WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris, in her first public comments since losing the 2024 White House race to former President Trump, urged supporters to ‘accept the results.’ 

But Harris on Wednesday afternoon emphasized that ‘while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign.’

The vice president spoke at Howard University, her alma mater, where her campaign held a large election night watch party. Harris never addressed the crowd on Tuesday night, as initial optimism about the election turned dour as the clock struck past midnight.

Trump ended up winning a sweeping electoral and popular vote victory over Harris, as Republicans won back the Senate for the first time in four years. Meanwhile, control of the House was still up for grabs on the day after the election.

The vice president, who walked to the podium one last time to Beyonce’s ‘Freedom,’ the song that had become Harris’ unofficial anthem, noted near the top of her roughly 12-minute address that ‘my heart is full today.’

‘The outcome of this election is not what we hoped, not what we fought, not what we voted for,’ she said. ‘But hear when I say… the light of America’s promise will always burn bright as long as we never give up and as long as we keep fighting.’

The vice president also seemed to take aim at Trump, who for four years has blamed his 2020 White House loss to President Biden on unproven claims of a ‘rigged election’ and who repeatedly tried unsuccessfully to overturn the results. 

‘Earlier today I spoke with President-elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory,’ Harris said. ‘I also told him we will help him and his team with their transition and that we will engage in a peaceful transfer of power.’

She emphasized that ‘a fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results… anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it.’

The vice president also stressed that ‘we owe loyalty not to a president or a party but to the Constitution of the United States.’

Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney, California attorney general and U.S. senator, ran unsuccessfully for the 2020 presidential nomination. But Biden named his primary rival as his running mate and the two have spent the past four years steering the nation.

Harris, for most of the 2024 election cycle, was the dutiful running mate as Biden bid for a second four-year term in the White House.

But everything changed in late June, due to Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump.

The 81-year-old Biden’s halting and stumbling delivery fueled questions about his physical and mental ability to serve another four years in the White House. And it sparked calls from within the Democratic Party for Biden to drop out of the White House race.

The president finally succumbed to the pressure and on July 21, in a blockbuster announcement that rocked the 2024 election, Biden ended his bid and endorsed his vice president.

The Democratic Party quickly coalesced around Harris, who instantly enjoyed a jump in the polls and a massive surge in fundraising.

The Harris honeymoon continued through the late August Democratic National Convention and into September, when most pundits declared her the winner of the one and only presidential debate between her and Trump. 

But as the calendar moved from September into October, Trump appeared to regain his footing, and public opinion surveys indicated the former president gaining momentum. 

Then, in the final days of the campaign, the mood and the vibe appeared to switch again, this time to Harris, who closed out her White House bid on a positive note and didn’t mention Trump’s name during the last 48 hours leading up to Election Day. 

Meanwhile, Trump struck a more negative and angrier tone on the campaign trail as he crisscrossed the key battleground states in the stretch run.

Harris, in her concession speech on Wednesday, appeared to paint a contrast with Trump.

‘I am so proud of the race we ran and the way we ran … over the 107 days of this campaign,’ Harris said. ‘We have been intentional about building community and building coalitions, bringing people together.’

But the former president ended up with a sweeping victory, as Americans returned him to the White House.

Preliminary data from the Fox News Voter Analysis of the 2024 election pointed to a political realignment, as it spotlighted that Trump ran up the score with his MAGA base while narrowing traditional Democratic advantages among Black, Hispanic and young voters. 

Harris came close in her bid to become the first woman elected to the presidency, but was unable to make enough gains in the ideological middle of the electorate to offset defections among groups that traditionally vote Democratic. 

The Fox News Voter Analysis is a survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide which highlights the 2024 campaign’s key dynamics. 

Just as damaging: Harris wasn’t able to escape the massive unpopularity of the Biden/Harris administration, where polls indicated that nearly three quarters of voters said the country was on the wrong track.

The Fox News Voter Analysis spotlighted that in an election where voters across the nation wanted change, they chose Trump’s outsider appeal over Harris’ promise to ‘turn the page’ on the Trump era. 

