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Biden wins presidential race in deeply divided United States

Published 11/07/2020, 12:54 AM
Updated 11/07/2020, 01:28 PM
© Reuters. Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden makes address about election results in Wilmington, Delaware

© Reuters. Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden makes address about election results in Wilmington, Delaware

By John Whitesides and Joseph Ax

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Joe Biden captured the U.S. presidency on Saturday as voters narrowly rebuffed Republican incumbent Donald Trump's tumultuous leadership and embraced Biden's promise to fight the coronavirus pandemic and fix the economy in a divided nation.

Winning the battleground state of Pennsylvania's 20 Electoral College votes gave the former vice president more than the 270 he needed to triumph, prompting all major TV networks to declare him victor came after four days of nail-biting suspense following Tuesday's election.

"I am honored and humbled by the trust the American people have placed in me and in Vice President-elect (Kamala) Harris. In the face of unprecedented obstacles, a record number of Americans voted," Biden said on Twitter.

"With the campaign over, it's time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation. It's time for America to unite. And to heal."

Trump, who has made repeated claims of electoral fraud without providing evidence, immediately accused Biden of "rushing to falsely pose as the winner."

"This election is far from over," he said in a statement.

State elections officials across the country say there has been no evidence of significant fraud.

As the news broke, loud cheers erupted in the halls of the hotel where Biden aides were staying and around the country.

"Worth every minute," of the wait, a Biden aide said, as campaign staff exchanged elbow bumps and air hugs in the lobby.

Harris tweeted a video of her congratulating Biden: "We did it Joe!" Harris will be the first woman, the first Black American and the first American of Asian descent to serve as vice president, the country's No. 2 office.

Cheers and applause was heard in neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. In one community, people emerged onto balconies, yelling, waving and banging pots. The wave of noise built as more people learned of the news. Some were in tears. Music began to play, "We are the Champions" blared.

In the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, people clapped, honked car horns and erupted in screams of joy as the news spread of Biden's victory. Some residents danced on a building's fire escape, cheering while others screamed "yes!" as they passed by.

Several world leaders, including conservative British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, moved quickly to congratulate Biden, making it even harder for Trump to push his claim that the election was rigged against him.

In a reminder of the divided state of the country, however, about 200 Trump supporters gathered near the state capitol buildings in Lansing, Michigan, to demand a recount.

The networks' declaration that Biden had won came amid internal concerns within Trump's team about the strategy going forward and pressure on him to pick a more professional legal team to outline where they believe voter fraud took place and show evidence pointing toward it.

One Trump loyalist said Trump simply was not ready to admit defeat even though there would not be enough ballots thrown out in a recount to change the outcome. "There's a mathematical certainty that he's going to lose," the loyalist said.

Biden was expected to address the nation after 8 p.m. on Saturday (1 a.m. Sunday GMT) from his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, according to a campaign aide.

DIFFICULT TASK AHEAD

When Biden enters the White House on Jan. 20, the oldest person to assume the office at age 78, he likely will face a difficult task governing in a deeply polarized Washington, underscored by a record nationwide voter turnout in a fight to the finish.

The former vice president had a 273 to 214 lead in the state-by-state Electoral College vote that determines the winner, having won Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes to put him over the 270 he needed to secure the presidency, according to Edison Research.

To secure the win, Biden faced unprecedented challenges. These included Republican-led efforts to limit mail-in voting at a time when a record number of people were due to vote by mail because of the pandemic, which has killed more than 235,000 people in the United States.

Both sides characterized the 2020 election as one of the most crucial in U.S. history, as important as votes during the 1860s Civil War and the 1930s Great Depression.

For months, officials on both sides raised the spectre of the United States not being able to pull off a fair vote. In the end, however, voting at the polls proceeded with limited disruption. Thousands of election monitors from both parties worked for four days to ensure the votes were being counted.

Biden's victory was driven by strong support from groups including women, African Americans, white voters with college degrees and city-dwellers. He was more than four million votes ahead of Trump in the nationwide popular vote count.

Biden, who has spent half a century in public life as a U.S. senator and then vice president under Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, will inherit a nation in turmoil over the coronavirus pandemic and the related economic slowdown as well as disruptive protests against racism and police brutality.

Biden has said his first priority will be developing a plan to contain and recover from the pandemic, promising to improve access to testing and, unlike Trump, to heed the advice of leading public health officials and scientists.

He also has pledged to restore a sense of normalcy to the White House after a presidency in which Trump praised authoritarian foreign leaders, disdained longstanding global alliances, refused to disavow white supremacists and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the U.S. election system.

Despite his victory, Biden will have failed to deliver the sweeping repudiation to Trump that Democrats had hoped for, reflecting the deep support the president enjoys despite his tumultuous four years in office.

