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US Presidential Election 2020: Divided states of America
President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden remained locked in a nail-biting race for the White House, with the Democrat moving on Wednesday afternoon (late night in India) into a slender lead in crucial battleground states that had propelled Trump to the presidency in 2016.
President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden remained locked in a nail-biting race for the White House, with the Democrat moving on Wednesday afternoon (late night in India) into a slender lead in crucial battleground states that had propelled Trump to the presidency in 2016.
But the likelihood of an outcome still looked likely only in days, rather than hours, in a deeply divisive and polarised election that may go through several courthouses in the United States before the dust is finally settled on the million-dollar question: is America headed for four more Trump years, and will it get a fresh start under Biden?
At the time of going to print, Biden had secured a thin but growing lead in Michigan and Wisconsin, two of those key battleground states, when counting resumed on Wednesday morning after few hours of respite for counting official. He wiped out the President’s lead in these states that lasted for hours, drawing up visions of a repeat of 2016. However, Trump campaign asked for a recount of the votes in Wisconsin later on Wednesday. Trump was still ahead in Pennsylvania, the other key state, and hanging on to the lead in an expectedly tight race in Georgia, but he was not expected by some experts to withstand the surge from counting of mailed-in votes from Democratic strongholds.
Both camps remained publicly confident of securing the White House, pointing to pockets of their support that remained to be counted. And true to the pattern of the up-and-down trends that played through the hours of counting, Biden’s lead in Michigan narrowed a bit again at the writing of this report.
Away from the presidential race, Democrats kept control of the House of Representatives but failed to wrest control of the Senate from the Republicans, belying expectations of a “Blue Wave”.
The electoral map for the presidential race, with declared and trending states, reflected a deeply divided country, unmoved much either by President Trump’s promise of a strong economic recovery and law and order for this second term, or former Vice-President Biden’s vow to tackle the Covid-19 epidemic as his top priority and unifying the country.
Biden led in electoral college votes, as projected by major networks till the time of going to print — popular vote will not settle this race — with 238 to Trump’s 213. The winning threshold is 270.
Hours earlier, however, President Trump tried to shut down the race prematurely with a widely panned attempt to declare victory early on Wednesday morning when he had won Florida, a key battleground state, and was leading by wide margins in the other crucial states, with the exception of Arizona, which was called by several networks but not all -- making it the only state that may have already flipped from the previous election.
“Frankly, we did win this election,” he said at a White House staged like traditional victory speech, flanked by his wife Melania Trump and Vice President Mike Pence with the rest his family and campaign staff and aides in the audience who applauded and cheered him in a show of celebration.
The President was nowhere near 270 electoral college votes at that stage -- and appeared to claim victories in at five states that were far from being decided -- Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona -- with millions of more votes still to be counted.
Wrongly claiming that counting had been stopped in the three states, which are ruled by Democratic governors, just when he had looked like wrapping up the race, Trump alleged it was a it was “a major fraud in our nation”.
“So, we’ll be going to the US Supreme Court,” President Trump said. “We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any balance at four o’clock in the morning and add them to the list. Okay.” Voting had been over by then for several hours, he may have meant counting.
He was criticised for the comments, even by some of his top Republican aides including former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and former presidential candidate Rick Santorum.
Trump cannot go directly to the top court without seeking redressal of whatever grievances he may have had in lower court. But there had been no sign of a lawsuit till late Wednesday morning and it seemed inconceivable that he will seek an end to counting now when he was trailing Biden in Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada. Biden, on the other, expressed confidence in remarks before the President’s and said his victory was “on track” and he had felt good about Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where he was trailing at the time. “We feel good about where we are,” Biden said. “We really do. I’m here to tell you tonight we believe we’re on track to win this election.” He added: “We are feeling really good about Wisconsin and Michigan. And by the way it’s going to take time to count the votes but we’re going to win Pennsylvania.” The last word has not been said on the electoral battle, and it may an interesting Thursday.