Fox News’ Dana Blanton and Victoria Balara contributed to this report

In the wake of former President Trump’s historic win projected by the Fox News Decision Desk, several winners and losers of the 2024 election have become clear.

Here are those who came out on top on Election Day and those who didn’t quite meet expectations.

Winners

Trump defied all expectations, even some of the more conservative-leaning estimates of the 2024 election. By notable margins, Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in several key battleground states, being projected by the Fox News Decision Desk to win the election by amassing the necessary 270 electoral votes before a number of other top swing states had been called.

Trump’s top of the ticket projected victory was followed by significant victories for Republicans across the board. Senate Republicans were projected by the Fox News Decision Desk to retake the majority in the Senate in 2025, racking up wins in West Virginia, Ohio and Montana, which were previously blue. There are still multiple outstanding Senate races in swing states, giving the party hope for an even larger majority. 

Losers

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is one of the biggest losers in this particular election, as voters decisively removed his party from the majority in the upper chamber. He will instead lead the minority in the new Congress. Democrats suffered projected losses in West Virginia, Ohio and Montana, effectively killing any chance they had of keeping the majority. They also failed to flip any of their Republican targets, such as Texas or Florida. There are still several Senate races in swing states yet to be called that could increase the GOP’s majority over them.

Political polls failed to accurately predict the projected decisive victory Trump saw in the 2024 election. The RealClearPolitics polling averages underestimated the former president, putting him behind Harris in swing states that he was projected to win and showing Trump leading by a smaller margin than he ultimately did in other battlegrounds. A respected Iowa pollster’s results predicted the state would be led by Harris, and ended up being off by double digits as Trump took Iowa.

As a whole, the Democratic Party was dealt a devastating blow by voters across the country. Not only was their presidential nominee categorically rejected by the American people, but the implications of that loss further dragged down candidates across the board, per the Fox News Decision Desk’s projections. Incumbent senators in some swing states are in battles for their political lives that could take days to resolve. This comes as the party has already lost two blue-held seats in Ohio and Montana. Republicans in the House are also feeling bullish that they could complete the GOP trifecta in Washington, D.C.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ abiding silence following President-elect Trump’s victory suggests an inability to step up as a leader for her base, legal scholars say.

The Democratic nominee has not yet spoken to her supporters, nor encouraged them to accept the election results, since Trump was named the victor of the 2024 presidential race early Wednesday morning. Two sources confirmed to Fox that the Harris campaign was radio silent Wednesday morning and did not provide talking points to surrogates, donors or influencers. 

The vice president is expected to deliver remarks at Howard University at 4 p.m. EST on Wednesday, where she will address Americans for the first time since losing the presidential race to Trump. However, analysts say she should not have waited until the afternoon after the election to address her base.

Jonathan Turley, a legal scholar and a Fox News contributor, said Trump’s clear path to victory should have prompted her to concede sooner.

‘The true test of leadership is to step forward when it is most needed. Half of this population is deeply aggrieved by this decision. Part of that angst and anxiety was fueled by the rage rhetoric and panic politics on the left, including the Harris campaign,’ Turley told Fox News Digital. 

‘Just as voters were going to the polls, the New York governor declared a majority of voters to be ‘unAmerican.’ This is the call of leadership to step forward and acknowledge the victory. There are no major challenges or questions. The election is over,’ Turley added. ‘The only remaining matter is a concession. It has to be more than an afterthought in the late afternoon the following day. It needs to be rendered when it is most needed.’

Legal analyst Andy McCarthy, a FOX News contributor and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, suggested that remaining out of sight since the election results is a ‘graceless’ misstep.

‘I’d just conclude that this is yet another indication – among countless indications – that she was neither substantively nor temperamentally up to the presidency,’ McCarthy told Fox News Digital. ‘There is no apparent legal strategy at work. She is simply being graceless and suggesting that she and her team do not know what to do… even though what to do is obvious: concede, congratulate the new president, and pledge to cooperate in an efficient transition.’

‘I think this has less to do with democracy per se than with Harris’s lacking a grasp of American democratic tradition,’ McCarthy continued. ‘Perhaps she figures Trump doesn’t rate consideration due to his refusal to accept the 2020 election results. But if that’s the case, it’s not sensible, it’s spiteful.’

