It was unclear which party would take control of the U.S. House of Representatives by late on Wednesday as the Senate appeared poised to be controlled by the Republicans after Election Day on Tuesday. President-elect Donald Trump delivered an early speech of optimism and celebration after results poured in from Tuesday's voting.
On Wednesday the fate appeared sealed as Vice President Kamala Harris came out on stage at Howard University in Washington, D.C. to urge for a smooth and peaceful transition of power, as other leaders wished Donald Trump and J.D. Vance well and asked them to govern for all in Trump's second term in Washington.
Mark Hamrick, a senior economic analyst and Washington bureau chief at Bankrate said the economy weighed heavy on the minds of voters in this election for a number of reasons.
As former President Barack Obama released a statement on the election results, he said a lot of "folks" have the feeling that "no matter how hard they work, treading water is the best they can do."
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Hamrick is a senior director at Red Ventures and a former business editor for the Associated Press. He says finding ways to recoup money for the U.S. government while trying to ease tensions on wallets and financial futures for Americans will be a core mission of the next administration in the White House.
The issue is, can those economic campaign promises be fulfilled?
With the ways government makes money, namely through taxation — ideas on the table for a new Trump administration would include levying tariffs on imports, which would heavily affect countries like China where the U.S. gets a significant level of imports from.
"The question is can he recapture some of those tax cuts through revenue? He has suggested that tariffs could do some of that, but that would certainly not recapture all of that," Hamrick said.
He says there were campaign promises that neither of the top candidates from the two dominant U.S. parties in the 2024 election could carry out.
"One thing that both candidates promised that they cannot deliver on is the ability to bring down prices. There is not a lever in the White House to turn price gains off. The Federal Reserve is the main cop on the beat and so in an ideal environment the president respects the independence of the Federal Reserve and the Federal Reserve chair. President Trump has indicated that he would like to have more say so on what the central bank does," Hamrick said.
