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WILMINGTON – In Wilmington, Joe Biden’s hometown, residents eagerly check their phones for updates and run errands to keep busy, while reporters twiddle their thumbs in hotel lobbies, all waiting for the winner to be announced of the presidential elections to the edge of the razor.
“It’s exhausting. I’ve slept maybe two hours since Tuesday,” says Zanthia Oliver, 55, who was just elected to a second term on the Wilmington city council.
As of Thursday morning, Democratic challenger Biden was approaching the magic number of 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House, as President Donald Trump’s campaign presented several legal challenges to the ongoing vote count.
Oliver, a Biden supporter, was trying to distract himself as the painful process of counting votes drags on in five states, including the key battlefields of Pennsylvania and Georgia.
“I’m just running a few errands, I’m just trying to keep busy,” she tells AFP, after depositing a check at a Bank of America downtown.
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Oliver says he’s been getting calls all night from friends wanting to know when the election will be called and if they will come out as Wilmington’s favorite son.
“At 2:00 am I was awake having a drowsy tea. At three I had a banana, I’m doing laundry. It must be adrenaline because I can’t sleep,” she adds.
Just a short drive away, outside the public library in the quiet city of 70,000, where Biden lived for more than three decades while he was a senator before becoming Barack Obama’s vice president, Deon Backus, 58, is taking a philosophical approach. .
“There is nothing you can do but hope for the best,” he tells AFP, adding that he has only been watching the news on television intermittently.
“I only watch 15 minutes here, 20 minutes there. I don’t get stressed about it. My wife, she’s the one who’s going crazy, not me,” adds the stevedore.
‘Frenzy’
On Market Street’s main thoroughfare, Jason Williams, 38, updates the results on the MSNBC app on his phone.
“Every few minutes I look at it,” says the maintenance technician.
“I’m a little anxious. I want to know who the next president will be. I guess everyone is in a frenzy.”
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Just over a mile away, on the Chase Center Riverfront, home to Biden’s polling place, hundreds of outlets from around the world await updates.
Between broadcasts from the on-site parking lot, they hang out at the adjacent Westin hotel, eager to know if Biden will become the 46th president of the United States.
Williams thinks they might have their answer on Friday, but Wilmington resident Backus is prepared for a longer wait.
“I really hope Joe does,” Backus says.
“But I think it could be another week and a half or two weeks before we find out. And then we still have to go back and forth to court,” he adds, referring to Trump’s legal challenges.
