Since Tuesday November 3, after a gruelling campaign, America, and the world, has been watching and waiting with bated breath for the presidential election results to be called and finally they have.
In unison, media outlets across the world such as CNN, CBS, NBC, AP News, and BBC News called the election race for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris not an hour after President Donald Trump tweeted that he had “WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!” Twitter almost immediately flagged the tweet with the warning, “Official sources may not have called the race when this was Tweeted”.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1325099845045071873
Since Tuesday night the American people have been waiting for a few key battleground states to announce their results. Glued to their devices, people across the world were continually checking news sites, following TV broadcasts of the election, and refreshing Twitter as America counted its historic number of ballots cast.
On Tuesday it appeared that President Donald Trump and the Republican Party were in the clear lead but this was to be expected as Republicans were expected to mostly vote in person after Trump’s continued attacks on mail-in voting, making the process a partisan issue. This initial Republican lead has been dubbed the ‘red mirage’. However, as the mail-in ballots began to be counted a very clear pattern was beginning to emerge — that the mail-in ballots were largely votes for Democratic Party nominee former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate Senator Kamala Harris.
As the week progressed it was clear that the race was tightening between Biden and Trump, and that a few key battleground states would decide the election. These states were Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina.
President Trump has managed to hold on to North Carolina and their 15 Electoral College votes. However, in the other states Joe Biden quickly caught up with Trump throughout the week. Tensions were high, anxiety flooded the American people, and it appeared that Trump’s mood was souring by the hour.
As it stands at the time of writing Biden and Harris have won Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada, and are on track to win Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. After the prediction by Edison Research that Joe Biden has won Nevada, putting him over the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win, news outlets across the world began announcing Joe Biden to be the next President of the United states of America.
With 74,493,496 votes and counting — over four million more votes than Donald Trump — Joe Biden has managed to flip multiple states from the 2016 presidential election. If the results remain as they are, as they are predicted to do so, Biden will have flipped Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia which all voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are on track to receive 306 Electoral College votes, the same amount Donald Trump and Mike Pence won in 2016.
As the news broke on Saturday of Biden and Harris’ victory, celebrations broke out across America in cities such as Washington D.C., New York, and Philadelphia. But it isn’t just America celebrating tonight, in the U.K. cheering could be heard across London as fireworks were launched in celebration, and church bells were ringing across Paris, France. It seems millions of people across the world are revelling in the victory of the now President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, and the defeat of the current President Donald J. Trump, whose presidential term has been fraught with controversy and mired in misinformation, lies, and racism.
This election marks another milestone for America, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on her way to becoming the first female vice president, the first African American vice president, and the first Asian American vice president of the United States of America.
As millions of people across the world celebrate tonight, many are still left feeling uneasy by the level of support Donald Trump received in the election. Although defeated, Trump gained over 70 million votes — over 7 million more votes than in 2016.
President-elect Joe Biden is set to inherit a deeply divided America after a bitter and often violent four years under the Trump Administration, along with a pandemic which has so far claimed over 240,000 American lives, and a turbulent economy. Many in the country are hoping he can begin to heal the deep wounds inflicted by the outgoing administration, such as the nurtured distrust of the media, the ever growing racial tensions which spilled over into countless protests this year after the death of George Floyd while in police custody, and the vast amounts of misinformation that has plagued America and its politics under the leadership of Donald J. Trump.
After the announcement, President-elect Joe Biden tweeted that he is “honored that you have chosen me to lead our great country” and that he promised all Americans he would “keep the faith that you have placed in me”.
On January 21 2021 Joe Biden is set to be inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States of America.
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