Trump stuns world with White House defeat
of Clinton
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[November 09, 2016]
By Steve Holland and John Whitesides
(Reuters) - Republican Donald Trump stunned
the world by defeating heavily favored rival Hillary Clinton in
Tuesday's presidential election, ending eight years of Democratic rule
and sending the United States on a new, uncertain path.
A wealthy real-estate developer and former reality TV host, Trump rode a
wave of anger toward Washington insiders to win the White House race
against Clinton, the Democratic candidate whose gold-plated
establishment resume included stints as a first lady, U.S. senator and
secretary of state.
Worried a Trump victory could cause economic and global uncertainty,
investors were in full flight from risky assets. But the U.S. dollar and
world stocks began to steady in the European morning on Wednesday,
having been hammered overnight.
Trump collected enough of the 270 state-by-state electoral votes needed
to win a four-year term that starts on Jan. 20, taking battleground
states where presidential elections are traditionally decided, U.S.
television networks projected.
He appeared with his family 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."
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."
Republicans also kept control of Congress. Television networks projected
the party would retain majorities in both the 100-seat U.S. Senate and
the U.S. House of Representatives, where all 435 seats were up for
grabs.
At Clinton's election event at the Javits conference center a mile away
from Trump's event, an electric atmosphere among supporters expecting a
Clinton win slowly grew grim as her losses piled up.
Clinton opted not to appear at her event, instead sending campaign
chairman John Podesta out to tell her supporters to go home. "We're not
going to have anything more to say tonight," he said.
Clinton was expected to speak on Wednesday morning, an aide said.
Prevailing in a cliffhanger race that opinion polls had clearly forecast
as favoring a Clinton victory, Trump won avid support among a core base
of white non-college educated workers with his promise to be the
"greatest jobs president that God ever created."
In his victory speech, he said he had a great economic plan, would
embark on a project to rebuild American infrastructure and would double
U.S. economic growth.
His win raises a host of questions for the United States at home and
abroad. He campaigned on a pledge to take the country on a more
isolationist, protectionist "America First" path. He has vowed to impose
a 35 percent tariff on goods exported to the United States by U.S.
companies that went abroad.
Trump, who at 70 will be the oldest first-term U.S. president, came out
on top after a bitter and divisive campaign that focused largely on the
character of the candidates and whether they could be trusted to serve
as the country's 45th president.
The presidency will be Trump's first elected office, and it remains to
be seen how he will work with Congress. During the campaign Trump was
the target of sharp disapproval, not just from Democrats but from many
in his own party.
STUNNED WORLD
Countries around the world reacted with stunned disbelief.
German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, an ally of Chancellor
Angela Merkel, described the result as a "huge shock" and questioned
whether it meant the end of "Pax Americana", the state of relative peace
overseen by Washington that has governed international relations since
World War Two.
Neighbor Mexico was pitched into deep uncertainty by the victory for
Trump who has often accused it of stealing U.S. jobs and sending
criminals across the border.
British Prime Minister Theresa May congratulated Trump and said the two
countries would remain "strong and close partners on trade, security and
defense."
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called on Washington to
stay committed to last year's international nuclear deal with Iran,
which Trump has threatened to rip up.
Trump's national security ideas have simultaneously included promises to
build up the U.S. military while at the same time avoiding foreign
military entanglements.
He wants to rewrite international trade deals to reduce trade deficits
and has taken positions that raise the possibility of damaging relations
with America's most trusted allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Trump has promised to warm relations with Russia that have chilled under
President Barack Obama over Russian President Vladimir Putin's
intervention in the Syrian civil war and his seizure of Ukraine's Crimea
region.
Putin sent Trump a congratulatory note on Wednesday, saying he hoped
that they can get the U.S.-Russian relationship out of crisis.
