Donald Trump won a second term as president on Wednesday after victories in key battleground states, NBC News projects, leaving Democrats wondering what went wrong.

The historic victory avenged Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, which he and many of his supporters baselessly insisted was stolen from him.

“I think we just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America,” Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, Trump’s running mate, said early Wednesday at the campaign’s victory party in West Palm Beach, FL.

Trump and Vance spoke before most news media had declared him the winner, but the evening was clearly going his way at that point. Trump thanked his supporters for the “extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president.”

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Democrats were stunned when the battleground state went to the Republicans. A veteran Democratic strategist said of the party’s mourning: “Have you ever been to a funeral? That would be Mardi Gras compared to this.”

The loss leaves the Democratic Party without a clear leader to move forward and look for answers about how Trump could have become the first Republican to win the popular vote in two decades.

‘How is it possible that we can lose to this man? It’s just malpractice,” said one Democratic fundraiser.

Vice President Kamala Harris chose not to address supporters in Washington, D.C., on election night after Trump won Georgia and North Carolina, the first two battleground states to fall in the race for the White House.

Cedric Richmond, co-chair of Harris’ campaign, told the crowd at Howard University that she would not speak publicly until later Wednesday.

“We still have to count votes. We still have states that haven’t been called,” Richmond said shortly before 1 a.m. ET. “You’ll hear from her tomorrow.”

The decision to remain silent was accompanied by a dramatic change in mood among her campaign staff, her supporters and Democratic officials, as vote totals in battleground states suggested an increasingly narrow path to victory.

At Harris’ headquarters on Howard’s campus, thousands stared in near silence at screens, which looked stone-faced. No one waved the American flags that were handed out earlier in the evening. The atmosphere went from cheerful and festive to worried and anxious.

Several dozen people in the audience, clearly done with watching the returns, started chanting, “Music! Music!” Soon after, a giant cable news screen went mute and the DJ started playing rap music. Some of Harris’ staffers walked around with blank looks on their faces.

In an ominous development for Democrats, the share of voters identifying with their party reached its lowest point this century. According to the NBC News Exit Poll, 32% of voters identified as Democratic, up from 37% four years ago. The exit poll also found that the highest number of voters this century identified as independent or ‘something else’ (34%). The share of voters who identify as Republican has moved less, standing at 34% this year.

The two candidates’ supporters were divided on the key issues facing the country on election day; disagreements that partly reflected where they focused. NBC News exit polls also showed significant demographic shifts in the two parties’ coalitions.

Among the most pronounced changes: Latino men favored Trump by a 10-point margin, 54% to 44%, after supporting 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden by a 23-point spread (59% to 36%).

In a smaller shift — but significant in its own right — Harris had a 25-point lead among Latino women, 14 points less than Biden’s 39-point spread over Trump in 2020.

At the same time, Trump experienced depletion among white suburban women, with 51% of them transporting this year, compared to 56% four years ago, according to exit polls. Harris also got a boost from older voters, pushing those over 65 from 50% to 49%. That reversed Trump’s 2020 victory among seniors by five points. Additionally, older voters made up 28% of the electorate, up from the 22% they made up in 2020.

Most Harris voters considered democracy their most important issue, while most Trump voters said the economy was most important to them. Overall, 35% of voters placed democracy at the top of their list, while 31% cited the economy and 14% cited abortion.

Fifty-six percent of Harris voters put democracy first, while 21% listed abortion as their top priority and 13% chose the economy. Fifty-one percent of Trump voters saw the economy as the biggest problem, 20% said immigration and 12% said democracy.

Harris vowed to restore abortion rights left vulnerable to restrictions by the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. Trump said decisions on abortion belong in the hands of the states where they now live, but that he supports bans that exclude cases of rape, incest and danger to a woman’s life.

Overall, 51% of voters in 2020 said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. But now 66% say so. At the same time, the percentage of voters who believe abortion should be illegal in all cases fell from 17% in 2020 to 6% this year.

Both the candidates and their campaigns expressed confidence in the closing days that they were on track to win.

“Momentum is on our side,” Harris said Monday night at her latest rally in Philadelphia.

“I think we’re going to have a very big victory today,” Trump said Tuesday afternoon as he cast his vote in West Palm Beach.

Despite the candidates’ sense of success, 72% of voters in NBC News exit polls said they are angry or dissatisfied with the state of the country, while only 26% say they are satisfied or enthusiastic about it.

Early exit polls showed signs of demographic shifts in the electorate. Trump’s popularity declined among white voters, while it rose among black and Latino voters. In 2020, 57% of white voters viewed Trump favorably, as did 38% of Latino voters and 10% of Black voters. This year, just 49% of white voters said they viewed Trump favorably, while his numbers among Latino and black voters rose to 42% and 14%, respectively.