Donald
Trump officially crossed the line to 270 electoral votes with electors
in Texas casting a ballot for the Republican shortly before 5:30 p.m.
EST.
Calls
for Trump to be voted down by members of the Electoral College were
roundly ignored on Monday – with only two 'faithless' Republican
electors rejecting the president-elect and four deserting Democrat
Hillary Clinton.
Several
more electors tried to ditch the Democratic loser, in an effort to
pressure Republicans into doing the same and selecting a more moderate
GOP president.
Trump applauded his victory when that scheme didn't work and flaunted it in front of the media.
'Today
marks a historic electoral landslide victory in our nation's
democracy,' he said in a statement to reporters. 'I thank the American
people for their overwhelming vote to elect me as their next President
of the United States.'
'The
official votes cast by the Electoral College exceeded the 270 required
to secure the presidency by a very large margin, far greater than ever
anticipated by the media,' he added.
He
also took to Twitter to confirm his victory, writing: 'We did it! Thank
you to all of my great supporters, we just officially won the election
(despite all of the distorted and inaccurate media).'
Congress will certify the Electoral College vote on January 6 and Trump will be sworn in on January 20.
David
Bright of Maine was supposed to back the Democratic loser but announced
he would defy the wishes of the state's voters and back Bernie Sanders,
her primary opponent.
He was later told he'd be replaced by another elector if he made that move, so decided to vote Clinton instead.
In Minnesota an elector who was supposed to choose Clinton refused to vote and got replaced.
Another
'faithless' elector, this time in Colorado, got replaced when he cast a
vote for John Kasich instead of Hillary Clinton.
President-elect Donald Trump, spending
the holidays at Mar-a-Lago, sent out a statement calling his win a
'historic electoral landslide'
The
elector, Micheal Baca, was a prominent Democratic 'Hamilton elector,'
who was encouraging his GOP peers to unbind themselves from their
state's popular vote winner and choose a more conventional Republican
than Trump.
Because
Colorado makes its delegates pledge to support the state's popular vote
winner – Clinton, in this case – Baca was forced out of the Electoral
College and replaced by someone who cast one of the nine pro-Clinton
votes for the state.
In
Washington state, four electors broke away from Clinton, with some of
the votes going to former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Washington
was where other Democratic 'Hamilton electors' said they would vote
across the aisle in hopes that Republicans would follow suit.
Another
vote that was supposed to go to Clinton reportedly went to Faith
Spotted Eagle, a Native American environmentalist protesting against the
Dakota Access Pipeline.
In
contrast, as the votes were cast in a series of states in the east, the
mid-west and the south, just two Texas electors deserted Trump, with
one voting for Kasich and another choosing former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a
libertarian leader who ran for the White House twice.
His son, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, ran against Trump in 2016.
With so few
electors rebelling, that left a Harvard professor's claims that as many
as 20 Republican electors could go faithless look like nonsense – and
put Trump in cruise control to the White House.
It also left protests by die-hard anti-Trump activists taking place outside some state houses and capitols looking futile.
By
1:10 p.m. EST Electors from Pennsylvania, North Carolina Ohio and
Louisiana had given Republican Donald Trump 134 of the 270 electoral
votes required to formally win the presidency.
Four hours later, Trump was at 268 electoral votes, while Clinton held 166.
By 5:30 p.m., Trump's journey to the White House was complete.
Congress will certify the Electoral College vote on January 6 and Trump will be sworn in on January 20.
Trump
was poised to win 306 of the 538 electoral votes under the
state-by-state distribution of electors used to choose presidents since
1789.
With Hawaii, a blue state, still yet to vote, Trump had 304 and Clinton had 224.
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