How Biden Won: Ramping Up The Base And Expanding Margins In The Suburbs
It brings the number of states Biden flipped from Trump’s 2016 column to five, including Arizona, which last voted Democratic in a presidential race when it backed Clinton in 1996.
Biden also flipped Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, three key northern industrial states that ultimately delivered the White House to Trump four years ago. Biden also won a single electoral vote in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which last voted Democratic for former President Barack Obama in 2008.
Electors from each state and the District of Columbia are expected to vote on Dec. 14. The new Congress will then count the votes and certify Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, two weeks before the inauguration.
But Georgia’s political activity is far from over. The state will hold two runoff elections on Jan. 5 for both its U.S. Senate seats, which are currently held by Republicans.
What Happens If Donald Trump Refuses To Leave Office
If the president’s longshot attempts at reversing the election results fail, at 12:01 pm on 20 January Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th US president whether Trump formally concedes or not.
At that point, the Secret Service and the US military are free to treat the former president the way they do any unauthorised individual on government property.
“It’s outrageous what he’s doing,” Biden said in a press conference on Thursday. “Incredibly damaging messages are being sent to the rest of the world about how democracy functions.”
Even if the president isn’t successful, his seeming scorched-earth strategy of contesting the election results is setting a precedent for elections to come and, according to polls, undermining the faith many Americans have in the US democratic systems and institutions.
Is This Related In Any Way To The Lawsuits Trump Is Filing
Trumps campaign has filed a slew of legally dubious suits since election day. The purpose of these suits appears not to be to actually overturn the election results, but to try to create uncertainty and draw out the counting process.
Each state has its own deadlines for certifying election results that are then used to allocate its electoral college votes. In at least two states, Pennsylvania and Michigan, Trumps campaign is seeking to block officials from certifying results.
That certification timeline is important because federal law says that as long as election results are finalized by 8 December this year, the result is conclusive. That provides a safeguard against Congress, which is responsible for counting the electoral college votes, from second-guessing election results. By dragging out the process, the Trump campaign may be seeking to blow past that deadline and create more wiggle room to second-guess the results.
Even if that is the Trump campaigns hope, courts are unlikely to step in, Pildes said.
States are going to start certifying their vote totals beginning in less than 10 days, and there is no basis in the claims made thus far for the courts to stop that process, he said.
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Why Trump Cant Win
When the dust settles, President-elect Joe Bidens margin of victory in the 2020 election will exceed Ronald Reagans defeat of Jimmy Carter in 1980 and may surpass Barack Obamas margin in 2012. Biden won a majority of votes and will probably end up with the eighth-highest percentage of the vote of any Democratic presidential candidate since the Republican Party was formed.
Thats once the dust settles, mind you. In the interim, President Trump is doing his best to kick up dust, to claim that the outcome of the election is uncertain and that he has a path to victory. He has had trouble articulating precisely what that path looks like, arguing alternately that the courts would weigh in to invalidate the results or that recounts or fuller tallies of the votes cast will reveal a sudden shift.
None of that is true. Trump lost his bid for reelection, and he has no path to victory. The only way in which Trump will serve another four years in office will be if hes the beneficiary of some extraordinary legal or legislative intervention or if he runs again in 2024.
Gsa Delays Certifying Biden As President
Although all major media outlets called the election for Biden on November 7, the head of the General Services Administration , Trump appointee Emily W. Murphy, refused for over two weeks to certify Biden as the president-elect. Without formal GSA certification or “ascertainment” of the winner of the election, the official transition process was delayed. On November 23, Murphy acknowledged Biden as the winner and said the Trump administration would begin the formal transition process. Trump said he had instructed his administration to “do what needs to be done” but did not concede, and indicated he intended to continue his fight to overturn the election results.
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‘blue Wall’ Rebuilt With Suburban Votes
Trump suggested throughout his campaign that Biden would “destroy the beautiful suburbs,” but it turned out many suburbanites disagreed.
Biden won back a number of crucial Midwest states that Clinton lost to Trump in 2016 largely thanks to suburban voters. The cluster of historically Democrat-won states, dubbed the blue wall, include three of the five major battleground states this election cycle.
“We saw a consistent pattern across the country, in both close states and states that weren’t so close, that Biden made significant strides compared to Clinton’s performance four years ago in suburbs, predominantly affluent suburbs, of major metro areas,” Wasserman said.
In Wisconsin, the divide between the state’s rural and urban populations was defined, as 42 Wisconsin counties, many small and rural, cast more ballots for Trump than in 2016. Biden won Wisconsin by bolstering support in the populous suburbs of Milwaukee and Madison, despite average turnout in the cities themselves. Biden erased Trump’s entire 2016 margin in Wisconsin in just the counties surrounding Milwaukee, Wasserman said.
