ABC News projects Donald Trump as winner of 2024 presidential election

Former President Donald Trump is projected to win the presidential race by ABC News, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in a frenzied contest to stage an improbable historic comeback.

Trump ended up with at least 279 electoral votes after clinching wins in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin. Harris has won at least 219 votes. The race was marked by literal history, including two assassination attempts and 34 felony convictions against Trump, already having been impeached twice and faulted for mismanaging the COVID-19 pandemic response.

Maybe even more memorable was President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race after a ruinous June debate in which he struggled at times to form sentences.

Trump’s victory underscores just how deep voters’ frustrations were surrounding inflation and immigration, Republicans’ two top issues this election cycle as polls consistently showed Americans’ unhappiness with how Biden handled them.

His return to the White House also suggests that Democrats were not motivated enough by the prospect of electing the first female president and that its base’s fury over the Supreme Court’s revocation of constitutional abortion protections has waned since 2022.

For Trump personally, the win offers both political vindication and legal protection. Since his win, he and his brand were soundly rejected in 2018, 2020 and 2022. And once in office, he’d be able to undermine criminal cases against him surrounding his handling of classified documents while out of office and efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

“I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president,” Trump said in his victory speech.

Check back for updates in this developing story. CLICK HERE for the latest election results.