Joe Biden will officially become the 46th president of the United States after winning key battleground states and reaching the threshold 0f 270 Electoral College votes.
After five anxious days of counting ballots, Biden won Pennsylvania and Nevada on Saturday, pushing him over the required 270 Electoral College majority, all three major US broadcast networks and the Associated Press news agency project.
But it’s apparent Donald Trump won’t be going down without a fight. Trump immediately refused to concede, signalling a bitter court battle in the coming days.
The call came after the Associated Press declared Biden had won Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes, pushing the Democrat past the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.
America, I’m honored that you have chosen me to lead our great country.
The work ahead of us will be hard, but I promise you this: I will be a President for all Americans — whether you voted for me or not.
I will keep the faith that you have placed in me. pic.twitter.com/moA9qhmjn8
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 7, 2020
Kamala Harris has become vice-president-elect of the US, the first time in history that a woman, and a woman of colour, has been elected to such a position in the White House. Her husband is also the first-ever “second gentleman”, and the first vice-presidential spouse who is Jewish.
Boris Johnson, the British prime minister congratulated Biden and Harris. He had avoided weighing in on the election until a winner was declared, instead simply saying he trusted the integrity of America’s election systems.
Congratulations @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris pic.twitter.com/xrpE99W4c4
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) November 7, 2020
The 77-year-old Biden, running his third Democratic presidential campaign, pitched himself as a president who will return the country to a state of stability and civility that seems long forgotten after four years of Trump’s pugilistic governance through tweet.
“In the face of unprecedented obstacles, a record number of Americans voted. Proving once again, that democracy beats deep in the heart of America,” Biden said in a statement, declaring that the “campaign is over.”
“It’s time for America to unite. And to heal,” said Biden, who was scheduled to give a victory speech on Saturday night.
Biden has said he will govern for all Americans despite a divisive presidential campaign that highlighted the country’s fraught state of race relations, economic conditions and Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed over 230,000 people in the US.
Biden is also on track to win the popular vote by over 4 million and he has garnered the most votes of any candidate in US history amid unprecedented turnout.
Still the Democrats had hoped for a crushing Biden victory to repudiate four years of divisive Trump rule that did not materialise.
Polls this year, similar to the 2016 election that he won, predicted a much weaker electoral performance by Trump than he achieved.
Over 70 million Americans voted for Trump, who delivered a tough-on-crime message and demanded the reopening of the US economy in the face of a pandemic.
Trump is now the first US president to lose re-election since George H W Bush in 1992, a Republican who failed to secure a second term in the White House in the race against Democratic Bill Clinton.