Donald Trump is set to become the second U.S. president to make a comeback to Washington after losing the title of commander in chief -- and the verdict of U.S. voters was more decisive than most pundits and analysts had predicted.
Trump secured victory early Wednesday after surpassing the 270 electoral college votes needed to win, picking up the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- with possibly more to come.
Political expert Tom Whalen, associate professor of social sciences at Boston University, tells NBC10 Boston that this was a seismic election.
"This is one of the biggest surprises of the last 20 years," Whalen said. "I think [Trump] could still win the popular vote. No Republican has done that since George W. Bush in 2004...who knows, I mean, if you're looking at the numbers, maybe this is a trend to come in the future, you know, Republican presidents."
It appears that Trump was able to win the majority of the Latino vote, which has never happened before, Whalen said.
"If that is going to hold up, I mean that's never happened before," he said.
For Whalen, he believes these results really come down to the economy, noting that people are very concerned with inflation and the border, something that seems to resonate with all social groups in society.
"I think a lot of analysts overestimated the importance of the abortion issue because it really came down to the economy in the end," Whalen said.
So where did Vice President Kamala Harris go wrong with her campaign in the presidential race?
"It's hard to say because it was a 100-day campaign," Whalen said. "When you look at it on one hand, it was a remarkable performance by Harris to get this close given the fact that she started at ground zero. So it's hard to say but she seemed to have the headwinds going into October. The problem is that you know Trump was able to pull out an astonishing comeback right at the finish line."
"You look at the analysis, rural voters came out in unprecedented numbers. [Trump] was able to build upon his already strong rural support, and the Democrats did not have enough suburban votes to counter that," Whalen continued.
Was the polling wrong? That depends, according to Whalen.
"If you look at the margins, they're so thin that it's within the margin of error for most of them. On the one hand, you could say yeah maybe they got it wrong but not according to their own criteria. Three or four percent, that's all it took. But again it shows just how divided our country is right now that even within the margin of error, that's everything in this winner-take-all system of ours."
In a victory speech before it was officially projected that he would serve as 47th president of the United States, Trump vowed to “put our country first” and bring about a “golden age” for America.
