Joe Biden supporters danced in the streets in front of a counting center in Philadelphia on Friday, as the growing number of votes showed that the former Democratic vice president could soon be declared the winner of the US presidential election.
In Detroit, several hundred supporters of President Donald Trump, some with their guns, chanted premature “We won!” outside of a tally center, although it seems increasingly unlikely, though not impossible, that this is true.
Philadelphia seemed to enjoy its turn as the center of the nation’s attention, even if it was won only by the relative slowness of its votes counting as the largest city in the state of Pennsylvania.
It is one of the few pivotal states in which the outcome of Tuesday’s election was still too close to be announced, and Philadelphians reveled in parading before the assembled news cameras playing violins and trombones or dressed in election-themed costumes. .
Sean Truppo, a 37-year-old social studies teacher, said he set off fireworks upon awakening to the news that Biden had surpassed Trump, a Republican, in the state count before putting his 4-year-old daughter in a stroller to join the group. Rising crowds outside the Philadelphia Convention Center.
“My daughter was born under Trump and I wanted her to witness the end of Trump,” he said.
Biden has a 253-214 lead in the state-by-state Electoral College vote determining the winner, according to Edison Research. Winning Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes would give Biden the 270 he needs to secure the presidency. He has already won the popular vote by about 4 million votes.
The nation has spent nearly three days watching the slow update of vote counts in the news, or finding tasks to distract itself from prolonged uncertainty.
Some, however, have taken to the streets, with Biden supporters encouraging poll workers to “count every vote,” sometimes breaking into a dance every time someone played a Beyoncé or Missy Elliott song on the speakers.
Some Trump supporters, following the president’s own lead, insisted that there must be something wrong with any tally that showed Biden winning, and they brought their rifles and pistols to rallies outside of counting centers in Detroit and Phoenix, Arizona. Dressed in the Trump supporter uniform of red “Make America Great Again” baseball caps, some fell to their knees in public prayer.
“It’s hard to believe we all went to bed Tuesday night and Trump was so early and now he’s late,” said George Vosca, a 72-year-old retired Illinois government employee, after driving an hour to join to a pro-Trump group rally outside the Wisconsin State Capitol building in Madison.
His wife, Marcia Vosca, also voted for Trump even as she acknowledged his flaws: “The thing is, he’s really an idiot,” Vosca, 64, said of Trump, and her husband nodded emphatically. “But we can all relate to being an idiot.”
Raised fists and boos
Most of the demonstrations have been peaceful and relatively small, although tensions have occasionally erupted. Overnight in New York City, police pushed protesters, journalists and at least one elected official as they made arrests and tried to get anti-Trump demonstrations off the roads.
In Detroit, anti-racism protesters rallying behind the slogan Black Lives Matter entered an area cordoned off by police for Trump supporters on Friday. Standing defiantly with fists in the air, Trump supporters, including armed members of the militia groups, approached, taunting, before police intervened, driving the anti-racism protesters elsewhere.
Some pro-Biden observers gathered outside the police cordon. One waved a sign that read, “Land to losers, go home!”
In Arizona, another hotly contested state, a growing crowd of several hundred Trump supporters returned to the counting center in Phoenix from around Maricopa County, where some 142,000 ballots remained to be counted as of Friday morning. anticipated.
Among them was Kota Bermudez, a 22-year-old driver for online retailer Amazon, who braced himself for disappointment.
“I know he’s losing right now, especially in the battlefield states,” he said. “But I hope that with all the legal stuff that is going on and all these mail ballots and so forth, whether legal or whatever, I just want this to be a fair and free election.”
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