Island Now news reporter Nathan Christophel contributed to the story.