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Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the presidential election and will apparently take over the Oval Office in January. He takes over a country where the population clearly disagrees on the way forward, Norwegian experts believe.
On Saturday, November 7, several US media announced that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden (78) has been elected as the next 46th president of the United States.
It comes after several days of mail-in ballot counting and a series of attacks and falsehoods about the electoral process of outgoing President Donald Trump (R) and his campaign.
Biden, who ran for president alongside vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris, received the most votes in a US election and garnered at least 279 votes on Saturday.
Report to various US media.
BECOME PRESIDENT: Next President of the United States, Joe Biden. Photo: JIM LO SCALZO / EPA
On Saturday, Biden left the crucial state of Pennsylvania with 20 voters, ensuring the former vice president more than the 270 voters needed to become president.
The winner of the election may grow even more in the coming days, when all the votes have finally been counted.
Votes are still counted, and the media have different practices for when they consider that a state is decided. VG figures are provided by DPA, as a user CNN as main source:
Even though Biden clearly wins the total number of votes in the country, the election is an expression of how great the distance is between Americans, says Professor Jennifer Leigh Bailey from NTNU’s Department of Sociology and Political Science.
She tells VG that she is happy that Biden wins, because she believes that Trump as a person is dangerous for the country.
– What I’m not happy about is that Biden won by small margins. The country is deeply divided.
With more than 74.4 million votes, Biden is the first presidential candidate in American history to receive more than 70 million votes from the population.
According to Bailey, both Democrats and Republicans will stand firm in the future, because “they both want to control the direction the country is taking.”
– The Americans have not made a clear choice between the two sides. Democrats have not convinced many more than in previous elections, he says.
Bailey notes that not many percent separate the two candidates. Overnight through Saturday, 2.8 percent split in favor of Biden.
– There are many who support Trump. 47.7 percent have elected Trump, Bailey says.
Donald Trump has also set a record: he has received at least 70.3 million votes, which is a new record for the Republican Party. There is also a sharp increase since the elections four years ago when he received 62.9 million.
EXPERT IN THE UNITED STATES: Professor Jennifer Leigh Bailey, Department of Sociology and Political Science at NTNU. Photo: Therese Lee Støver, NTNU
Political scientist and commentator for the American Politics website, Vårin Alme, agrees.
She notes that while Biden has received the most votes in history and wins both the so-called popular vote and the Electoral College by a clear margin, “Trump has received the second-highest number of votes in history.”
“Whatever the outcome, we see that Trump had stronger support than many had anticipated, and that he was able to mobilize to a degree few expected,” Alme says.
– Trump rejection
When asked what the results of the US presidential elections show, Minerva journalist and commentator Jan Arild Snoen responds:
– It is primarily a rejection of Donald Trump, because Biden’s message has largely been to be anti-Trump.
According to Snoen, politics will now be normalized back to a way of doing politics “that is not so divisive.”
However, he believes that the elections do not point US policy in a clear direction.
– It’s especially because Biden probably doesn’t want a majority in the Senate, says Snoen.
As of Saturday night, it is still unclear whether either party will be able to win a majority in the Senate, which has been ruled by Republicans for the past six years.
However, Democrats have a theoretical chance of regaining the majority, if they win three of the last five seats that have yet to be cleared.
NTNU professor Bailey agrees that it may seem difficult for Biden without a majority here, nor does she think Democrats are likely to win the battle for the Senate.
“Biden will be in big trouble because the Democrats probably won’t get a majority in the Senate,” Bailey said.
UNITED STATES EXPERT: Minerva journalist and commentator, Jan Arild Snoen.
Historic victory
Alme on American Politics says that Biden has historically won in a number of ways.
– It is not often that a sitting president only sits for one term, as Trump does now. We have also reached the milestone with the first black vice president. Both are historical facts.
He also notes that the election is taking place at “a historic moment, where the United States is in a crisis on multiple fronts.”
– It not only has a pandemic, but a civil rights crisis, a crisis around police violence and the rights of blacks, and a series of other struggles for values that can be summarized in the consultation round of the new Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett says and adds:
– All the issues that are high on the political agenda of the United States today constitute such crises, and the country faces important choices of direction.
Barrett’s hearings put topics like women’s right to self-determined abortion and Obamacare health care reform on the agenda.
US EXPERT: Political scientist and commentator Vårin Alme at Amerikanskpolitikk.no Photo: Lise Reng
– Reintroduce traditional foreign policy
NTNU professor Bailey believes that Biden will try to be a president for all Americans. She believes it will “muffle the rhetoric” and believes it is important for the country.
– Trump says nonsense, does not move away from hate groups and everything he does is talked about a lot. The bite will look almost dull in comparison, and that’s a good thing, says Bailey.
Alme says that Biden has described himself as a transitional figure between the old and new democratic parties. According to her, Biden will follow a more progressive policy than Obama did.
– He wants to expand Obamacare, but also to reintroduce a more traditional foreign policy, to try to change Trump’s fiscal package and introduce a minimum wage, among other things. It will also try to succeed with a crisis management of the corona pandemic, says Alme.
Bailey also believes that we will see a more traditional foreign policy under Biden.
– His advisers come from the Obama camp. I think he will lead a line similar to Obama’s, with more international cooperation and diplomatic will. NATO does better with Biden as president. It will remain tough on China, that probably won’t change next season.
