The contest turned out to be very difficult, as the vote counting continued four days after the polls closed and the world eagerly awaited the election results.
Joseph R. Biden was elected president of the United States on Friday 46, ending one of the most closely watched presidential elections in recent history. The contest turned out to be very difficult, as the vote counting continued four days after the polls closed and the world eagerly awaited the election results. Biden’s victory also culminates the tumultuous one-term presidency of Donald Trump, who came to power in a shocking 2016 election on a wave of nationalist momentum. NBC, CNN and the Associated Press called the race beginning Saturday morning.
While advance statements on Election Day appeared to favor Trump, the numbers shifted in Biden’s favor once the counting of absentee and vote-by-mail ballots began, as several experts had predicted. Mail-in ballots reportedly favored Biden largely due to repeated calls from the Democratic Party for Americans to vote early, while the Trump campaign had urged voters to get out on Election Day.
JOE BIDEN DEFEATS PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP
The Associated Press declares Joe Biden the winner of a grueling campaign for the US presidency. It will lead a polarized nation through a historic collision of health, economic and social crises. #Pracecall pic.twitter.com/lInwqjX3PB
– The Associated Press (@AP) November 7, 2020
Trump saw early successes on Election Day securing Florida and saw progress in several key states on the battlefield, such as Pennsylvania and Georgia. However, Wisconsin and Michigan went to Biden, two states that had supported Trump in 2016. The race eventually narrowed to Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina.
As of Friday morning in the US, Biden took the lead in Pennsylvania by more than 5,000 votes, and also in Georgia. It also secured Arizona and had a small lead in Nevada. Meanwhile, Trump had a slight edge in North Carolina.
Biden got the 273 electoral college votes needed to get him and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, into the White House.
Although the race has been called in Biden’s favor, President Trump has yet to admit defeat and has already taken legal action in several states to challenge the election results. At one point on Thursday, Trump tweeted “STOP THE COUNT,” and continued to claim that he was “stealing” the election, even though there was no evidence to support the claim.
As the results tipped in Biden’s favor, Trump supporters took to the streets in several cities, some carrying weapons, to protest the recount.
Biden had served as the 47th Vice President of the United States under former President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017. Previously, he had served as the United States Senator from Delaware.
Biden-Harris’s victory comes as the United States is coming to the end of a tumultuous year that has included Black Lives Matter protests across the country against racial injustice and police brutality, an economic hub with record job losses and the devastation caused by the coronavirus pandemic in the United States that recorded the highest number of cases in the world and more than 231,000 deaths. Trump has been widely criticized for his handling of the pandemic and his insistence that the country was heading for recovery, even as the United States saw single-day spikes in multiple states.
The country has recorded a record voter turnout in this year’s election, with nearly 100 million ballots registered before Election Day through mailed ballots and early voting polls that saw Americans spend several hours in long lines winding around the corners. According to Bloomberg, in this election between 157.1 and 165 million votes were voted. According to the US Election Project, the record voter turnout was 66.9%, which is reportedly the highest since 1900.
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