January 20, 2025
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress certified President-elect Donald Trump as the winner of the 2024 election Monday. Lawmakers convened under heavy security and a snowstorm to meet the date required by law to certify the election.
Vice President Kamala Harris, presiding over proceedings as the role of the office, read the tally.
The chamber broke into applause, first Republicans for Trump, then Democrats for Harris.
The whole process happened swiftly. One by one, the state results were read aloud by the tellers as senators and representatives sat in seats in the House chamber. Vice President-elect JD Vance joined his former colleagues. Within half an hour the process was done.
Democrats frustrated by Trump’s 312-226 Electoral College victory nevertheless accepted the choice of the American voters. Even the winter snow blanketing the grounds didn't interfere with Jan. 6, the day set by law to certify the vote.
Trump said in a Monday post online that Congress was certifying a “GREAT” election victory and called it “A BIG MOMENT IN HISTORY.”
With pomp and tradition, the day unfolded with the arrival of ceremonial mahogany boxes filled with the electoral certificates from the states. Senators walked across the Capitol to the House to begin certifying the vote.
Harris presided over the counting, as is the requirement for the vice president, and certify her own defeat — much the way Democrat Al Gore did in 2001 and Republican Richard Nixon in 1961.
