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Good morning,
Donald Trump will return to the White House for a second term after winning Tuesday’s presidential race.
Following a tense day that featured bomb threats at polling places and voting misinformation, the race predictably boiled down to ballots in crucial swing states. Trump flipped Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in his favor, leading to the Republican’s victory and for his billionaire backers like Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR, to celebrate on social media.
Keep reading for our updates on where other key races stand as of Wednesday morning.
FIRST UP
President-elect Trump carried the key battleground states of North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with the Associated Press projecting his victory shortly after 5:30 a.m. Wednesday. The Wisconsin win pushed Trump over the edge, securing 277 electoral votes out of a needed 270, with more states still to be decided.
In a victory speech early Wednesday morning, Trump called billionaire Elon Musk a “new star,” heaping praise on the Tesla CEO, who has been one of his campaign’s biggest financial backers. “He’s a character, he’s a special guy, he’s a super genius,” Trump said of Musk before adding, “We have to protect our geniuses, we don’t have that many of them.”
CONGRESS
Republicans won control of the Senate, gaining control of at least 52 seats, after Jim Justice won West Virginia’s Senate race as was widely expected, flipping the seat red from retiring Senator Joe Manchin. Republican Bernie Moreno was also elected to the Senate in Ohio, unseating incumbent Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, according to the Associated Press. In Montana, Trump-backed Tim Sheehy defeated incumbent Democrat Jon Tester, ending a heated race where 12 billionaires spent at least $1 million apiece.
As of Wednesday morning, multiple House races were too close to call. Republicans were leading in total confirmed seats but had not yet secured control of the chamber.
MARKETS + ECONOMY
All three leading U.S. indexes saw an Election Day rally: The benchmark S&P 500 rose 1.2%, the tech-concentrated Nasdaq gained 1.4% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1%, or 430 points. The S&P has jumped a robust 11.5% in the three-month stretch leading up to Tuesday, and it’s the best three-month stretch for the S&P ahead of an election since 1928, according to LPL Financial’s chief technical strategist. As Trump secured victory early Wednesday morning, U.S. stock futures soared, with Dow and S&P 500 futures rising by more than 2%.
MORE: Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $75,273—a more than 8% jump—as votes were tallied Tuesday, alongside a spike on betting markets favoring Trump.
Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group had a rollercoaster day Tuesday, rising as much as 18.6% by early afternoon before suffering a steep decline in late afternoon trading, turning negative and briefly getting halted. The stock ultimately closed down 1%, but shot up again by more than 10% in after-hours trading.
THREATS + MISINFORMATION
A building in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, that houses the Centre County Elections Office was temporarily evacuated after the elections office received a bomb threat that was deemed non-credible, officials said, noting it’s one of roughly a dozen Pennsylvania counties targeted by bomb threats Tuesday. Polling places in several other swing states faced non-credible bomb threats, which the FBI blamed on actors in Russia. Thirty-two of the 177 polling places in Georgia’s Fulton County faced bomb threats on election day, per the Associated Press.
The FBI issued a statement Tuesday warning people of fake videos using the agency’s name and insignia to promote election misinformation, with one of the clips falsely reporting an FBI alert urging Americans to “vote remotely” because of a supposed high terror threat at polling stations, which the agency said was “not authentic.” The videos were likely part of a series of fake content created by a Russian influence operation, according to CBS News.
LAST MINUTE FUNDING
In an email on Election Day, a Trump entity encouraged Trump’s supporters to buy merchandise like a $180 Pickleball paddle, Trump 45 sneakers and dozens of other products in the Trump Store’s Trump45 collection. It’s a reminder that during his time in the White House, Donald Trump fell far short of his promise to separate his businesses from his administration, and there’s no reason to expect him to behave any differently during his second term.
IN THE STATES
Voters also decided on ballot initiatives on a number of key issues, including in Florida, where an effort to amend Florida’s state constitution to legalize abortion failed, becoming the first abortion ballot measure to fail since Roe v. Wade was overturned. Similar ballot initiatives protecting abortion rights passed in states like Arizona, Colorado and Maryland, as well as an effort in New York to amend the anti-discrimination language in the state’s constitution to add protections from discrimination based on “pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”
TRENDS + EXPLAINERS
Trump cast his ballot Tuesday in Palm Beach, Florida, despite being convicted of 34 felony counts in New York earlier this year. He was able to do so because Florida law defers to the law in the state of conviction to determine whether a person is eligible to vote—and in New York, convicted felons are permitted to vote as long as they are not incarcerated. Trump is currently scheduled to be sentenced on November 26.
DAILY COVER STORY
What The Failure Of Florida’s Amendment 3 Means For Cannabis Legalization
TOPLINE In a major defeat for cannabis legalization, Florida voters rejected Amendment 3, which would have legalized recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older. The amendment failed to get the 60% voter support it needed to pass.
The Sunshine State is already home to the country’s largest medical marijuana market, $2 billion (annual sales), but it missed the opportunity to become the first red state in the South to launch an adult-use market.
Florida, which has a population of 20 million people and attracts more than 140 million tourists every year, was expected to swell to a $6 billion cannabis market by 2026 if Amendment 3 passed, according to marijuana sales data firm Headset. The measure even had the backing of President-elect Donald Trump.
The night’s biggest loser is Tallahassee-based cannabis company Trulieve, which spent $145 million backing Smart & Safe Florida, the organization running the Yes On 3 campaign. Meanwhile, the night’s biggest winner is Governor Ron DeSantis, who had declared war on the cannabis ballot measure and spent an estimated $50 million of taxpayer money on radio and television ads to successfully convince enough voters to vote “no.”
Ken Griffin, the hedge fund billionaire who moved his firm Citadel to Miami from Chicago, donated $12 million to the Vote No On 3 campaign.
David Culver, the head of policy at the U.S. Cannabis Council, says the industry will try again in the Sunshine State. “This isn’t the end in Florida,” he says, “It’s just the beginning since we’ve now seen how strongly the push for legalization resonates in the state.”
WHY IT MATTERS Emily Paxhia, cofounder of San Francisco-based cannabis hedge fund Poseidon, says she is not downtrodden. The companies operating in the nation’s $30 billion economy spread across 38 states have grown accustomed to roadblocks while operating in an industry that is still federally illegal. “The industry is used to getting knocked down,” she says, “We will keep standing back up.”
MORE Inside The Battle Over Cannabis Legalization In Florida
FACTS + COMMENTS
Despite the focus on the economy this election cycle, the issue of increasing the federal minimum wage hasn’t gotten much attention. Three states had initiatives on the ballot to raise the minimum wage, but the federal minimum wage remains at $7.25 an hour:
1.1%: The share of U.S. workers who reported working at or below the federal minimum wage, an all-time low, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics
15 years: The longest stretch that Congress has gone without raising the federal minimum wage since it was first established in 1940
$15 per hour: The minimum wage that Democratic and left-leaning lawmakers have tried to enshrine into law several times, but have been stopped by Republicans
QUIZ
This year’s general election was the first with legal electoral betting in the U.S., and each platform will settle with winners using a different process. When is the latest a major platform could pay out for a bet on last night’s election?
A. Once AP, Fox and NBC call the race for the same candidate
B. January 7, after Congress certifies results
C. January 20, after Inauguration Day
D. Election Day 2028
Check your answer.
Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Sarah Whitmire and Caroline Howard.