After a campaign marked with heated rhetoric and quite stark ideological differences between the candidates, in the end, despite talk of razor thin margins Donald Trump won decisively.
As the Democrats lick their wounds Trump has already started making key appointments and has doubled down on his election promise of mass deportations of illegal immigrants.
Philip Crowther is the International Affliate Correspondent for the Associated Press and he was inside Trump's election results watch.
Meanwhile, Tim Groser, who was the Minister of Trade and Climate Change under John Key's government before becoming New Zealand's Ambassador to the United States soon after Donald Trump himself was elected the first time, explains what Trump's win means for Aotearoa.