this will truly be the golden age of america. that's what we have tonight. this is a magnificent victory for the american people that will allow us to make america great again. >> we welcome you to a special edition of "cbs mornings." donald trump will be the 47th president of the united states. that's according to our cbs news projection. donald trump is the first president since grover cleveland to be elected to non-consecutive terms. he will also become the oldest president ever sworn into office beating president biden's mark of 78 years old in 2021 by just a few months. >> trump needed 270 electoral

college votes to defeat vice president kamala harris, and he's done it. in the end, the race was not as close as many predicted, with trump not only beating harris in key battleground states but winning the popular vote, something he has never done before, and as we showed you at the top, the former president, celebrated last night at his mar-a-lago estate. he will also hold the senate, has flipped to republican control. the house is a toss up and of course he has a conservative majority on supreme court as well. >> well, tony dokoupil had a late night and an early morning. he's across from mar-a-lago, he's in west palm beach this morning. tony, good evening, good morning, what can you tell us? what is the latest there? >> reporter: gayle, you and me both, what a late night, and what a moment in american history, really a wow moment in american history, one of the greatest comebacks in political history as many people put it to

me last night. a twice impeached four times indicted once convicted candidate now appears or is at this point the president-elect of the united states for a second time. and inside that trump watch party headquarters i noticed the first bubbles of excitement of exuberance around 9:00 p.m. there was dancing full on on the floor by 11:00 p.m. and after the network started projecting pennsylvania, and then wisconsin in donald trump's favor, pure joy from his supporters. i asked people to summarize how they were feeling in one word. i got one person telling me fantastic. another relieved, still another, vindicated, and then of course they heard from the now president-elect himself. >> we overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible. and it is thousand clear that we've achieved the most incredible political, look what happened. is this crazy? >> donald john trump addressed his supporters just before 2:30 this morning emerging to a huge

round of applause after a night that seemed to break his way early and often. >> i want to thank the american people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president. i think that we just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the united states of america. >> likely vice president to be j.d. vance promised that this political comeback for the ages would now become an economic comeback for america. trump's crowd of watch night faithful included the ceo of the ultimate fighting championship dana white who called the apparent victory vindication. >> this is what happens when the machine comes after you. >> meanwhile, earlier in the night, vice president kamala harris declined to address her own election night watch party at her alma mater, howard university, leaving her campaign codirector to break the news to an already thinning crowd. >> we will continue overnilght o

fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken. so you won't hear from the vice president tonight. >> a night that began with cautious optimism curdled into something else entirely after harris was projected to lose key battleground states like north carolina and georgia. georgia, where secretary of state brad raffensperger called the race for trump before 11:00 p.m. even as the former president still faces felony charges there for his alleged attempts to overturn georgia's 2020 results. that is one of several now uncertain cases against trump, including federal charges tied to his alleged efforts to block certification of the last presidential election. as for what now, well, he said he would fire the special counsel, leading that investigation. he's also promised the mass expulsion of undocumented

immigrants. >> on day one, i will launch the largest deportation program of criminals in american history, plus stepped up tariffs on foreign countries and a public health related cabinet role for former third party candidate, robert f. kennedy jr., a figure known for antivaccine rhetoric. about his claim to act like a dictator for a day, his first day in office, well, you can expect him to green light more drilling for oil. but for now, as most americans say the country has been headed in the wrong direction, there was an appeal to unity. >> we're going to help our country heal. we're going to help our country heal. we have a country that needs help and it needs help very badly. >> i'm happy to say with me in florida is our tireless cbs news

reporter, you have been following donald trump from the very beginning, been to more rallies, than i would say anybody on the cbs team, you're in a unique position to answer the questions on a lot of people's minds right now, how did they do this? >> their signature ground game started back in iowa. different than anything we had seen before. the trump campaign deputized people that were super fans, trump loyalists, people that were volunteers, essentially worked going door to door within communities. if they reached ten voters and were able to get them to turn out for trump, they were given a reward, a t-shirt, a hat, the next tier, if they got 24 voters, they would get expedited into a rally. a specific hat, a trump team captain hat. i would see those in separate ral ralliesment by doing that, they were able to tap into local communities, using people they know were trump faithful voters. they were able to get to the low propensity voters, people that

