US elections: Joe Biden defeats Donald Trump to become president-elect of the United States

KEY POINTS:
* Joe Biden has defeated President Donald Trump and will become the 46th President of the United States.
* Biden won Pennsylvania to exceed the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.
* Biden also led Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan on his way to make Trump the first incumbent since George HW Bush to lose his bid for a second term.
* Trump said the outcome was “far from over” and said a legal challenge would begin Monday (US time).

Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump to become the 46th president of the United States.

Biden surpassed 270 Electoral College votes with a win in Pennsylvania earlier this morning (New Zealand time).

He said in a statement that he was “honored and humiliated.”

“It is time for the United States to come together. And heal,” he said. “We are the United States of America. And there is nothing we cannot do if we do it together.”

After the networks announced the race for Biden, Trump said in a statement that Biden “is quick to pose as the winner” and said “it is far from over.”

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“Starting Monday, our campaign will begin to prosecute our case in court to ensure that electoral laws are fully respected and that the rightful winner is seated.”

“I will not rest until the American people have the honest vote count they deserve and that democracy demands,” Trump said in the statement.

Trump is currently at his Virginia golf course.

Biden’s victory came after more than three days of uncertainty as election officials settled a flurry of mail-in ballots that delayed the processing of some ballots.

The 77-year-old Biden bet his candidacy less on a distinctive political ideology than on propelling a broad coalition of voters around the notion that Trump posed an existential threat to American democracy.

The strategy proved effective, resulting in pivotal victories in Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as in Pennsylvania, former Democratic strongholds that fell to Trump in 2016.

Biden was on track to win the national popular vote by more than 4 million, a margin that could grow as ballots continue to be counted.

Trump took advantage of the delays in voting processing in some states to falsely allege voter fraud and argue that his rival was trying to seize power, an extraordinary position for a sitting president trying to cast doubt on a fundamental democratic process.

As the vote counting unfolded, Biden tried to ease tensions and project an image of presidential leadership, scoring notes of unity that apparently aimed to cool the temperature of a heated and divided nation.

“We have to remember that the purpose of our policy is not an all-out, relentless, endless war,” Biden said Friday night (US time) in Delaware.

“No, the purpose of our policy, the job of our nation, is not to fan the flames of conflict, but to solve problems, ensure justice, give everyone a fair chance.”

Kamala Harris also made history as the first black woman to become vice president, an achievement that comes as the United States faces a reckoning over racial justice.

The California senator, who is also the first person of South Asian descent elected to the vice presidency, will become the highest-ranking woman in government, four years after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.

Trump is the first incumbent president to lose re-election since Republican George HW Bush in 1992. It was unclear whether Trump would publicly relent.

Trump left the White House early Saturday for his Virginia golf club dressed in golf shoes, a windbreaker and a white hat, as the results gradually expanded Biden’s lead in Pennsylvania.

Trump repeated his unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud and illegal voting on Twitter, but the social media platform quickly flagged them as potentially misleading.

One of his wrong tweets: “I WON THIS CHOICE, BY FAR!”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Biden was spending Saturday morning with his family and advisers at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, his campaign said.

Americans showed deep interest in the presidential race. A record 103 million voted earlier this year, choosing to avoid long lines at polling places during a pandemic. With the count continued in some states, Biden had already received more than 74 million votes, more than any presidential candidate before him.

More than 236,000 Americans have died during the coronavirus pandemic, nearly 10 million have been infected, and millions of jobs have been lost. The final days of the campaign unfolded against the backdrop of a surge in confirmed cases in nearly every state, including battlefields like Wisconsin, which passed Biden.

The pandemic will soon be tamed by Biden, and he campaigned promising a great government response, similar to what Franklin D. Roosevelt oversaw with the New Deal during the Depression of the 1930s.

But Senate Republicans battled a number of Democratic rivals and sought to retain a fragile majority that could serve as a brake on Biden’s ambition.

The rapid spread of the coronavirus transformed political rallies from a standard campaign fee to gatherings that were potential public health emergencies.

It also contributed to an unprecedented shift toward early and mail-in voting and led Biden to drastically reduce his travels and events to comply with restrictions.

Trump defied calls for caution and eventually contracted the disease himself. Throughout the year he was affected by negative evaluations from the public about his handling of the pandemic.

Biden also drew a stark contrast to Trump during a summer of unrest over police killings of African Americans, including Breonna Taylor in Kentucky and George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Their deaths sparked the largest racial protest movement since the civil rights era. Biden responded by acknowledging the racism that permeates American life, while Trump emphasized his support for the police and swung toward a message of “law and order” that resonated with his largely white base.

The president’s most fervent supporters never wavered and can remain loyal to him and his supporters in Congress after Trump has left the White House.

The third president to be indicted, albeit acquitted in the Senate, Trump will leave office after leaving an indelible mark on a term defined by breaking White House rules and a daily whirlwind of rotation, partisan division and eternity. . present threat through your Twitter account.

Biden, born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and raised in Delaware, was one of the youngest candidates ever elected to the Senate. Before taking office, his wife and daughter were killed and his two sons were seriously injured in a car accident in 1972.

Traveling nightly on a train from Washington back to Wilmington, Biden created a common-man political persona to accompany powerful Senate posts, including chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations Committees.

Some aspects of his record drew critical scrutiny from fellow Democrats, including his support for the 1994 crime bill, his vote for the 2003 Iraq war, and his handling of Clarence’s Supreme Court hearings. Thomas.

Biden’s presidential campaign in 1988 was ended on accusations of plagiarism, and his next candidacy in 2008 ended quietly.

But later that year, he was chosen to be Barack Obama’s running mate and became an influential vice president, directing the administration’s outreach to both the Capitol and Iraq.

While his reputation was polished by his time in office and his deep friendship with Obama, Biden stayed on the sidelines of Clinton and chose not to run in 2016 after his adult son Beau died of brain cancer the previous year.

Trump’s term pushed Biden into one more career when he declared that “the very soul of the nation is at stake.”

– AP