CLINTON'S WEAKNESSES
Trump entered the race 17 months ago and survived a series of seemingly
crippling blows, many of them self-inflicted, including the emergence in
October of a 2005 video in which he boasted about making unwanted sexual
advances on women. He apologized but within days, several women emerged
to say he had groped them, allegations he denied. He was judged the
loser of all three presidential debates with Clinton.
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President-elect Donald Trump greets supporters along with his wife
Melania and family during his election night rally in Manhattan, New
York, U.S., November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar
A Reuters/Ipsos national Election Day poll offered some clues to the
outcome. It found Clinton underperformed expectations with women,
winning their vote by only about 7 percent, similar to Obama when he
won re-election in 2012.
And while she won Hispanics, black and millennial 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 percent of those voters in 2012.
During the campaign, Trump said he would "make America great again"
through the force of his personality, negotiating skill and business
acumen. He proposed refusing entry to the United States of people
from war-torn Middle Eastern countries, a modified version of an
earlier proposed ban on Muslims.
His volatile nature, frequent insults and unorthodox proposals led
to campaign feuds with a long list of people, including Muslims, the
disabled, Republican U.S. Senator John McCain, Fox News anchor Megyn
Kelly, the family of a slain Muslim-American soldier, a Miss
Universe winner and a federal judge of Mexican heritage.
A largely anti-Trump crowd of about 400 to 500 people gathered
outside the White House after his victory, many visibly in shock or
tears. Some carried signs that read "stand up to racism" and "love
trumps hate."
The election was unprecedented in the way it turned Americans
against each other, according to dozens of interviews in rural
United States and across some of the most politically charged
battleground states.
Throughout his campaign - and especially in his acceptance speech at
the Republican National Convention in July - Trump described a dark
America that had been knocked to its knees by China, Mexico, Russia
and Islamic State. The American dream was dead, he said, smothered
by malevolent business interests and corrupt politicians, and he
alone could revive it.
He has vowed to win economic concessions from China and to build a
wall on the southern U.S. border with Mexico to keep out
undocumented immigrants.
As financial markets absorbed the prospect of Trump's win, the
Mexican peso plunged to its lowest-ever levels. The peso had become
a touchstone for sentiment on the election as Trump threatened to
rip up a free trade agreement with Mexico.
His triumph was a rebuke to Obama, a Democrat who spent weeks flying
around the country to campaign against him, repeatedly casting doubt
on his suitability for the White House. Obama will hand over the
office to Trump after serving the maximum eight years allowed by
law.
Trump promises to push Congress to repeal Obama's troubled
healthcare plan and to reverse his Clean Power Plan. He plans to
create jobs by relying on U.S. fossil fuels such as oil and gas.
CLINTON'S FAILED SECOND BID
Trump's victory marked a frustrating end to the presidential
aspirations of Clinton, 69, who failed for the second time to be
elected the first woman U.S. president.
In a posting on Twitter during Tuesday evening, she acknowledged a
battle that was unexpectedly tight given her edge in opinion polls
going into Election Day.
"This team has so much to be proud of. Whatever happens tonight,
thank you for everything," she tweeted.
The wife of former President Bill Clinton, she held a steady lead in
many opinion polls for months. Voters perceived in her a cautious
and calculating candidate and an inability to personally connect
with them.
Even though the FBI found no grounds for criminal charges after a
probe into her use of a private email server rather than a
government system while she was secretary of state, the issue
allowed critics to raise doubts about her integrity. Hacked emails
also showed a cozy relationship between her State Department and
donors to her family's Clinton Foundation charity.
Trump seized on the emails to charge that Clinton represented a
corrupt political system in Washington that had to be swept clean.
(Writing by John Whitesides and Alistair Bell; Additional reporting
by Amanda Becker, Emily Stephenson and Christopher Kahn in New York,
Letitia Stein in St. Petersburg, Florida, Luciana Lopez in Miami,
Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem and Kim Palmer in Ohio; Editing by
Howard Goller and Frances Kerry)
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