wouldn't tick out in a normal election, able to galvanize the vote, get them to turn out. that's where you see the rural vote, really skyrocketing in this election. >> olivia, i knew the election was going in a direction positive for donald trump, when you told me you were inside the campaign, and they were looking at the exit polls gleefully, it ended up for him that way. thank you for your work this campaign season. you can rest, i can say. and i'll send it back to you all in new york, as maybe both of us pass out on what has been a very long night. in fact, with the breaking news, you may have noticed in my story, we haven't updated the track. president-elect donald trump or apparent likely president-elect donald trump. all that has changed. >> tony dokoupil tirelessly reporting for us from florida this morning where he has been all night. thank you, we'll talk to you later. joined by cbs news director of elections and chief

washington correspondent, major garrett. good morning to you both. all right. so fellows, break it down for us. how did trump pull this off? >> we're going to do a couple of things this morning. anthony is going to walk through three states that so far the f former if former president flipped in this election cycle. i'm going to give exit poll data to explain the story. let's start in georgia, anthony. >> from the point of view of the data desk, it was a story of consistency. donald trump hitting his marks with the people that he needed to win. so you can see it on this map, all of these rural areas in red. now, what i'm going to show you, they are going to be big. you can see them on tv, right? i want to show you the way in which this vote changed from 2020. in many cases across especially rural parts of the state, he did a couple of points better than he did in 2020. hitting his targets with rural voters, evangelical voters, go

for it, major. >> that's where we bring in the exit poll data to reinforce what you're seeing visually here. among conservative voters, self-identified conservatives, trump did 4 points better this cycle than 2020. white evangelicals, 5 points better than 2020. white and no college education, about even. for those first two categories, the arrows and the exit polls tell the story. anthony, let's go to pennsylvania. >> everybody watched this going in, i want to show you because we always went out and talked to voters in and around the philadelphia area and then up into the lehigh valley, a lot of white working class voters, suburban voters, now the key here, what i'm going to do is show you the 2020 vote, okay. and compare that in the area, and then watch what happens as major, i'll hit it. >> watch this area here, it's kind of more red, in 2020, it was kind of more blue.

it came back a little more later red, a little more blue. that tells you that donald trump just enough swung some of those suburbs this year. >> and let's lay over the exit polls, explain what happened to the democratic coalition and it's perfectly illustrated by you just saw in eastern pennsylvania. among latino voters. kamala harris shed support, as compared to joe biden, president biden in 2020.pamong young votes well as president biden did in 2020, and even among women, slightly worse in 2024 for vice president harris than joe biden's performance c. that is the cracking of the democratic coalition, which showed up in lots of battleground states, but most especially it showed up in the leakage seen here in eastern pennsylvania. now, let's round this out, anthony, let's go to wisconsin. >> yep, wisconsin, we called this late into the night, even into the early morning hours. what we were waiting for was

milwaukee. that's part of the tail here, which is to say that democrats need to do well in a couple of key counties in wisconsin. in dane county around madison, and then in milwaukee here. and what you saw, and i'll compare this to 2020, was that harris got just slightly fewer votes than joe biden but she needed even more because same story, donald trump had run up the score all throughout the rest of the state, again, with that consistency and that's how he hit his marks. >> and an exit poll piece of information that applies to wisconsin, pennsylvania, and georgia. three states so far the former president has flipped. for voters who say their finances fell to them, worse than four years ago, look at that number. 80% for former president trump. 17% for vice president harris. back to you guys. >> major anthony, thank you. ahead, we will break down

how republicans took back control of the senate and what it could mean for the country. but first, it's time to check your local weather.

big concerns heading into the election about disinformation and other threats to our voting system. david becker will join us next to tell us how the system held up. we'll take a look at how georgia flipped back to the republican side. you're watching "cbs mornings," we thank you for that. we'll be right back. an alternative to pills, voltaren is a clinically proven arthritis pain relief gel, which penetrates deep to target the source of pain with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine directly at the source.

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when they tabulate all of this, i'm hopeful that we're going to have not only a larger majority in the house to make my job easier, but we retake the senate and the white house as well. i think that's what's going to happen. >> that's house speaker mike johnson expressing high hopes before many of the results were in for yesterday's election, and it's looking like his prediction is coming true, at least for the senate. scott macfarlane has been working long hours keeping track of all of this, and joins us now to bring us up to date.

