US election: The one way Kamala Harris could still become president and ‘turn tables’ on Donald Trump

The US presidential election was run and won by Donald Trump, making a different kind of history than Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats were hoping for.

Donald Trump completed a remarkable sweep of the States — including all key battleground states — clinching 312 electoral college votes to Ms Harris’ 226 after last Tuesday’s election.

Mr Trump is also looking all but certain to win the popular vote, the first time a Republican candidate has done so since 2004.

Republicans have also taken back control of the Senate and are likely to retain control of the House, with less than two dozen House seats to call and one Senate race still open as of Sunday, US time.

While the Democrats have conceded to their brutal defeat, a former White House aide has one last-ditch idea for Ms Harris to beat Mr Trump to the Oval Office.

All Joe Biden has to do is resign.

Jamal Simmons, the vice president’s former communications director, floated the bold idea in an appearance on CNN which audibly surprised his panellists.

“Joe Biden has been a phenomenal president, he’s lived up to so many of the promises he’s made. There’s one promise left that he could fulfil: being a transitional figure,” Mr Simmons said.

“He could resign the presidency in the next 30 days, make Kamala Harris the President of the United States.”

The ex-aide-turned-political-commentator said catapulting Ms Harris to the Oval Office would save her the task of overseeing the “transition of her own defeat”. As the current president of the Senate, she will have to certify the results of Mr Trump’s victory.

Mr Simmons said such a move would “dominate the news” and “change the entire perspective of how Democrats operate”.

But, more than that, he added, it would be hugely disruptive to the Trump marketing machine.

“This is something that’s in Joe Biden’s control and if he did it, again, it would fulfil his promise his last promise. It would give Kamala Harris the chance to be the 47th President of the United States.

“It would disrupt all of Donald Trump’s paraphernalia, he’d have to rebrand everything,” Mr Simmons laughed.

“And it would make it easier for the next woman who runs for president to not have to worry about the historical weight of being the first.”

Mr Simmons had raised this tactic on social media only hours before, taking to X to say such a brazen move by the Democrats would “turn tables on Trump”.

“Dems have better policies but we must realise the old rules no longer apply,” he wrote in another post to X.

“We are not playing table tennis. We are in a mixed martial arts fight and Americans respond to drama and excitement. We should use that to make our arguments for a better path forward.”