Trump beats Clinton to become U.S. president in stunning victory

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump defeated his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in a close race for the White House, showed preliminary results released early Wednesday.

Major U.S. broadcasters projected that Trump has secured more than the 270 electoral votes needed for presidency, while Clinton has conceded defeat.

Trump's election headquarters burst into cheers as news of his victory came in from different states. Waving to an elated crowd of supporters, Trump, in his victory speech, vowed to be a president for all Americans.

It was "time for America to bind the wounds of division" and "time for us to come together as one," said Trump.

However, his victory speech failed to dispel the concerns over the grave divisions across the country.

Trump's victory wrapped up an unprecedentedly repugnant race for the top job in a country. With all guns blazing on personality insults instead of policy debates, the two candidates waged a highly negative tug of war that has visibly fractured U.S. society, leaving voters with a tough job of picking from two most disliked candidates in modern history.

Throughout his campaign, Trump was embroiled in an eye-popping slew of racist and sexist remarks as well as charity and tax scandals that offended and outraged many Americans.

Clinton, for her part, was beleaguered by an email controversy and questionable overseas donations to the Clinton Foundation that made a hole in her integrity as a trustworthy leader.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry commented days earlier that the election was "difficult for our country's perception abroad" and sometimes "downright embarrassing."

"There are times when it steps out of any norm that I've known -- and I ran for president in 2004," Kerry said in Britain.

Unlike many other countries, the U.S. president is not elected directly by voters, but rather by an Electoral College, whose 538 votes equal the number of Congressional representatives and senators. The official voting by the Electoral College is held on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, and the new president is normally sworn in on Jan. 20 of the following year.

Taking over the Oval Office from outgoing President Barack Obama, Trump will find himself surrounded by a raft of challenges ranging from weak economic growth and widening wealth inequality to escalating racial tensions and mounting anti-terror pressures.

Also on Tuesday, U.S. voters elected 34 senators and all 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Major U.S. news networks projected that the Republican Party will keep control of both houses of Congress. Endi