scott, good morning, what are your thoughts on what capitol hill is going to look like come january? >> gayle, good morning, trump's going to have some muscle in the u.s. senate. i want to bring up the u.s. senate and show you where we are as this morning begins. republicans hit that magic number. they needed either 50 or 51 seats. democrats were trying to nurse this very narrow majority. they stepped in quick sand early in the evening, and they sunk deeper and deeper in the quick sand as tuesday evening progressed. west virginia's democratic senate seat is going to go to the republican contender. two-term governor jim justice, he wins, and as you can see from those numbers, he won big. in ohio, the neighboring state, democrats were trying to nurse their senate seat there with three-term incumbent, sherrod brown, who served in the u.s. house previously, and literal lir ly wrote a book about congress, projected to move to bernie moreno. arizona is a spot democrats were

able to play defense. ruben gallego, looks like he'll hold the seat, defeats kari lake. but democrats still face a murderer's row of races to minimize the damage here. in michigan, a competitive race between two people challenging for a retiree spot, democrat elissa slotkin, and the republican is mike rogers, a former member of congress. slot kin serves in congress now. in nevada, jacky rosen trying to hold off the republican challenger, sam brown. in pennsylvania, another one of those battleground presidential races, bob casey is trying to hold off dave mccormick. you see how close these numbers are, these margins are, and in wisconsin, another democratic seat, another incumbent trying to protect the seat for her party, tammy baldwin with a slight edge over erik hovde. control of the u.s. house is up for grabs, and at this point,

it's too close to call. narrow margins, a very slim set of battleground seats, the magic number here, 218. democrats made some end roads in new york. let me just show you one or two. new york's fourth district on long island leans democrat, that would be a win for republicans. new york's 19th district, democrats appear poised to win that back from republicans, but the republicans made end roads in the presidential battleground states. in michigan, in the seventh district, they appear poised to win a democratic seat, and in pennsylvania, not one but two seats, the eighth district in scranton, and the seventh district in allentown appear poised to flip. republicans are bullish on their prospects of winnin the house too. >> all right. scott, thank you so much. as we unpack election day and spin things forward, we are going to look at what president trump's priorities might be when he takes office. stick around, you're watching "cbs mornings."

looking at a picture there of the white house. coming up, republican strategist, leslie sanchez will show us how trump's victory was helped by a shift in a key group of voters. your local news, coming up next. i'm michael george with a look beyond this morning's headlines. many parts of the country are experiencing an extended spell

of dry weather. these dry weather patterns can increase respiratory problems for people with asthma. >> 9-year-old brice shaw loves being outside with his mom in south jersey throwing around a baseball. but lately it's been difficult. >> it's hard to breathe a little. >> the third grader and his mom, michelle, both have asthma. >> it's scary to me, you know, i have to wakt wake up and i say, wow, i'm wheezing. >> doctors say the extended period of dry air during this drought has triggered an increase in respiratory problems. >> we are seeing an uptick in patients with respiratory disease coming in with what we call an exacerbation or a worsening of their asthma or copd. >> a pulmonologist says the dry air inside and outside is full of dust and other substances. >> more of these allergens enter our lungs, sets off an inflammatory process and can trigger bronco spasm where the

airways get tight. that's where we start to feel wheezing, shortness of breath, diff difficulty getting the breaths in and out. >> this device gets into my mouth, normal breathing, down into my lungs. >> shaw uses a nebulizer with medication to help clear her airways. >> my coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath has subsided. >> and brice uses an albuterol inhaler every morning. >> it like calms you down, and it's easier to breathe. >> doctors also say humidifiers inside the house can help offset this dry weather and so can steam from a hot shower. i'm stephanie stahl, cbs news, philadelphia. other types of weather that can trigger asthma symptoms are cold weather and extreme heat. an old navy ship is being saved from the scrap yard and turned into a futuristic ocean lab. the transformation is taking place in europe. tina kraus reports from london.

>> reporter: this unique navy ship from the 1960s lives up to its name, flip can do something few others can. >> flip is able to transition from horizontal to vertical in about a half hour, and the reverse at sea. >> half ship, half submarine, the vessel spent more than 50 years exploring oceans before being decommissioned last year. it was destined for dismantling, a teledesign company saved it. >> we literally save from death these amazing piece of history. >> now the ship is set for a modern makeover in france where it will be turned into a rotating research ship, fitted with state of the art technology. the vessel is more than 350 feet long and can vertically sink nearly 300 feet of its hole. >> we're excited to see her come and work here. we want to ensure she can operate safely with a global footprint so she can go anywhere in the world. >> deep is creating a new era of underwater living spaces where

researchers can stay for nearly a month at a time. scientists say its futuristic facelift will allow new generations of oceanographers to better understand the mysteries of th sea. tina kraus, cbs news, london. flip's transformation is expected to take around 18 months to complete. thanks for watching "cbs mornings." i'm michael george.

we truly believe that the republican party platform a hundred percent is wha