Reality check: why the Democrats lost

For the past decade, Donald Trump has been the most famous and influential man on the planet. But he had too many failures and electoral defeats to his name to be able to claim he dominated a whole political era. That changed on Tuesday night.

Trump will be remembered as both the 45th and the 47th President of the United States. At the time of going to press, he is very likely to win full control of Congress. He is even likely to win the popular vote – making him the first Republican to do so in 20 years. All of this will allow him to impose his will on the nation to a much greater extent than he did during his first term in office.

Back in 2016, the whiff of aberration hung over Trump’s success. His opponents could maintain that his victory was a strange historical fluke. Some put it down to foreign interference. Political scientists confidently pronounced that he represented the final, Pyrrhic victory of a declining electorate – the last, desperate stand of the old white man.

But aberrations tend not to happen twice, and 2024 puts the last nail in the coffin of that distorted interpretation. Though some cable-news hosts may be tempted to replay their previous hits in the coming months, nobody will believe Trump is the Manchurian Candidate this time around. It’s clear he put into action the advice given to the Republicans by Reince Priebus after the second defeat to Barack Obama: court minority voters who the party traditionally conceded to the Democrats. Trump’s victory is due not to old white men but to his success in building a deeply multi-ethnic coalition – as his crushing victory in Florida, a state that long ago became ‘majority minority’, attests.