Harris was not present at her victory event at Howard University on Tuesday night, which came to an abrupt end ahead of Trump being named the winner of the presidential race.

Despite not making any public appearances or remarks since election night, Harris reportedly called Trump to congratulate him on winning the race ahead of her speech Wednesday afternoon, according to a senior Harris aide.

Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich contributed to this report.

A Democratic congressman from New York recently blamed progressives for President-elect Trump’s victory this week, arguing that far-left causes actually disenchant certain voters.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., claimed that his party has ‘alienated historic numbers’ of minority voters in an X (former Twitter)  post on Wednesday. Torres, a vocal supporter of Israel, pointed fingers at pro-Palestinian protests as one of the causes – as well as the movement to defund police.

‘Donald Trump has no greater friend than the far left, which has managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like ‘Defund the Police’ or ‘From the River to the Sea’ or ‘Latinx,’ Torres wrote.

‘There is more to lose than there is to gain politically from pandering to a far left that is more representative of Twitter, Twitch, and TikTok than it is of the real world,’ the Democrat added. ‘The working class is not buying the ivory-towered nonsense that the far left is selling.’

Torres’ comments came in the aftermath of the initial 2024 election results, which found that Vice President Harris had less favorability among Latino and Hispanic voters than President Biden did in 2020.

According to a Fox News Voter Analysis, Biden garnered 63% of Latino support in 2020 while Harris only had 54% this year.

Another Fox News Voter Analysis found that support for Trump among Latino and Hispanic voters jumped from 35% in 2020 to 41% in 2024.

The shift came days after the Trump campaign was criticized for hosting comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at a high-profile Oct. 27 rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The comedian made an inflammatory joke about Puerto Rico being a ‘floating island of garbage,’ prompting an outcry.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., attempted to use Hinchliffe’s joke as an opportunity to sway the Latino community shortly after he uttered the remark.

‘That’s just what they think about you,’ the congresswoman said during a Twitch stream. ‘It’s what they think about anyone who makes less money than them. It’s what they think about the people who serve them food in a restaurant. It’s what they think about the people who, who fold their clothes in a store.’

The White House is ushering in a new era with the election of a second Trump presidency with Usha Vance set to become the first Indian American second lady in the White House.

Vance, who is the daughter of Indian immigrants, will also be the first Hindu second lady.

Vice President-elect JD Vance credited his ‘beautiful wife for making it possible to do this’ after the big win.

‘THANK YOU! To my beautiful wife for making it possible to do this,’ he wrote on X. ‘To President Donald J. Trump, for giving me such an opportunity to serve our country at this level. And to the American people, for their trust. I will never stop fighting for ALL of you.’

The attorney has been married to JD since 2014 and they have three children together: sons, Ewan, 6, and Vivek, 4, and a daughter, Mirabel, 2.

Before law school, Vance received a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale and a master’s in philosophy from the University of Cambridge.

She completed multiple clerkships after her graduation from Yale, according to an Axios report, including for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he was serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Vance made headlines during the Republican National Committee in July.

‘My background is very different from JD’s. I grew up in San Diego, in a middle-class community, with two loving parents, both immigrants from India, and a wonderful sister,’ she said. ‘That JD and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry, is a testament to this great country.’

Fox News’ Yael Horan contributed to this report.

After Vice President Kamala Harris’s speech on Wednesday conceding her loss to President-elect Trump in the 2024 race, President Biden issued a statement saying that selecting Harris as his running mate was the ‘best decision’ he made.

In a written statement, Biden said Harris stepped up to lead a ‘historic campaign’ under ‘extraordinary circumstances.’

Harris’ campaign, Biden said, ’embodied what’s possible when guided by a strong moral compass and a clear vision for a nation that is more free, more just, and full of more opportunities for all Americans.’

Biden said selecting Harris was the first decision he made after he became the nominee for president in 2020.

‘It was the best decision I made. Her story represents the best of America’s story. And as she made clear today, I have no doubt that she’ll continue writing that story,’ Biden said. 

