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Vice President Kamala Harris publicly conceded defeat to President-elect Donald Trump today, hours after she called her often-bitter rival to congratulate him on winning the election.

“I am so proud of the race we ran and the way we ran it,” Harris said, her voice cracking a bit. She vowed to engage in a peaceful transfer of power but promised to continue to fight for the ideals she espoused during the campaign.

“While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign,” she said.

Harris said she had spoken earlier with Trump and promised to help with the transition of power. Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said the president-elect had acknowledged Harris’ “strength, professionalism and tenacity.”

The convincing victory by Trump, the first former president in more than 120 years to win a second term after an election defeat, will transform Washington. He will enjoy a comfortable majority in the Senate that will be prepared to confirm the ardent loyalists that he has said will fill his government. Control of the House has not yet been declared, but Republicans may well hold on to their slender majority — now with the undisputed leader of the party in the White House exerting control over the unruly House crew.

The Republican majority in the Senate was secured with the defeats of Democratic incumbents Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana, as well as the capture of the West Virginia seat of the retiring Sen. Joe Manchin.

But the Republican majority will not be the historically large margin that it appeared it could be. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., eked out a victory over her Trump-backed opponent, Eric Hovde, after she won over thousands of voters who had also backed Trump. And Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., won her race to replace retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow, keeping the seat in Democratic hands. Swing-state Senate contests in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona remained uncalled today.

Even so, the former president’s victory left no doubt Republican power was surging. Voters chose Trump as the stronger leader for uncertain times and as one they saw as a proven economic champion. He rode a wave of anxiousness over inflation and illegal immigration to bring a strongman-style politics to the White House. They looked past his 34 felony convictions, his role in inspiring an assault on the U.S. Capitol and his indictments on charges of trying to subvert the 2020 election and to hold on to classified documents.

Trump’s victory in one of the most tumultuous campaigns in recent memory — including two failed assassination attempts — makes him, at 78, the oldest man to be elected president.

World leaders congratulated the president-elect, in some cases setting aside long-standing concerns over his proposed taxes on imported goods and his foreign policy views — particularly whether he would roll back U.S. support for Ukraine as it attempted to fight off the Russian invasion.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, whose relationship with President Joe Biden has become strained over the war in the Gaza Strip, said Trump’s win offered a “powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.” And Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain said he looked forward to working with Trump.

For Harris, who sought to make history not only as the first woman but as the first Black and Asian American woman to be elected president, the hard-fought contest was a 3 1/2-month sprint that began after Biden abandoned his reelection campaign under pressure.

In the end, the headwinds of post-pandemic inflation, soaring housing prices and economic uncertainty were too much for her to overcome, even though the Biden administration’s sprawling economic agenda helped to stimulate the nation’s recovery from recession and make America’s economic growth the envy of the world.

Trump centered his campaign on sealing the U.S.-Mexican border and deporting immigrants without legal status by the millions. He promised to impose sweeping tariffs to strengthen domestic industries. And in the final weeks of the campaign, he made a flurry of expensive financial promises to different sectors of the electorate, promising to abolish taxes on tips, overtime pay and Social Security benefits.

His closing message focused on blaming Harris for all the perceived failures of the unpopular Biden administration, under the slogan “Kamala Broke It. Trump Will Fix It.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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