By TREVIN BRANDT
Staff Writer
After a long and stressful election cycle, Joe Biden is projected to be the 46th President of the United States with a total of 290 electoral votes, which is 20 more than the 270 needed to become President. It took three and a half days to count enough votes in the battleground states to call them for a candidate. By the end of Tuesday, just about every state was called except Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, and Alaska. Arizona was called for Biden by a few sources on election night, and while the pick seemed controversial at the time, it does not look like President Trump has any chance at winning it due to Biden’s 17,000 vote lead with 98% of the vote in. By Wednesday morning, the results were Biden: 238, and Trump: 217. Later on in the day, Biden took Wisconsin and Michigan, two major swing states that Donald Trump carried in 2016. This put Biden at 264 electoral votes. Nevada, a state that was leaning toward Biden at the time, has a total of six electoral votes. All Biden needed at that point was to win Nevada. It took a few more days, but on Saturday morning, the race was called for Joe Biden when Pennsylvania went in his favor. Only an hour later, Nevada was also called for Biden. This put Biden at 290 electoral votes.
On Saturday night, Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris and President-Elect Joe Biden gave their victory speeches to the nation promising to bring unity back to the White House. Joe Biden reassured Trump voters that he “will work as hard for those who didn’t vote for [him], as those who did.” He affirmed that his first duty as president will be to get COVID-19 under control.
President Donald Trump has not conceded yet, and he claims that there were multiple occurrences of voter fraud in the battleground states that Joe Biden won. This is something the President has been warning voters about for months, claiming that the increase of mail-in ballots will skew the election results from the truth. Trump even claimed victory the early morning after election night, saying “frankly, we did win this election.” In a series of tweets, President Trump began to claim states toward the electoral college, most of which had not been called yet, “We have claimed, for Electoral Vote purposes, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania… the state of Georgia, and the State of North Carolina… Additionally, we hereby claim the State of Michigan if, in fact, there was a large number of secretly dumped ballots.” However, multiple legal and analytical experts have stated that most of Trump’s voter fraud claims are “baseless” and even if they are pursued, he would have to be very lucky to win enough of the swing states to secure a second term.
As it is right now, the only states that have not been called yet are Georgia, North Carolina, and Alaska. At the moment, Georgia is leaning towards Biden by a 12,000 vote lead with 99% of the vote counted. North Carolina is leaning towards Trump by a nearly 100,000 vote lead with 99% of the vote in as well. Alaska has been very slow with counting their votes, however it is currently in President Trump’s favor and has been a safe Republican state for many elections, so it is safe to assume Trump will carry it. This will leave the electoral college at 306 for Biden and 232 for Trump. This ironically, is exactly what the electoral college looked like in 2016, with the numbers flipped in Trump’s favor.
Electors cast their votes on December 14th. These votes get counted on January 6th, which is when Congress will officially confirm that Joe Biden will be the next President. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn into office on January 20th, starting their four year term as President and Vice-President.