For most of Tuesday night, the presidential election had been too close to call — until it wasn’t.

In a historic comeback for the ages, Donald Trump emerged victorious, as the high hopes for Kamala Harris shrunk significantly with each passing hour. She fell disappointingly short on myriad benchmarks hit by Joe Biden in 2020 in counties across many states, while Trump consistently outperformed in many of them, especially rural districts.

That led to severe erosion of the Democrats’ so-called “Blue Wall,” must-win states if Harris hoped to win the presidency: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.In the end, it was Republican Trump who would get the projected win of 270 Electoral College votes, the goal to become America’s next president.

The razor-thin margins in many states reveal how split the U.S. has become — and these are deep divisions that will not heal anytime soon. Whether it was Trump or Harris, the next president must be willing and able to uphold the many virtues and values that truly make America great.

And, like the outcome or not, the record numbers of people who came out to vote — in state after state, peacefully without violence — is evidence of a democratic system that is working, even in a deeply divided United States. The process allows each citizen one vote, and people came out in droves — including in Hawaii, as seen by Tuesday’s long lines well past the 7 p.m. closing, from Kauai, to Hilo, to Wailuku, to Kapolei and downtown Honolulu.

Nationwide, the voting remained respectful — a “sea change from 2020,” said Michigan’s secretary of state, who oversees that state’s elections.

It’s time to turn down the heated, harmful rhetoric.

Trump’s win showed that many voters chose to overlook the former president’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, incitement at the U.S. Capitol and his May conviction in a felony hush money trial — and instead, believed in his pledge to crack down on illegal immigration and to improve the economy for Americans. Harris, meanwhile, had struggled to overcome voters’ pocketbook concerns, including high inflation.

Political analysts on Tuesday night found that Trump was particularly strong with rural voters, working-class citizens, the less-educated, and surprisingly, Latinos and Hispanics. Conventional assumptions no longer apply, and cultural changes are surely afoot — not just within the Republican and Democratic parties, but across this nation.

Well into the night, the leans were all going Trump’s way in the seven key swing states that both candidates have crisscrossed repeatedly: the aforementioned Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania as well as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina.

And the GOP’s victory didn’t stop at the White House, as several flipped seats have now given Republicans control of the U.S. Senate. That will certainly help Trump boost his agenda, as well as his key governmental appointments.

In solidly Democratic Hawaii, however, don’t expect the next four years under Trump to bring the amount of federal support and largesse that would’ve come under Harris. Less-aligned policies and less funding can be expected on issues such as climate change and environmental protection, green energy initiatives and public health directives. Rulings from an increasingly conservative U.S. Supreme Court, too, will have impact on our social fabric — such as the New York State Rifle v. Bruen gun ruling and the Dobbs v. Jackson strike-down of abortion rights have already done.

Navigating ways to work together will be imperative — with the federal government, between states and with each other in this divided nation, under the 47th president.

It’s been an exhausting election season, mostly due to an extraordinary presidential race that saw Biden stepping aside in favor of Harris, and two assassination attempts on Trump this summer. Whatever happens now, America’s free and fair elections have brought us to this point. Keep calm and carry on.