By Ava Dunwoody | Staff Writer
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has won the 2020 election with 284 electoral votes. Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes put him over the top Saturday morning.
Nevada (22,657 vote Biden lead at an estimated 93% reporting), Georgia (7,248 vote Biden lead at an estimated >98% reporting), North Carolina (76,515 vote President Donald Trump lead at an estimated 93% reporting) and Alaska (51,382 vote Trump lead at an estimated 56% reporting) have yet to be called.
Biden won Wisconsin by a margin of only about 20,000 votes and Michigan by about 70,000 votes. Trump won Texas by 656,213 votes at 97% reporting.
According to the Associated Press, Biden has also held onto Arizona as the margin has closed to 20,573 votes, while other battleground states including Florida, Ohio and Iowa all stayed red.
According to the polls leading up to Election Day, President-elect Biden was expected to win. RealClearPolitics showed Biden ahead of Trump in all general election polls on Nov. 2. Whereas Trump defeated the day-before polls in 2016, he was beaten this year.
President-elect Biden currently has 284 electoral votes, compared to Trump’s 214. In the 2016 election, President Trump won by 306-232, meaning Biden still has a clear path to reaching the same sort of mandate the president claimed four years ago. He also is winning the popular vote by over 4 million, with many left to count.
Just as the election was called in favor of the former senator from Delaware, Biden campaign manager Jennifer O’Malley Dillon claimed his win as “a great day for this country.”
An hour before the election was called, Trump sent out a tweet claiming victory that was censored by both Twitter and Facebook.
“I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!” Trump said on Twitter.
In a statement President Trump gave at the White House Thursday evening before the results were announced, he said the polls got it knowingly wrong and did so as a form of voter suppression against the Republican Party. He also said he believes not all of the counted votes were legal.
“If you count the legal votes, I easily win,” Trump said in his statement. “If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.”
President Trump went on to say he had he won the largest share of non-white voters of any Republican in 60 years with the greatest Republican Party turnout in history. However, he still said the Democratic Party is “trying to rig an election.”
“We think there’s going to be a lot of litigation because we have so much evidence, so much proof, and it’s going to end up perhaps at the highest court in the land, we’ll see,” President Trump said. “But we think there’ll be a lot of litigation because we can’t have an election stolen by like this.”
Trump’s campaign filed lawsuits in Pa. and Mich. before the states were called to prepare to contest the election. According to AP News, Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said “irregularities in several Wisconsin counties” will also contribute to the call for recounting ballots.
Federal and state judges have struck down most of these contests.
Benjamin A. Kleinerman, Baylor RW Morrison chair of political science, said he is worried because this is a contentious election where a lot of emotions are running high. Aside from the unrest within the government, he said he thinks protests will break out amongst citizens.
“We are so divided on partisan lines right now that it is difficult for each side to accept the legitimacy of the other side,” Kleinerman said. “I’m worried that we are going to see riots.”
In preparation for election night, businesses like those on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles and downtown near the capital have removed items and boarded up storefronts in case of riots. Washington law enforcement has also been running drills and preparing for potential crime.
On Wednesday, Jan. 20, President-elect Biden will be inaugurated into office.
This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
