Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks to supporters, early on 4 November 2020, in Wilmington, Del. Biden defeated President Donald Trump to become the 46th president of the United States on Saturday, positioning himself to lead a nation gripped by historic pandemic and a confluence of economic and social turmoil.
AP/Paul Sancya
By Jonathan Lemire and Zeke Miller | AP
WASHINGTON, DC, 7 November 2020
Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump to become the 46th president of the United States on Saturday, positioning himself to lead a nation gripped by the historic pandemic and a confluence of economic and social turmoil.
His victory came after more than three days of uncertainty as election officials sorted through a surge of mail-in votes that delayed the processing of some ballots. Biden crossed 270 Electoral College votes with a win in Pennsylvania.
Biden, 77, staked his candidacy less on any distinctive political ideology than on galvanizing 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 Pennsylvania, onetime Democratic bastions that had flipped 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 seized on delays in processing the vote in some states to falsely allege voter fraud and argue that his rival was trying to seize power — an extraordinary charge by a sitting president trying to sow doubt about a bedrock democratic process.
As the vote count played out, Biden tried to ease tensions and project an image of presidential leadership, hitting notes of unity that were seemingly aimed at cooling the temperature of a heated, divided nation.
“We have to remember the purpose of our politics isn’t total unrelenting, unending warfare,” Biden said Friday night in Delaware. “No, the purpose of our politics, the work of our nation, isn’t to fan the flames of conflict, but to solve problems, to guarantee justice, to give everybody a fair shot.”
Kamala Harris also made history as the first Black woman to become vice president, an achievement that comes as the US faces a reckoning on 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 ever to serve in government, four years after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.
Trump is the first incumbent president to lose reelection since Republican George HW Bush in 1992. It was unclear whether Trump would publicly concede.
Earlier Saturday Trump left the White House 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 unsupported allegations of election fraud and illegal voting on Twitter, but they were quickly flagged as potentially misleading by the social media platform.
One of his erroneous tweets: “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Biden was spending Saturday morning with family and advisers at home in Wilmington, Delaware, his campaign said.
Americans showed deep interest in the presidential race. A record 103 million voted early this year, opting to avoid waiting in long lines at polling locations during a pandemic. With counting continuing 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 played out against the backdrop of a surge in confirmed cases in nearly every state, including battlegrounds such as Wisconsin that swung to Biden.
The pandemic will soon be Biden’s to tame, and he campaigned pledging a big government response, akin to what Franklin D Roosevelt oversaw with the New Deal during the Depression of the 1930s. But Senate Republicans fought back several Democratic challengers and looked to retain a fragile majority that could serve as a check on such Biden ambition.
The 2020 campaign was a referendum on Trump’s handling of the pandemic, which has shuttered schools across the nation, disrupted businesses and raised questions about the feasibility of family gatherings heading into the holidays.
The fast spread of the coronavirus transformed political rallies from standard campaign fare to gatherings that were potential public health emergencies. It also contributed to an unprecedented shift to voting early and by mail and prompted Biden to dramatically scale back his travel and events to comply with restrictions. Trump defied calls for caution and ultimately contracted the disease himself. He was saddled throughout the year by negative assessments from the public of his handling of the pandemic.
Biden also drew a sharp contrast to Trump through a summer of unrest over the police killings of Black 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 pervades American life, while Trump emphasized his support of police and pivoted to a “law and order” message that resonated with his largely white base.
The president’s most ardent backers never wavered and may remain loyal to him and his supporters in Congress after Trump has departed the White House.
The third president to be impeached, though acquitted in the Senate, Trump will leave office having left an indelible imprint in a tenure defined by the shattering of White House norms and a day-to-day whirlwind of turnover, partisan divide and the ever-present threat via his Twitter account.
Biden, born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and raised in Delaware, was one of the youngest candidates ever elected to the Senate. Before he took office, his wife and daughter were killed, and his two sons badly injured in a 1972 car crash.
Commuting every night on a train from Washington back to Wilmington, Biden fashioned an everyman political persona to go along with powerful Senate positions, 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 management of the Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court hearings.
