Vice President and Democratic nominee will deliver a speech conceding defeat in the US presidential election to Republican candidate Donald Trump, news agency Reuters has reported.
The agency quoted sources as saying that Harris would deliver the speech at 6 pm local time (4.30 am IST on Thursday).
On Wednesday, the vice president had cancelled her election night speech after it became clear that former president Trump would cross the magic mark of 270 electoral college votes and return to the White House as the 47th president of the United States.
Despite polls predicting that the election was too close to call, Trump steamrolled Harris and went on to pick up key swing states, including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin, setting the stage for his return to the Oval Office.
He also won the popular vote, becoming the first Republican to do so in 20 years, after George W Bush in 2004.
Delivering a victory speech to a room full of roaring supporters in Florida, Trump said “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate”
Powerful, Unsuccessful Campaign
Harris, who had 224 electoral college votes as of Wednesday night against Trump’s 280, ran a powerful campaign in her bid to become the first woman president of the United States. She also made history as the first black woman and the first South Asian woman to get the presidential nomination from a major party. The former prosecutor raised $1 billion in less than three months and was endorsed by celebrities like Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Oprah as well as several Republicans.
But her campaign failed to overcome Trump and his MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement’s messaging around the economy and immigration, which proved to be key concerns for voters going into this year’s elections. Several polls showed that people felt they were better off under Donald Trump during his presidency (2016-2020) than they were under the Joe Biden-Harris administration.
Experts said that as the vice president in an unpopular administration, Harris could not successfully portray herself as the candidate of change, which is something that Trump did very effectively. Asked during a daytime show about what she would do differently from Biden, Harris said, “Not a thing comes to mind”.
(With inputs from Reuters)
