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Biden Wins Presidency, According to AP, Edging Trump in Turbulent Race
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Biden Wins Presidency, According To AP, Edging Trump In Turbulent Race [npr.org]:
Biden Wins Presidency, According To AP, Edging Trump In Turbulent Race Enlarge this image [npr.org]
Updated at 1:54 p.m. ET
Former Vice President Joe Biden has been elected the 46th president of the United States, narrowly emerging victorious [npr.org] from a contentious White House campaign that stretched days past election night, as vote tallies in several swing states were slowed by an unprecedented surge in mail-in ballots.
Biden edged President Trump, who in the days since voting ended has falsely claimed a premature victory and baselessly [npr.org] said Democrats were trying to steal the election. The Trump campaign is still contesting the process in several states.
"The simple fact is this election is far from over," Trump said in a statement [npr.org] Saturday. "Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for mandatory recounts, or states where our campaign has valid and legitimate legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor. "
Despite the president's rhetoric, Biden's team projected confidence as ballots were tabulated, knowing that large chunks of the vote still to be counted were in diverse Democratic strongholds like Milwaukee, Detroit and Philadelphia.
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The Associated Press called the race for Biden on Saturday when it said that Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes put him over the 270-vote threshold needed to win the Electoral College.
It's a fitting tipping point state. Biden was born in Pennsylvania and launched his campaign with rallies in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. He spent Election Day visiting his childhood home in Scranton and then rallying supporters in Philadelphia.
"I am honored and humbled by the trust the American people have placed in me and in Vice President-elect [Kamala] Harris," Biden said in a statement [npr.org]. "With the campaign over, it's time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation."
Trump had appeared to hold a lead in Pennsylvania on Tuesday night, but the margin was a mirage of sorts, because at the time more than 2.5 million mail-in ballots had not been counted. Biden won the vast majority of those yet-to-be-counted ballots.
'Far From Over': Trump Refuses To Concede As Biden's Margin Of Victory Widens [npr.org] Trump Latches On To Conspiracies, As Legal Battles Fail And Path To Win Narrows [npr.org]
The race was closer than preelection polls had suggested, with Trump holding on to contested states like Florida, Ohio and Texas.
But Biden won back the White House the way Democrats vowed to since the day Trump won four years ago: by resurrecting the so-called "blue wall" that Trump dismantled in 2016 — winning Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Biden was also able to flip longtime conservative redoubt Arizona, according to The Associated Press, and held a narrow lead in Georgia as of early Saturday.
"The soul of the nation"
In topping Trump in a race that was both upended and largely defined by the coronavirus pandemic, the Democratic nominee has become the first challenger to defeat an incumbent first-term president in nearly 30 years.
At 77, Biden becomes the oldest man ever elected president. (He'll be 78 by Inauguration Day.) He's also the first former vice president to win the White House since George H.W. Bush in 1988; the second Roman Catholic in U.S. history elected president; and he'll be the first president to call Delaware home.
And with his victory, his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, will become the first female vice president. She'll also become the nation's second Black candidate, following former President Barack Obama, to serve as president or vice president.
'Game-Changer': Kamala Harris Makes History As Next Vice President [npr.org]
"This election is about so much more than [Biden] or me," Harris tweeted [twitter.com] shortly after being declared vice president-elect. "It's about the soul of America and our willingness to fight for it. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Let's get started."
Biden's slim victory perhaps validates the central conceit of a presidential campaign that fellow Democrats often doubted: After nearly four divisive and drama-filled years of the Trump administration, voters would long for stability and a return to the status quo that Biden and his nearly five decades of federal government experience represented.
From the moment he launched his campaign in April 2019, Biden focused on what he called a "battle for the soul of our nation," arguing that Trump was a dangerous aberration in American political history — but an aberration that voters could course-correct.
The election was seen as a referendum on Trump's tenure, particularly how he had handled — or mishandled — the coronavirus pandemic.