The statement came shortly after Harris told supporters at her alma mater, Howard University, that she had lost her race against Trump. 

‘The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for,’ Harris said. ‘But hear me when I say, the light of America’s promise will always burn bright, as long as we never give up and as long as we keep fighting.’

Harris had planned to address Wednesday’s audience on Election Night with a more upbeat message to deliver. 

Instead, when Harris took the stage, she looked out at a sea of American flags and notably forlorn faces. She was flanked by 30 American flags.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President-elect Donald Trump succeeded early in the morning on Wednesday, and defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race for the White House.

Trump will take office for a second time in January.

The only other presidential candidate in history to win the presidency non-consecutively was Grover Cleveland, who was elected as the 22nd and 24th U.S. president.

Cleveland, born into a large family as one of nine children in New Jersey, according to WhiteHouse.gov., was raised in New York.

The former president studied law and became a lawyer before taking public office as mayor of Buffalo in 1881, according to WhiteHouse.gov.

Cleveland became the Democrat U.S. presidential candidate in 1884, while he was serving as the governor of New York. He was the first Democrat elected president after the Civil War, defeating his Republican opponent, Sen. James G. Blaine of Maine.

During his first term in office, he faced criticism for his veto of private pension bills for Civil War veterans, according to NPR.

Also during his first term, a proposed bill to provide Texas farmers with $10,000 in federal funds to be used for seed grain was brought to the floor, which he vetoed, according to the New York Post.

Cleveland called for Congress to reduce high protective tariffs from the Civil War, according to the Associated Press, and signed the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887, which established federal regulation of an industry for the first time through its regulation of railroads, according to NPR. 

During his first term in office, Frances Folsom, who was 21 at the time, became the first lady with her marriage to Cleveland. To this day, Cleveland is the only president to be married inside the White House. 

Four years after becoming president, Cleveland was up for re-election. He campaigned against Republican Benjamin Harrison but was unsuccessful in his bid to return to the White House.

Cleveland won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College to his Republican opponent.

‘He began the race without a campaign manager; delegated most of the electioneering responsibilities to his running mate, Allen Thurman, who, at the age of 74, was not healthy enough to withstand the rigors of campaigning; and based the entire race around his proposal to reduce tariffs, which divided his own Democratic Party and unified the Republicans in opposition,’ presidential historian Troy Senik told History.com. 

In 1892, there was a rematch between Cleveland and Harrison, and Cleveland came out victorious, making him the first to return to the White House for a non-consecutive term.

Cleveland was the only president to hold this distinction until Trump accomplished a similar feat.

Trump was first elected as president in 2016, when he beat his Democrat opponent, Hillary Clinton. Trump lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote to win the presidential race.

Trump’s success stems from a background in business as a real estate developer, rather than politics.

In July 2016, Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president, was elected on Nov. 8, 2016, and was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017. 

His first term in office included policies like tax cuts, energy independence, military expansion, improved health care for veterans and security of the southern border.

Also during his first term, Trump appointed federal judges, including three U.S. Supreme Court judges, and signed legislation to create the Space Force, the first new armed service since 1947, according to the U.S. Department of Defense’s website.

In 2020, Trump faced Democrat challenger Joe Biden for the White House and lost the election.

After years removed from the presidency, Trump began a campaign for re-election. He announced his third run for office in the days after the 2022 midterm elections and began two more years of campaigning.

Initially, Trump and Biden were campaigning against one another again. However, in July 2024, now-President Biden announced an end to his re-election bid and endorsed his vice president, Harris, as the Democrat nominee.

Trump defeated Harris in the 2024 presidential election, becoming president-elect. Trump is now the 45th and 47th U.S. president.

‘I want to thank you all very much,’ Trump said in an address to the American people during the early morning hours Wednesday, after the results of Election Day. ‘This is great. These are our friends. We have thousands of friends in this incredible movement. This is a movement like nobody’s ever seen before; I believe the greatest political movement of all time.’

‘I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected the 47th president,’ Trump continued. ‘And every citizen, I will fight for you, for your family and your future. Every single day, I will be fighting for you. And with every breath in my body, I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve.’