Donald Trump is set to be the next President of the United States of America.

The shock result unravelled over a dramatic night where the Republican candidate dominated across key swing states including Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa and Pennsylvania. The crucial states of Florida and Wisconsin also went to the New York billionaire who began the night a rank outsider according to most pollsters.

Evangelical Christians turned out in large numbers to vote for Trump and were pivotal as he swept to power. They backed the Republican by 81 per cent to 16 per cent, according to ABC News. This is a bigger margin of the evangelical vote than was achieved by George Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney.

In Florida 85 per cent of white evangelicals voted for the Republican, according to early exit polls. In North Carolina that figure was 78 per cent as the state went to the Republicans by 50 per cent to 46 per cent.

The political earthquake is the most remarkable election result in recent history.

The horror show for Democrat supporters began after Trump seized the bellweather state of Ohio early on by a huge margin of nearly 10 points.

The vote was entirely unprecedented as pollsters overwhelmingly backed Clinton in the run up to the vote.

Several Democrat wins came from the more populous states and it looks likely Clinton will win a larger share of the popular vote. But because the US has an electoral college system, Trump's victory in key swing states handed him the keys to the White House.

Tony Campolo, the American author and advisor to President Bill Clinton, said Trump's victory was "no question largely due" to the support of "white male evangelicals".

He told Christian Today: "His victory is likely to get evangelicals to do some soul searching as to who they are, and why they were swept up in supporting a man whose rhetoric played upon fear of immigrants, fear of Muslims, an anti-scientific disbelief in global warming, overt racism and sexist attitudes that are contrary to scripture."

Jerry Falwell Jnr, president of the evangelical Liberty University, who had publicly backed Trump, said the support from evangelicals was "really encouraging". He told the BBC: "The evangelicals were largely supporting Trump well before the evangelical leadership was. The divide has been in the evangelical leadership, not the rank and file."

When asked allegations of sex abuse and his multiple marriages Falwell responded: "Evangelicals believe all people are sinners. We've all done wrong, we all need forgiveness. The Donald Trump I know has a big heart, he loves people, he loves this country."