Melania won't be joining Donald Trump in The White House

Donald Trump has been elected 45th President of the United States but Melania won't be joining him in the White House.

US Election Result 2016
(Image credit: Radin/Everett/REX/Shutterstock)

Donald Trump has been elected 45th President of the United States but Melania won't be joining him in the White House.

Since Donald Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States, it's been announced that his wife Melania, and their son Barron Trump, will not be joining him in the White House in January. The future First Lady's decision has been seen as a controversial one as traditionally the First Family always reside in the White House. Melania, however, has defended her decision by saying her 10-year-old son is her focus and they will remain in Trump Towers until Barron finishes out the year at his current school.

On 9 November 2016, we wrote...

Donald Trump has been elected 45th President of the United States.

Trump’s triumph over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton ends one of the most acrimonious and hard-fought election battles in recent history.

Polls taken before the election had put Clinton ahead of Trump by a very slim margin, but as the results came in from key swing states in the early hours of this morning it became gradually clear that it would be Donald Trump and not Hillary Clinton heading to the Oval Office.

The night produced a strong start for Hillary Clinton, but things began to move in Trump’s favour when he took the key battleground states, including Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Iowa. Though the result has not been confirmed, by 6am this morning at the Trump camp in New York the party had already begun.

At 7.45 this morning Trump took to the stage at the Trump HQ in New York, after a brief phone call from Hillary Clinton which saw her concede defeat to the Republican candidate.

Trump sought to ease tension following a controversial campaign in the opening of his victory speech, first by complimenting Hillary Clinton. 'Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country' he told the crowd. He added that 'the forgotten men and women will be forgotten no longer.'

The US election result will come as a blow to many leaders around the world, who saw Trump’s controversial comments on Muslims, women and America’s Latino population during his campaign as both dangerous and unbecoming to a man running for high office. Trump has also become the first US President to have never held elected office before.

The result will also disappoint many feminists who hoped to see America’s first female President. In 2008, when Clinton lost out in the Democratic leadership race to Barack Obama, she famously told her crowd of supporters, 'Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it. The light is shining through like never before, filling us all with hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time.' By the early hours of this morning the hope that Clinton could come back and smash that ceiling began to fade.

After an election that has bitterly divided America, President-elect Trump will now be faced with the mammoth task of pulling the country back together again. For the millions who voted for him, he will also have to deliver on his much-repeated campaign slogan: to make America great again.

Watch it all unfold...

https://www.facebook.com/time/videos/vb.10606591490/10154150301061491/?type=2&theater

On 8th November at 6am we wrote...

Donald Trump's predicted victory over Hillary Clinton will be largely thanks to the white male vote, the BBC reports.

Voter statistics show that, so far, 53% of America's men have voted for Donald Trump, compared to 41% of women. The vote also shows large racial divides in America's electorate. Clinton has so far won 88% of black voters and 65% of America's Hispanic population.

At 6pm on 8th November we wrote...

The polls have opened, the final votes are being cast and the countdown to the election of America’s new President is under way.

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump are almost at the end of their 10-month race to the White House. One of them should become America’s 45th president in a matter of hours.

Exit polls are expected to surface throughout the night, but with more than 120 million Americans expected to cast their vote across six time zones, and the contestants so far appearing to be almost neck and neck in the polls, we should not know the final result until after 4am GMT.

If you're staying up all night and don’t want to miss a minute of the election countdown, here are some of the most important US election timings. Alternatively, you can always set your alarm for some of the key moments in the US election timetable.

11.00pm GMT Polls close in Indiana and Kentucky.

00.00am GMT Polls close in Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Vermont and the notorious swing state of Florida (throwback to the Gore-Bush election controversy of 2000).

00.30am GMT Polls close in West Virginia and swing states of Ohio and North Carolina.

1.00am GMT Polls will close in Alabama, Delaware, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Maryland, Maine, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Tennessee, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Texas, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

2.00am GMT Polls close in Louisiana, Nebraska, New York, New Mexico, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming and swing states Colorado and Wisconsin.

3.00am GMT Polls close in Arizona, Montana, Utah and swing states of Iowa and Nevada.

4.00am GMT Polls close in California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Hawaii.

5.00am GMT Polls close in Alaska

What are the key battleground states to watch? There are five big swing states to look out for tonight: Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. As all of these states are in the EST time zone (and therefore among the first to close polls) and hold a high volume of electoral votes, these will be the crucial early indicators of which way the election is going to go. Winning three of these five key states will be an early indication of victory for either candidate. If one of them wins four or five of these key states, they will most likely win the election.

When will we know the US Election result? If all goes smoothly the US election result could be called as early as 4am GMT (Barack Obama’s 2012 victory was announced at 4.38am). If, however, there are complications it could be quite a bit later – let’s not forget the Gore-Bush election of 2000, when by the close of election day no one was any closer to finding out who had actually won in what became known as the #ButterflyBallotControversy.

By Jenny Proudfoot

Lucy Pavia