This could complicate Biden's campaign promises to reverse key parts of Trump's legacy. These include deep Trump tax cuts that especially benefited corporations and the wealthy, hardline immigration policies, efforts to dismantle the 2010 Obamacare healthcare law and Trump's abandonment of such international agreements as the Paris climate accord and Iran nuclear deal.

Should Republicans keep control of the U.S. Senate, they would likely block large parts of his legislative agenda, including expanding healthcare and fighting climate change. That prospect could depend on the outcome of four undecided Senate races, including two in Georgia.

'TRYING TO STEAL AN ELECTION'

For Trump, 74, it was an unsettling end after an astonishing political rise. The real estate developer who established a nationwide brand as a reality TV personality upset Democrat Hillary Clinton to win the presidency in 2016 in his first run for elected office. Four years later, he becomes the first U.S. president to lose a re-election bid since Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Despite his draconian immigration curbs, Trump made surprising inroads with Latino voters. He also won battleground states such as Florida, where his pledge to prioritize the economy even if it increased the threat of the coronavirus appeared to have resonated.

In the end, though, Trump failed to significantly widen his appeal beyond a committed core of rural and working-class white voters who embraced his right-wing populism and "America First" nationalism.

Prior to the election, Trump had refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he lost to Biden - and he stuck to that approach. He falsely declared victory long before counting was complete.

Before Biden's victory projection and with Trump's re-election chances fading as more votes were counted, the president launched an extraordinary assault on the country's democratic process from the White House on Thursday, falsely claiming the election was being stolen from him.

Offering no evidence, Trump assailed election workers and alleged fraud in the states where results from a dwindling set of uncounted votes pushed Biden nearer to victory.

"This is a case where they're trying to steal an election," Trump said on Thursday.

© Reuters. Supporters of Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Joe Biden celebrate

Urging patience as votes were counted, Biden responded on Twitter: "No one is going to take our democracy away from us. Not now, not ever."

