An unexpected victory for Republican Donald J. Trump defied polls that forecasted a modest lead for his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. Here are seven things executives must know this morning.
1. Mr. Trump's 276 electoral votes outnumbered Ms. Clinton's 218 and surpassed the 270 needed to win. As of 11:45 a.m. EST Wednesday, Ms. Clinton was on her way to become the fifth U.S. presidential candidate to win the popular vote but lose the election. As of that time she had earned 188,962 more votes than Mr. Trump.
2. Republicans won majority in both the U.S. House and Senate. This means come January, with a Republican president Congress may be more active than it's been in years and will likely target efforts on big-ticket items, such as a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. At the same time, Mr. Trump needs to reconcile with House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican congressional leaders — those whose support Mr. Trump questioned in the last few weeks of his campaign — to eliminate the possibility of discord over substantial policy changes.
3. Although Republicans do not have a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate, they will have 51 Republicans elected to Senate. This precisely matches the 51 votes required to pass a bill under budget reconciliation. Reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered, meaning an ACA repeal bill done by reconciliation does not need a 60-vote majority to proceed. In 2015, Congress passed a reconciliation bill to repeal fundamental elements of the ACA, which President Obama ultimately vetoed.
4. Stocks initially plunged but are beginning to temper. As Mr. Trump began to take the lead Tuesday evening, the futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 800 points, according to Politico. By 8:30 a.m. it bounced back to a loss of 290 points. Wall Street strategists expect stocks to bounce back and continue as projected. David Kostin, chief U.S. equity strategist at Goldman Sachs Group, told Bloomberg Businessweek he is keeping his year-end projection for Standard & Poor's 500 Index the same after last night's news. He expects the benchmark gauge to finish the year at 2,100 points, or 1.8 percent below its close Tuesday.
5. Exit polls show Mr. Trump's win was bolstered by white voters and Ms. Clinton's inability to mobilize enough minority voters. CNN exit polls show Ms. Clinton won 88 percent of African Americans to Mr. Trump's 8 percent, 65 percent of Latinos to Mr. Trump's 29 percent and 54 percent of millennials to Mr. Trump's 37 percent. However, all of these percentages trail what President Barack Obama was able to capture in 2012 against Mitt Romney. Gender also played a role. Though 54 percent of women voted for Ms. Clinton to Mr. Trump's 42 percent, 53 percent of white women voted for Mr. Trump, compared to 43 percent who voted for Ms. Clinton, according to CBS exit polls.
6. Mr. Trump's aides are planning what is called the ''First Day Project," in which Mr. Trump receives a number of executive orders immediately when he takes office. Inspired by President Ronald Reagan's first week in office, the First Day Project involves Mr. Trump spending a few hours of his first day in office signing papers to undo executive orders issued by President Obama, Trump campaign adviser Stephen Moore told The New Yorker in late September. These could range from undoing the Paris Agreement on greenhouse-gas emissions to reconsidering the fourth phase of the Keystone pipeline to remodeling immigration policies.
7. Mr. Trump's presidency combined with a Republican majority in Congress means the ninth Supreme Court justice will be filled by one of Mr. Trump's 21 picks. In September, Mr. Trump added 10 more names to his list of 11 candidates. The justice he chooses will replace the late Antonin Scalia, who was a conservative-leaning judge. In his absence, the court has favored the liberal opinion. Two years down the line, two more liberal judges, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, are expected to retire, which could tip the scales conservatively at the midterm if they choose to step down.
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