Donald Trump has been elected the 47th president of the United States in a stunning political resurrection that sent shockwaves through America and around the world.

Trump becomes the first convicted criminal to win the White House. At 78 he is also the oldest person ever elected to the office.

The result will sound alarm bells in foreign capitals given Trump’s chaotic leadership style and overtures to authoritarians such as Vladimir Putin of Russia and Kim Jong-un of North Korea. He was branded a threat to democracy and even a fascist by his opponent, Vice-President Kamala Harris, and some of his own former White House officials.

Yet the American electorate proved willing to push such concerns aside and hand the nuclear codes to the property developer turned reality TV star for a second time.

Trump defeated Harris, a Democrat who had been seeking to make history herself as the first woman, first Black woman and first south Asian American to become president in the US’s 248-year history.

As votes were counted overnight, Trump took North Carolina surprisingly early, the first battleground state to be called, and later he won Georgia and Pennsylvania.

As early as 1.20am ET, at Trump’s election watch party in Palm Beach, Florida, a prolonged, almighty roar went up when Fox News called Pennsylvania for the Republican nominee. “It’s over!” screamed one man. A young man in a black Trump hat shouted: “Fuck Joe Biden! Fuck her!”

After 2am, Trump emerged to speak, surrounded by his family, close aides and JD Vance, the hard-right Ohio senator he made his vice-presidential pick.

“This is a movement like nobody’s ever seen before,” Trump said. “This is I believe the greatest political movement of all time. There’s never been anything like this in this country and now it’s going to reach a new level of importance, because we’re going to help our country heal.

“We’re going to fix our borders. We’re going to fix everything about our country … I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve, this will truly be the golden age of America.”

By 5.37am ET the Associated Press called Wisconsin for Trump, with the state’s 10 electoral college votes tipping Trump’s total to 277 – well past the 270 votes needed to win the presidency.

In Congress, Republicans also recaptured the US Senate, but control of the House of Representatives remained unclear on Wednesday morning, with many of the most competitive races still uncalled.

Harris, 60, made reproductive rights and personal freedoms a rallying cry and backed a national law codifying access to safe abortion. Her loss represents a devastating, anxiety-inducing blow to supporters reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s crushing defeat in 2016. She was expected to speak later on Wednesday.

But for Trump, the unlikeliest of comebacks is now complete. Many analysts assumed that his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020 spelled the end of his political career, especially when an angry mob of his supporters – fuelled by his lie that the election was stolen – stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, resulting in his second impeachment.

But while Trump’s grip on the Republican party was briefly shaken, it held firm. The thrice-married New Yorker, found liable for sexual abuse, remained an unlikely hero of evangelical Christians and the white working class, and polling suggested that he gained small but significant traction among African American and Latino voters.

Four criminal cases – including a conviction on 34 felony counts over concealing hush-money payments to the adult film performer Stormy Daniels – would have been devastating to any other politician but only appeared to strengthen Trump’s standing with his “Make America Great Again” (Maga) base.