Biden’s 1988 presidential campaign was done in by plagiarism allegations, and his next bid in 2008 ended quietly. But later that year, he was tapped to be Barack Obama’s running mate and he became an influential vice president, steering the administration’s outreach to both Capitol Hill and Iraq.
While his reputation was burnished by his time in office and his deep friendship with Obama, Biden stood aside for Clinton and opted not to run in 2016 after his adult son Beau died of brain cancer the year before.
Trump’s tenure pushed Biden to make one more run as he declared that “the very soul of the nation is at stake.”
The claims about dead people voting for immigrant friendly Joe Biden sounds outrageous, but it doesn’t mean such a thing is impossible. There are regions where staff counting votes have strong vested interests and sometimes checks on them are loose.
Trump might well have lost even if you eliminate all dead people’s votes (those born in 1750s-1800s), but that doesn’t mean such corrupt practice is right, and must be investigated.
But it is very easy to verify. Just re-check all votes before Jan 20. These allegations make US, Tibet’s favorite big naughty brother, look disorganized at the level of Somalia or Nepal. US must clear this up.
thanks joe biden for plans to make divided america united again, and give each other a chance. similarly, i think Tibetan sikyong 2021 should find creative ways to heal the tribal divisions. A simple unifying gestures such as cake-cutting together, or a pint in a pub, or a tea/coffee in a cafe, with your political opponent, such as between Lobsang Sangay supporter and Penpa Tsering supporters, will be nice.
PT right said in Toronto, ‘Now time has come to have tea together. If you guys were having tea together, and then stopped after PT-LS affair, I urge you to meet for tea again.’ Tenpa Yarphel similarly said ‘I never had tea with him. Or exchange an once of wealth with him’ when lashing out at Dawa Tsering’s controversial control of Yongling Kindergarten. Tea motiff is interest if you consider how Chinese cops asks random Tibetans to visit police station for a ‘ tea’, there’s that Tea Party in the US. Tibetan youtuber Tenzin Yeshi was conscious of possible charges of bias, was quick to declare: ‘I never have had a cup of TEA with Lhagyari Namgyal Dolkar.’ Lobsang Sangay too has condemned lazy Sunday mornings when one listens to wechat Tsadhongling gossips while sipping cups of TEA. Dalai Lama sipping on a hot cup of butter tea with a satisfying ‘ahh’ is viral on facebook. Thupten Thokmey, former Namgyal clergy, now an Airport luggage transporter in NY, reportedly says he wouldn’t have a cup of tea with Lobsang Sangay and Kaydor Aukatsang supporters in his lifetime.
Oh, what a tea, my tea.
Ling Gesar’s foes have fled the scene about a time it takes to drink a cup of tea ago.
Wishful thinking of the Biased Left-wing Media and the brainwashed Tibetan Americans who actually think that Beijing-Biden is the best choice for our Cause and that he actually cares about anyone besides himself. Why do we always fall for Symbolic gestures that carry no real political meaning and significance.
Did we all forget the side-door treatment of His Holiness at the hands of Obama. Look up the pictures taken next to White House garbage bags on GOOGLE and tell me if it doesn’t make your blood boil!
Besides news networks don’t Call the Election. This whole sham will go to the court and Trump will be declared the winner come December!
He hasn’t. there are still recounts and major checks of all the fraudulent claims. Court and the people will decide not the media.
The people HAVE decided. We chose JOE.
Yes, 21,000 dead people in Pennsylvania chose Biden. Similar in Michigan. Mind you a good portion of them were born in the 1800’s. lol. You can’t make this up. It sounds like a movie.
Then there’s the cash for vote people in Minnesota. USPS supervisor instructing postal worker to back date the ballots that came in after the fact. You can look up on Project Veritas – 2 whistleblowers, one showing his face. Then investigators found something wrong with a voting machine in Michigan and upon investigation found votes for Trump in the machine and software automatically flipped to Biden. They found 6000 votes in one district. The poll workers said that it was just a glitch an error. But further investigation found that it was software called Hammer and Score card that was doing the flipping being used in 30 other states. Then there are videos of poll workers filling out blank ballots. I never liked big brother surveillance but this time i’m glad there was big b watching.
After seeing all these frauds i can confidently say that America beat the 3rd world on election fraud. Its official.
So, you do understand that the announcement by the media is going to be overturned.