WASHINGTON (Diya TV) — Former President Donald Trump won a nonconsecutive second term in the White House, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. He will be the second US president in history to serve two nonconsecutive terms. The other is Grover Cleveland.

Harris raised more than $1 billion for her campaign in just three months. But Trump’s performances in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona secured the necessary Electoral College votes to bring him victory. 

According to data from The New York Times and The Washington Examiner, Harris spent lavishly on advertising, digital media, and campaign travel, outspending Trump by a tremendous margin. Her campaign spent more than $654 million in advertisements, while the Trump campaign spent around $378 million.

Among Harris’s other major donors were two of the highest-profile Democratic mega-donors: Michael Bloomberg and George Soros. Both campaigns also resorted to “dark money” — a common practice in modern U.S. elections — to fund aspects of their outreach and advertising. 

Political analysts say that one other reason Harris lost may be the strategy adopted by her campaign, which relies heavily on consultants. According to reports, Harris’s campaign paid political and media consultants $12.8 million, a thing critics claim took her further away from directly reaching voters. Former Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill said that Harris’s campaign listened too much to consultants, affecting outreach on such extensive issues as the economy and immigration.

Harris also hosted several celebrity-studded campaign events, including with Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry, among others. She paid Harpo Productions, Winfrey’s company, $1 million for its work in running these campaign events.

While dollars are important, it was not so much the dollars that won this election, Brad Todd, a Republican strategist, said. “It was about the ability of Trump to connect with voters on those major issues, particularly the economy.” This was not as much of an expenditure play as it was delivering a message that resonated with swing-state voters, Todd said.