Trump wins Arizona, sealing Harris’s defeat in all 7 battleground states

US President-elect Donald Trump has won the election in Arizona, defeating his Democratic rival Kamala Harris in all seven battleground states.

Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia are usually considered the battleground or swing states.

The victory in Arizona took Trump’s electoral college tally to 312 against 226 of Vice President Harris. Arizona holds 11 electoral college votes.

Republicans regain control of Senate

The Republican Party has regained control of the Senate and is all set to retain a majority in the House of Representatives.

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Currently, the party has 52 seats in the Senate and the Democrats have 47.

In the House, Republicans have so far won 216 seats against 209 of the Democrats. The majority mark is 218. Republicans are confident that they will get the necessary number of seats to cross the halfway mark.

Focus on illegal immigrants resonated in Arizona

In 2020, President Joe Biden became the first Democrat to win Arizona since Bill Clinton in 1996. Trump has now flipped it back.

He campaigned heavily on border security, immigration and crime committed by illegal immigrants on the trail, all issues that resonated in the state with a record influx of migrants last year.

Trump pledged mass deportations, promoted hiring an additional 10,000 border agents to patrol the US-Mexico border and promised to use some of the military budget for border funding.

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Arizona is the sixth state Trump has flipped from Biden’s Electoral College victory in 2020.

The other Biden-won states where Trump prevailed this year are Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump also won North Carolina, a state he carried narrowly in 2020.

Biden invites Trump to White House

Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States on January 20.

Outgoing President Biden has invited him for a meeting at the White House on November 13, which would formally begin the presidential transition.

“At President Biden’s invitation, President Biden and President-elect Trump will meet in the Oval Office on Wednesday at 11:00 am,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

The meeting between the outgoing president and the incoming one is ceremonial and is seeped into decades old tradition. It is generally held in the Oval Office during which the outgoing president gives the president-elect a briefing about the key agenda of the country.

(With agency inputs)