Donald Trump certified 2024 US election winner

But there was a corner of Southeast DC that was making history.

Up on the Capitol Hill, exactly four years ago, on January 6, hundreds of protesters, egged on by the then President Donald Trump, who lost the 2020 election but refused to concede it, attacked the US Congress. The first attempt in American history to block the peaceful transfer of power failed. And it failed because Trump’s own vice president defied him. Mike Pence did what he had to in his capacity as the president of the Senate — he presided over a joint session of the US Congress at the end of a violent day and certified the electoral outcome in favour of Joe Biden.

Trump lost, in disgrace.

On Monday, even as it snowed outside, lawmakers trudged up to the inside of the US Congress and American democracy returned to the ceremonial, somewhat boring, ritual that marks the certification of the election results. But contained in it were multiple ironies — the man who lost last time won, and the woman who lost this time had to certify her rival’s win.

Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, won the 2024 elections and he won legitimately. The US Congress that refused to certify him as the winner in 2020 went through its time-tested process, where the results from each state’s electoral vote was certified. In the American system, when voters are voting for a presidential candidate, they are actually voting for a slate of electors from the candidate’s party in their respective states. Whoever wins the state gets to send the electors to the electoral college. And whichever candidate has a majority in the electoral college is declared the President.

Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, the vice president, and president of the Senate in that capacity, lost the elections. But it was on her to certify the results. After the electoral vote, all states were held to be authentic and in form, and after they were tallied up, Harris said, “The whole number of electors appointed to vote is 538… Within that whole number, the majority is 270. The votes are as follows… Donald Trump of the state of Florida has received 312 votes. Kamala D Harris of the state of California has received 226 votes…” With JD Vance sitting in the front row, Harris then declared the results of the vice presidential elections.

And that was it.

Officially, the path was cleared for the 47th president of the United States to take his oath on January 20 for a period of four years. And the fact that January 6, 2025, went so much more smoothly than January 6, 2021, was a testament to the resilience of American democracy.

It did however leave one with a counter-factual question: What if Donald Trump had lost again? Would he have accepted the outcome with as much grace as Kamala Harris did? The US didn’t pass the democracy stress test this time around as much as it evaded it altogether. How it tackles democratic challenges over the next four years is now to be seen.