Donald Trump won a second term as president Wednesday, after victories in key battleground states, NBC News projects, leaving Democrats wondering what went wrong.

This historic victory avenged Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, which he and many of his supporters baselessly continued to insist was stolen from him.

“I think we have just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America,” Senator JD Vance, Republican of Ohio, Trump’s running mate, said Wednesday at the party. campaign victory in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump and Vance spoke before most media outlets declared him the winner, but the evening was, by then, clearly go in his direction. Trump thanked his supporters for “the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president.”

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Democrats were stunned to see one battleground state after another slip into Republican hands. A veteran Democratic strategist said of the grief weighing on the party: “Have you ever been to a funeral? It would be a Mardi Gras compared to this.

The defeat leaves the Democratic Party without a clear leader to move forward and seek answers about how Trump could have become the first Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years.

“How is it possible that we could lose to this guy?” It’s just malpractice,” one Democratic fundraiser said.

Vice President Kamala Harris chose not to address supporters in Washington, D.C., on election night after Trump won Georgia and North Carolina, the first two battlegrounds to fall in the race for the White House.

Cedric Richmond, co-chairman of Harris’ campaign, said the crowd at Howard University that she would not speak publicly until later Wednesday.

“We still have votes to count. We still have states that haven’t been called,” Richmond said shortly before 1 a.m. ET. “You’ll hear from him tomorrow.”

Wednesday, Harris called on Trump to concede and congratulate him, a senior aide told NBC News.

The decision to remain silent was accompanied by a sharp change in mood among her campaign aides, supporters and Democratic officials, as vote totals in battleground states suggested a path increasingly narrow towards victory.

At Harris’ headquarters on Howard’s campus, thousands of people watched the screens in near-silence, their faces impassive. No one waved the American flags handed out earlier in the evening. The mood went from happy and celebratory to worried and anxious.

A few dozen people in the crowd, visibly tired of watching the feedback, began chanting, “Music! Music!” Shortly after, a giant screen broadcasting cable news was muted and the DJ began playing rap music. Some of Harris’ staffers were pacing back and forth with blank looks on their faces .

Worryingly for Democrats, the share of voters identifying with their party has reached the lowest level this century. According to the NBC News exit poll32% of voters identified as Democrats, up from 37% four years ago. The exit poll also found that the rate of voters identifying as independent or “something else” was the highest this century (34%). The share of voters identifying as Republican has changed less, standing at 34% this year.

Supporters of both candidates have split on the key issues facing the country on Election Day, differences that partly reflect the priority they have placed. NBC News exit polls also showed significant demographic shifts in the two parties’ coalitions.

Among the most pronounced changes: Latino men were supportive of Trump by a 10-point margin, 54% to 44%, after supporting 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden by a 23-point margin, 59% to 36%.

In a smaller shift — but important in its own right — Harris held a 25-point advantage among Latino women, down 14 points from Biden’s 39-point gap over Trump in 2020.

At the same time, Trump has seen a decline among white suburban women, counting 51% of them this year, compared to 56% four years ago, according to exit polls. Harris also received a boost from older voters, bringing those 65 and over 50% to 49%. This wiped out Trump’s 5-point 2020 victory among seniors. Additionally, older voters made up 28% of the electorate, up from 22% in 2020.

Most Harris voters placed democracy as their top issue, while most Trump voters said the economy mattered most to them. In total, 35% of voters placed democracy at the top of their list, while 31% cited the economy and 14% cited abortion.

Fifty-six percent of Harris voters prioritized democracy, while 21% named abortion as their top priority and 13% chose the economy. Fifty-one percent of Trump voters considered the economy the most important issue, with 20% citing immigration and 12% democracy.

Harris promised she would restore abortion rights that were exposed to restrictions imposed by the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. Trump said decisions about abortion rest with the states, where they now reside, but that he favors bans that exempt cases of rape, incest and danger to the woman’s life.

Overall, 51% of voters said in 2020 that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. But now, 66% say so. At the same time, the percentage of voters who believe abortion should be illegal in all cases fell from 17% in 2020 to 6% this year.

Both candidates and their campaigns have expressed confidence in recent days that they are on track to win.

“The momentum is on our side,” Harris said Monday night at his final rally, in Philadelphia.

“I think we’re going to have a really big victory today,” Trump said while voting in West Palm Beach Tuesday afternoon.

Despite the candidates’ sense of success, 72% of voters said in NBC News exit polls that they were either angry or dissatisfied with the state of the country, with only 26% saying they were satisfied or excited about it.

Signs of demographic changes were seen within the electorate in early exit polls. Trump’s popularity has declined among white voters, while it has increased among black and Latino voters. In 2020, 57% of white voters viewed Trump favorably, as did 38% of Latino voters and 10% of Black voters. This year, just 49% of white voters said they had a favorable view of Trump, while his numbers among Latino and black voters increased to 42% and 14%, respectively.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com