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US Election 2020: Mr. President-elect?
US Election 2020: Biden knocking on Oval Office door, will have votes to enter it if he hangs on to lead in Pennsylvania, or in any two of three other battleground states
Joe Biden, the scrappy kid from Scranton who overcame a stutter, was on the verge on Friday of winning the White House after overtaking President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, and the “tipping-point” state where he trailed by 700,000 votes at one stage. He led also in all but one of the remaining states that had not been called yet.
Pennsylvania’s 20 Electoral College votes alone will suffice, however.
Biden has been at 264 votes, according to the Associated Press tracker (other news outlets have him at 253 with Arizona still up for grabs according to them), to President Trump’s 214. That tally has remained unchanged for more than a day now.
But as time passed and leads changed, he was fast emerging as the clear winner.
The former vice-president was expanding his lead over the President in Pennsylvania, was narrowly ahead in Georgia (16 electoral college votes), a Republican stronghold that had last voted Democratic in 1992, and in Nevada (6). President Trump was ahead in North Carolina (15), but that alone was not sufficient to get him anywhere near a credible path to victory.
There was been no word from Biden or his campaign on the outcome till the time of going to print on Friday. But a sense of anticipation was setting in. His Secret Service security was being beefed up, according to reports, and a “no-fly zone” order by the US Federal Aviation Administration went into effect for over his home in Wilmington, Delaware.
But the Trump campaign reacted by, not surprisingly, rejecting increasing signs of the inevitability of Biden’s victory. “This election is not over. The false projection of Joe Biden as the winner is based on results in four states that are far from final,” Matt Morgan, Trump campaign’s general counsel, said in a statement. He indicated the campaign would seek a recount of votes in Georgia, and repeated the campaign’s grievances and allegations of election irregularities in Pennsylvania.
Morgan also claimed the President was “on course” to win Arizona (11), where Trump has indeed narrowed the gap between him and Biden. Associated Press and Fox News have projected Biden will win the state, but the Trump campaign has contested that decision.
“Biden is relying on these states for his phony claim on the White House, but once the election is final, President Trump will be re-elected,” he added. The Trump campaign has already said he would seek a recount in Wisconsin (10) and filed lawsuits in Michigan (16) and Pennsylvania seeking more access to the counting centres.
The President was not conceding, not yet, at least. Andrew Bates, a Biden campaign spokesperson, said in a statement reacting to those reports, “As we said on July 19th, the American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”
“Keep the faith, folks,” Biden tweeted shortly after the President’s angry White House speech on Thursday evening. He has repeatedly urged patience.
Biden, who will be the oldest person to be sworn in as president when the time comes, at 78, has waited patiently for 32 years for this moment, having first run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1987. He dropped out then even before the primaries over plagiarism allegations. He tried again in 2008, but pulled out after a poor showing in the first of the nominating contests, the Iowa caucus, bowing out to Barack Obama and later joining the ticket as his running mate.
The 2020 race did not start too well for Biden either. He fared poorly in the first two nominating contests, Iowa and New Hampshire; did somewhat better in the third in Nevada; and went to the fourth in South Carolina with the fate of his campaign hanging in balance. He crushed it, with the overwhelming support of the state’s Black Democrats. And went on to sweep the Super Tuesday contests, winning 11 of the 14 states, toppling Senator Bernie Sanders, the front-runner until then.
He never looked back.
And now, Biden is on the verge of winning. Or, as he wrote on one of the walls of his childhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday: “From this house to the White House with the grace of God.”
