Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden delivers remarks during a Souls to the Polls Event at Sharon Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 1, 2020. Credit: Jim Watson/AFP via TNS
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is projected to become the 46th president of the United States.
The Associated Press called Pennsylvania for Biden around 11:30 a.m. Saturday, securing him and running mate California Senator Kamala Harris a total 284 electoral votes, unseating President Donald Trump. Biden also leads the popular vote by more than 4.2 million votes.
Biden broke the 270 electoral vote barrier about four and a half days after the first polls closed Tuesday evening. Both candidates addressed groups of supporters and the press multiple times before the race was called.
Kamala Harris will be the first woman and first person of color to be vice president of the United States.
Biden said in a statement on his website he is honored and humbled being elected president and advocated national unity and healing.
“With the campaign over, it’s time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation,” Biden said.
Biden appeared in Wilmington, Delaware Friday and said he was confident he would be able to declare victory after pulling ahead in key states of Georgia and Pennsylvania. He said he had received 74 million votes — a record for any presidential ticket — leading President Trump by four million votes.
“We’re going to win this race with a clear majority, the nation behind us,” Biden said.
Trump delivered remarks from the White House Thursday, claiming victory over the presidency although not all votes have been counted and no winner declared. He said mail-in voting contributes to fraud and is an attempt by Democrats to engineer the election. He said if all the legal votes were to be counted, he would “easily” win the election.
“There’s going to be a lot of litigation because we have so much evidence, so much proof. Trump said. “We can’t have an election stolen like this.”
The Trump campaign filed lawsuits in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania Wednesday, arguing that the counting process needs to pause because they claim absentee ballots received by boards of elections after polls closed are illegally being counted. In Georgia and Pennsylvania, ballots postmarked by Election Day have until Nov. 6 to arrive.
Only three Democrats have previously won the presidency without Ohio, the last being John F. Kennedy in 1960. Trump beat Biden in the state by about 8.2 percentage points, making Biden the fourth.
Serena Ishwar, a third-year in political science and president of College Democrats at Ohio State, said she is excited for the next four years and the future of the country.
“I am so elated that the count has finally come to a conclusive, somewhat, end,” Ishwar said. “Inauguration day cannot come soon enough.”
David Kalk, a third-year in political science and president of College Republicans, said it’s unfortunate that President Trump did not win but Republicans in Ohio are otherwise happy with the results of the election.
“We’re keeping our heads up high because we had some great results here. We had all of our incumbent congressmen reelected,” Kalk said. “We do have some good things to look at beyond just being disappointed about the president.”
While both candidates have campaigned across Ohio throughout the race, their rallies have taken different forms. Trump rallies drew thousands — mostly unmasked — to outdoor venues. Biden drew smaller crowds in the hundreds, often in the form of drive-in rallies that allowed for social distancing.
The morning of Election Day, polls showed a close contest between the two candidates in Ohio within the margin of error. Most polls had the candidates within a few points of each other with no clear leader in the state.
In 2016, Trump won Ohio by eight points.
Trump and Vice President Mike Pence made several stops in Ohio over the course of his reelection campaign. Trump said he would protect fracking and Second Amendment rights, continue to build the wall along the Mexican border, and prevent terrorists from entering the country at a Circleville, Ohio, campaign rally Oct. 24.
Biden wrapped up his campaigning efforts in Ohio at a Cleveland rally Monday. He criticized Trump’s handling of the coronavirus and the loss of jobs at Ohio companies including The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company and Lordstown Motors.
The AP has called the following states for Biden: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia, three of Maine’s electoral votes and one of Nebraska’s electoral votes.
The AP has called the following states for Trump: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming, one of Maine’s electoral votes and four of Nebraska’s electoral votes.
The following states have not yet been called by the AP: Alaska, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.
The AP has called 13 of the 35 Senate seat races for Democrats and 18 for Republicans. Republicans currently sit at 48 seats and Democrats currently sit at 48 seats— including the two independent seats that caucus with the party. Senate races in North Carolina, Georgia and Alaska have yet to be called. Both of Georgia’s senatorial seats will go to a runoff election between the top two vote getters in each race.
The AP has called 2128 of 435 congressional races for Democrats and 194 for Republicans. There are 29 congressional races yet to be called and a party needs 218 seats for majority rule; neither the Senate nor House have reached a majority for either party.
