Donald Trump will return to the White House as America’s 47th president after victory in one of the most bitterly contested elections in the history of the United States.

Trump was also on track to win the national popular vote, the first time a Republican has done so since George W Bush in 2004.

After winning the biggest swing state prize of Pennsylvania, Trump had won (at the time of writing) 279 electoral college votes of the 270 he needed to win against Kamala Harris, his Democratic rival.

Trump, 78, hailed his “incredible movement” after taking the stage in Florida near his home at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach surrounded by his friends, family and political allies.

“This will be the golden age of America,” he said, calling his expected win a “magnificent victory for the American people”.

Leaders from around the world quickly acknowledged Trump’s victory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he hopes Donald Trump can bring about peace in Ukraine after the Republican candidate declared victory in the US election.

The Ukrainian president said he appreciates Trump’s “peace through strength” approach in global affairs, adding that it could bring about a “just peace” in the war with Russia.

Benjamin Netanyahu became one of the first leaders to congratulate Trump after he declared victory, describing his return to the White House “history’s greatest comeback”.

The Israeli prime minister said a Trump presidency offered a “new beginning for America” and a “powerful recommitment to the great alliance” between the two nations.

Viktor Orban, who describes Trump as a “good friend”, said: “Good morning Hungary! On the way to a beautiful victory.”

Posted after critical swing states were projected, he was the first European Union leader to comment on the US election.

Elsewhere in Europe, Emmanuel Macron said Paris was “ready to work together as we did for four years”.

The French president added that he had also spoken to Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, who had agreed to build a “more sovereign” Europe in response. Mr. Scholz later said the US and Germany would continue to work together for the “wellbeing of our citizens”.

In Italy, Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister, said her country and the US were “linked by an unbreakable alliance, shared values and a historic friendship”.

Meanwhile, Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary-general, said Trump could look forward to working with a “stronger, larger, and more united Alliance”.

After congratulating Trump, Mr. Rutte said: “We face a growing number of challenges globally, from a more aggressive Russia, to terrorism, to strategic competition with China, as well the increasing alignment of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.”

Elsewhere, Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president – who is now a senior security official – wrote on Telegram that “Trump has one useful quality for us”.

He added: “As a businessman to the core, he mortally dislikes spending money on various hangers-on and stupid hangers-on allies, on bad charity projects and on voracious international organisations.”

In China, Mao Ning, a foreign ministry spokesman, told a regular briefing that her country hoped for “peaceful coexistence” with the US.

“We will continue to approach and handle China-US relations based on the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation,” she said.

Trump’s return to be both the 45th and 47th president came despite two impeachments, four criminal prosecutions, including a felony conviction, and the assault on Congress by his supporters.

Civil courts have found him liable for sexual assault and fraudulent business practices in separate lawsuits over the past four years and he still faces charges over his alleged attempts to overturn the result of the 2020 election. The future of those cases is now in doubt, especially as Trump had pledged to fire Jack Smith, the special counsel, “within two seconds” of becoming president.

Polls showed for months that the election was going to go down to the wire, but Trump’s consistent lead in key policy areas such as the economy and immigration held up on polling day.

The electorate’s anger over inflation and the porous southern border overrode Harris’s warning that Trump was “a fascist”, a theme she picked up in the last weeks of the campaign after he was accused by John Kelly, his former chief of staff, of admiring Adolf Hitler.

Supporters of Trump’s America First agenda will await him fulfilling his promise to deport millions of illegal immigrants and to impose tough tariffs on imported foreign goods. His opponents, meanwhile, will fear that another four-year Trump term will bring greater division at home and isolation from events overseas. His promise to bring a swift end to the war in Ukraine has led to concerns that he is set to reward President Putin of Russia for his invasion of his neighbour.

A record $15.9 billion was spent on the election by the campaigns and other groups, according to Barron’s.

Both candidates criss-crossed the state in recent weeks but the vice-president did not pick up enough votes in urban areas to offset Trump’s charge through America’s vast rural communities and smaller post-industrial towns.

The same was true in the other swing northern states — Michigan and Wisconsin — where Trump’s support again appears to have been underestimated by pollsters who had the race much closer in the days leading up to polling day.

The post-mortem in the Democratic Party will begin almost immediately, and it will be brutal, with heavy scrutiny of President Biden’s decision to leave the race as late as he did.

Harris’s campaign focus on policy areas she was comfortable with, such as reproductive healthcare, will also be analysed. Many felt that she did not do enough to reach voters who were primarily worried about other issues, such as the economy and immigration.

Her decision to pick Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, as her running-mate may also be deemed to have backfired.

The results were emerging quicker than in 2020 when the surge in postal voting due to the pandemic contributed to a four-day delay in the final outcome.