Pretoria - Billionaire populist and Republican Donald Trump has won the US presidential election after scoring a series of surprising key battleground states.
Trump had collected just enough of the 270 state-by-state electoral votes needed to win a four-year term that starts on 20 January 2017, taking battleground states where presidential elections are traditionally decided.
He appeared to have completed one of the most improbable campaigns in American history, going from business mogul and tabloid sensation to a reality television star - and now the 45th president of the United States.
His stunning victory deals a searing blow to Democrats, who hoped eight years after sending the first black man to the Oval Office, they would break through the highest glass ceiling for women.
In the end, Hillary Clinton, a candidate with three decades of experience in public service, was dogged by political scandals, past and present, that overshadowed her potentially historic White House bid.
Clinton called Trump on Wednesday, conceding the presidential race.
Trump's campaign roused a sleeping giant in American politics: working-class white men, a group that powered the Reagan revolution in the 1980s, but had failed to produce a popular majority in five of the last six elections.
Trump's aggressive, unapologetic rhetoric about a nation suddenly devoid of its prior greatness offended millions, but served as a call to arms for millions more.
His policy prescriptions also ignored political norms for a national campaign, channelling the anger of internet message boards and conservative talk radio into a set of proposals that, if enacted, would permanently change the face of the nation and its relationship to the world.
He has proposed building a wall on the Mexican border and promised he will force the Mexican government to pay for it. He assured voters the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants will begin immediately after he is sworn in.
He has promised to rip up free trade deals and set fire to an international climate pact negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama and 200 other nations. He has hinted American military alliances will be subject to allies paying for US protection.
His campaign drew crowds more in line with a rock concert or a football game, and were frequently just as rowdy.
Trump ascends to the presidency after running one of the most unconventional campaigns in the nation's 240-year history.
He began the race by calling Mexicans "rapists" and "murderers." He repeatedly brawled with his Republican primary opponents, including a string of debates each seemingly nastier than the last. - SAnews.gov.za-UIP
