US Correspondent Logan Church reports from Florida at the end of a long presidential campaign.
And it is over. We have a new President-elect. The Democrats are licking their wounds. I don’t think anyone – on either side – thought Donald Trump’s victory would be so quick and certain. The United States and the rest of the world is now trying to work out what a President Donald Trump 2.0 means for them.
This also means that this series of diary entries is over. I’ve written them at a desk, on a train, sitting in a tree, sitting in the passenger seat of a car while my cameraman Nayte drives (he was an absolute trooper), sitting in a cockroach infested half built cigarette smelling motel in Danville, Virgina, and probably a dozen other places that at this point I’m too tired to remember.
US Correspondent Logan Church takes a look at who Trump is and his political journey to the top job for a second time. (Source: 1News)
But before we close this out, a couple of final thoughts, having probably spent more time than any other Kiwi on the ground in America talking to voters.
Firstly, while this was a tight and hard fought race, I’m not particularly surprised that Donald Trump won.
The reason, you ask? Because despite all the crazy things he’s said (like claiming migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets because he saw someone talking about it on television), his somewhat divisive language about migrants in general, his supporters' assault on democracy on Jan 6, 2021, his court cases and felony convictions, and his propensity to just blatantly lie – there is a kernel of truth at the heart of Trump’s campaign that the Democrats just couldn’t overcome.
That truth is that Americans believe their lives have been getting harder, the world more dangerous – they don’t like that, and they want change.
Almost everyone I spoke during the course of our 1News election coverage – Democrat, Republican, or otherwise – agreed that they were finding it harder to make ends meet. They looked on at the situation in the Middle East with despair, and concern about the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Most importantly, they didn’t think a continuation of the status quo under Joe Biden was the answer.
Solid platform
They, of course, disagreed what that answer was, but ultimately this was a campaign platform so solid that the Democrats could barely put a crack in it.
The American people wanted change – and they got it.
“He’s the only one who can turn the world around, he’ll just do it – and within a few weeks,” said one Trump supporter I spoke to outside the President-elect's Mar a Lago home in West Palm Beach.
But in terms of the race itself, it was quite unlike anything we’d ever seen in modern US political history – in part because both sides ultimately ran campaigns based off fear. For Trump, he created fear around migrants, Biden (and by extension Kamala Harris), and the government (particularly the courts), and for Harris, her campaign ran heavily on fear of Trump and his MAGA supporters.
Is fear of the other side a healthy way to start any sort of civil discourse? I suspect many here in the United States will be analysing this over the coming weeks, months and years.
Over the course of covering this election I was constantly asked by Americans whether New Zealand “liked” Trump or Harris more.
I always gave them the same answer – and that is our politics are wildly different. The issues in America are most often not the issues in New Zealand. That our last election was contested by two middle-aged men called Chris.
That our politicians – for the most part – treat each other with some level of basic respect. Everyday Kiwis did too. That America is not New Zealand, and most Kiwis don’t seem to want their country to become it – at least when it comes to politics.
Perhaps I’m an idealist, but being away from home this long has made me proud of our independent little country at the bottom of the Pacific.
But there is still a lot to come here, of course. For Donald Trump, his transition team has 75 days before his inauguration in late January 2025 to get the work of the second Trump presidency underway. We’ll be covering every development on 1News and TVNZ+
But for now, that’s it folks. I’m leaving West Palm Beach tomorrow and heading back home to New York. Thanks for following along these recent months. It’s been great sharing it with y’all. Yes, I’ve started sounding like that in real life.
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