Latest comments

If we dont fix the zero credible voting system, the so called democracy is no more valuable tha a pile of ***
I would like to hear your thoughts as to why you think our voting system isnt credible.
Well matt, many states updated their voting system in the 6 months leadingup to wlections and there wasnt much oversight as the focus was on getting a lot of ballots to voters due to covid. pensylvania changed their voting laws to allow unverified voters to receive a ballot and cast it, and went further in response to the supreme court that all would count. They approved voting rules that dont require registration. They dodnt allow a democrat and a repub observer to be present snd observe the opening of ballots and the subsequent discarding and keeping of ballots. The sherrif of at least one viting location would only allow the democrat observers and not the republican onbservers. Voting machines were allesgedly plugged in and operating the day before the election in pensylvania and many were observed to not have been zeroed out by observe. So, a lot of questions now arose with the integrity of the election. These are some of the reasons there are concerns about integrity of electio
Matt R., the Trump legal team should make that clear tomorrow.  You might not hear about it through MSM, but maybe on Fox...  Check around to see what's reported.  MSM and social media are censoring. Where's America's freedom...?  Georgia has a Libertarian in one of the runoff races for Senate, Shane Hazel with 2.3% of the vote.  If America had two parties that were pro-freedom they could have avoided Trump and stayed free.  What is Hazel's role in January's "little November..."  What sort of transparency adjustments will we have in the GA runoff races?  Is corruption so strong, America so far gone, that a perverse form of democracy will bring enough votes to elect the democrat? Hazel might want to cast his support to the GOP and withdraw. Even though the GOP incumbent has a nice lead, you just don't know about this power-thirsty left. It seems they will stop at nothing to influence election outcomes in their favor. I think Hazel ought help out to make sure the GOP keeps the Senate.
would USD will strong from tommorow
I wonder why?.US printing trillions would seem to diminish but election/market reaction could cause this dislocation, Europe lockdown - flight to safety ... vix will be interesting
Joe Biden is the president of the dead!!
US economy will crash soon under Biden... He is tools for China...
US economy will crash soon under Biden
Divided States of America?
Yes, a denocratic republic is our system. Unfortunately, it wasnt built to withstand the democratic machine of ballot manipulation. Not good for the country.
What does Biden mean by saying we're a democracy?  Doesn't he know we're a republic?  Why focus on majority rule instead of representation?  Shouldn't it be about right and wrong, and not votes?  Is it OK to regulate and confiscate just so long as you have enough votes? Democracies can't resist voter fraud because it's all about getting votes. 6 months ago the democrats successfully advocated for looser mail-in ballot procedures. Now we are seeing the fruits from that while corporate-media has called this race.  There is no official call yet.  If you're wondering how much media affects American lives, it has the Dems dancing and the ticket victory-speaking, while the result is still unofficial.  Our poor people are so influenced by corporate media reporting, and it makes no difference if the reporting is true, false or temporary. What happens if the news becomes Trump stays?  "I'm boarding up my store-front windows incase the party that's for love, peace, and tolerance loses!"
I noticed 9 thumbs down here and not one post presenting a case to explain why.  This is typical of the mentality in favor of the Dem. ticket.  It's just an emotional response on a personality level, closed, and void of the ability to defend a position though discourse.  So sad so many show themselves to be this way.  Hopefully they can grow up and realize what they are doing.  I wouldn't want to be on their side against America the way they are.  They have a lot to learn.   I hope they can accomplish it.  They ought to consider trying to make the Founding Fathers proud.  Right now, they're in big trouble with 'em.
I’m an independant to speak off. This election outcome didn’t earn my respect
Election fraud may not only be the issue with Press. Trump but it violates every Citizens of this Country. We need to reform our voting system to make it a fail and temper proof system.
We need to reform the way our voting systems works, mail in ballots is a failure. Anything can happen and votes can be steal. If the Dem. think they won it and why are they afraid of recounts. Real gold should not be afraid to be test...
Black monday coming
That's not what futures show
The mindlessness of Americans causes this division just like it causes the struggle of Americans with Covid and their health and common sense. -- The whole matter is linked to education which the GOP has been skimping on for decades for the benefit of the GOP's upper crust. -- Smart countries like Germany and South Korea INVEST HEAVILY IN EDUCATION AND A STRONG MIDDLE CLASS but not America. Blame the GOP
Yes, I was impressed the way 'Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer respected, listened, and worked with Donald Trump.'
yes yes.. especially the impeachment. QuidProJoe will get the same treatment.
Lol I'm from South Korea and you're calling us smart and have good educational system? I'm sorry to tell you that they've been brainwashing you. And guess what, Trump was the right answer.
Don't worry.. We (the Senate) will respect, listen, and work with Joe Biden in the exact same way Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer respected, listened, and worked with Donald Trump.
Impeachment
America is 🔩 either way. We have no real economy, the FED is holding up markets. More spending to come, say goodbye to the greenback!
Not so much if in January, in Georgia, the GOP holds the Senate.
im waiting for a war with some faraway country for 'democracy'🖕🖕🖕
I can support a president I do not agree with on policy and not hate him...wish the anti trumpers could say the same...they are UnAmerican
I think they call it growing up
Don't worry.. We (the Senate) will respect, listen, and work with Joe Biden in the exact same way Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer respected, listened, and worked with Donald Trump.
, how many Dems openly express hatred for the President and name-call?  I see a higher level of maturity on the GOP side.  Are you sure you are in the right place?
All Fraud
We'll soon know.  Can you face the truth whatever it is?
Trump is the last president
 don’t worry!  It’s coming for you. We’re going to dig more Hunter and Joe Biden corruption as well.
47 years of do nothing Joe. Except send a plane full of cash to Iran. oh boy this is going to be something. wake up Joe its about to get real. Best of luck dems.
Moscow Joe! Going to stand tough on China.....lol. This is gonna be fun. Working class Americans better get those wallets out.
Waaaaaa!
This election, which determines America's fate, determines that America will decline, that it does not believe in the wisdom of the so-called Americans, that a large number of young people are actively involved in fraudulent votes, that this group of future Americans will destroy america's democratic values, that America will be darker as a Chinese, and that the statue of freedom in my heart will fall when they take the leadership in the future
There's lots of checks and balances built in to the beauty that is America.  We're going through a fortunate process right now to eventually come together.   Things are leaning one way, but there's a possibility that could change.  Hopefully, truth prevails and law-breakers are held accountable.  One leader said: when the process is through we all need to respect the outcome.  I can do that for either side, but we have a ways to go yet.  Eventually we will all see which side holds the presidency and which side holds the Senate.  Right now, it is corporate media that has called the race, not the American government, and lately, considering how wrong MSM was about the "Blue Wave" how reliable and official is the news?
You better not trust those checks and balances too much.
 The supreme court is 6-3 in favor of the GOP...  That's what I'm talking about.  It's not so much a matter of trust as it is waiting on the outcome.  Tomorrow might be a very good day for the good-fighters.  I praying for as much.  Let's see what happens.
Chairman Xi's surely will get another headache and re-arrange China's stategy. Trump is so reactive and predictable to China all this time.Zero result came out of his tradewar strategy toward China.But China surely will not run out of strategy either
That's what the Chinese would like to make the Americans believe.
Remember Trump supporters attacking Hillary for year's for waiting until 3 am to concede?
Its not over yet...
Harris will become President before midterm. Biden will stroke out.
She is the least popular person among blacks in California because she put so many *******smoking black in jail. She accused Joe of a racist and even ****** She is vicious!!
Harris put so many Marijuana smokers in jail. A lot of California black hates her!!
, I don't think you know my position.  You better read some of my other posts.  No one should hate anybody.  You should agree with that.  I agree with that.  MLK would agree with that...
...
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