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Joe Biden Wins Presidency, Defeating Donald Trump In Nail-Biting Race
By
John Del Signore
and
Ben Yakas
Published Nov 7, 2020
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Carolyn Kaster/AP/Shutterstock
By
John Del Signore
and
Ben Yakas
Published Nov 7, 2020
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Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden has surpassed the 270 electoral votes necessary to defeat President Donald Trump, win the 2020 presidential election, and become the 46th president of the United States, the Associated Press reports.
After nearly a week of uncertainty, during which multiple battleground states counted an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots, the state of Pennsylvania declared Biden the winner. That state gave Biden at least 273 electoral votes, putting him over the top.
Ahead of the AP's announcement, multiple outlets, including Fox News, NBC News, and CNN had called it for Biden in one of the more nail-biting races that came down to a few battleground states.
As of 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, Biden has won over 74.4 million of popular votes, the most in American history; he is winning the popular vote by over 4 million votes, greater than Hillary Clinton's 2.9 million popular vote margin over Trump in the last election. Democrats have won the popular vote in every presidential election since 1988.
Trump has filed multiple lawsuits in an attempt to halt the vote counting in numerous states. Early Wednesday morning, he also falsely claimed victory in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina (ballot counting in Pennsylvania, for instance, is expected to conclude sometime later today). Trump and his surrogates have repeatedly alleged that there has been voting fraud without any evidence, a notion which has been refuted by state officials across the country.
New York, long a blue state, was called for Biden immediately after the Election Day polls closed at 9 p.m. With 84% of the vote counted in the state as of Saturday morning, Biden had over 4.2 million votes in New York compared to Trump, who received just under 3 million.
The Trump campaign released a statement Friday morning saying that they will contest the election, calling any projections of Joe Biden as the winner "false" and the race "far from final." "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," Trump campaign general counsel Matt Morgan said in a statement.
On Friday night, Biden once again urged people to have patience with the counting process. "What is becoming clearer each hour is that record numbers of Americans — from all races, faiths, regions — chose change over more of the same," he said. "They have given us a mandate for action on COVID and the economy and climate change and systemic racism."
He also addressed the polarization of the country amidst the drawn-out election process, and urged Americans to come together once the dust settled: “We may be opponents, but we’re not enemies. We’re Americans." He added, “We have to put the anger and the demonization behind us.”
Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris -- slated to now be the first Black and Asian woman to serve the vice presidency -- are expected to address the nation sometime on Saturday; CNN adds that the Biden team plans to move quickly to announce more substantial pieces of his transition team as well. Check back soon for updates.
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election 2020
joe biden
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president
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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