That same divide made Michigan competitive. Biden made gains in counties like Kent, where Grand Rapids is located, and the Detroit metropolitan area, though he underperformed Clinton in the city of Detroit. Trump improved his margins statewide, but not enough to surpass Bidens lead.
Fact check:Biden won popular, Electoral College votes in several battleground states
False Claims Of Fraud
Trump and a variety of his surrogates and supporters made a series of observably false claims that the election was fraudulent. Claims that substantial fraud was committed have been repeatedly debunked. On November 9 and 10, The New York Times called the offices of top election officials in every state all 45 of those who responded said there was no evidence of fraud. Some described the election as remarkably successful considering the coronavirus pandemic, the record turnout, and the unprecedented number of mailed ballots. On November 12, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a statement calling the 2020 election “the most secure in American history” and noting “here is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
One week after the election, Republican Philadelphia city commissioner Al Schmidt said he had not seen any evidence of widespread fraud, stating, “I have seen the most fantastical things on social media, making completely ridiculous allegations that have no basis in fact at all and see them spread.” He added that his office had examined a list of dead people who purportedly voted in Philadelphia but “not a single one of them voted in Philadelphia after they died.” Trump derided Schmidt, tweeting, “He refuses to look at a mountain of corruption & dishonesty. We win!”
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Voting Methods In The 2020 Presidential Election
The 2020 election brought a huge change in howAmericans cast their ballots. As some states looked to adapt to challenges in administering elections amid the COVID-19 pandemic, large numbers of voters were offered expanded access to absentee and vote-by-mail options in the 2020 election. As a result, a record number of voters said they cast their ballots this way . And smaller shares of voters said they either voted in person on Election Day or in person before Election Day .
A majority of absentee voters said they had previously voted this way before the 2020 election . Still, a sizable share said the November election was the first time they had cast an absentee or mail ballot.
Sizable shares of voters across racial and ethnic subgroups cast absentee or mail-in ballots in the 2020 election though there are some differences in voting methods when comparing across groups. White voters were most likely to say they voted in person on Election Day . Comparably smaller shares of Black and Hispanic voters said the same.
Black voters were more likely than White or Hispanic voters to say they cast their ballot in person before Election Day .
Voters ages 65 and older stand out in their voting behavior: 55% say they voted absentee or by mail in the 2020 election 13 percentage points higher than the share of adults under 65 who cast a ballot by mail.
Opinionlegally Trump Doesn’t Have To Concede Symbolically It’s Vital He Does Anyway
The late 19th century was a time of massive change in American life, including widespread industrialization and social upheaval. After the Civil War, Republicans locked down control of the presidency and Congress. That didnt begin to change until the near-loss of popular-vote winner Samuel Tilden in 1876 to President Rutherford B. Hayes, in one of the tightest elections ever, ultimately decided by a special commission. By the 1880s, close party competition had returned with narrow margins in both houses of Congress and even a tied Senate at one point.
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Who Is Leading In The Us Election Polls
Biden has consistently led in the polls throughout the campaign trail and on 28 October the national presidential polls put him at 51.1%, compared to Trump at 43.6%.
The polling is representative of the picture weve seen all year, with Trump trailing behind his rival and the distance between the two extending to 10 points at one time.
However, its not all bad news for Trump. His approval ratings have seen an improvement in the past few months.
In June 2020, the presidents disapproval ratings hit a high of 56.2% while his approval ratings sunk to 41.2%.
However, by October his disapproval ratings dropped to 53.35% and his approval ratings rose slightly to 44.3%.
Biden retained a double-digit lead over President Trump in the final Yahoo News/YouGov poll of the 2020 campaign, published on the eve of the election .
The poll closed with a 10-point margin for the Democrat thats more than three times as large as Hillary Clintons final polling advantage in 2016.
Watch:Trump and Biden wait for results in key swing states
With Donald Trump Involved Anything Could Happen
Only one president, Grover Cleveland, has been voted out of office and then gone on to serve another term, but Dr. Reneé Carr told The List that President Donald Trump may have a chance of becoming the second. “Trump will continue to stoke the emotions and energy of his loyal voter base through claims of election fraud,” Carr said, adding that repeating claims of a stolen election could be effective. “By his continued accusations of the election being ‘stolen’ from him, this prevents psychological closure of the election for both himself and those who voted for him,” Carr explained, saying it could “intensify his voters’ loyalty.”
That being said, the next four years are an open book, and the country has no idea what the political climate of 2024 might look like. Carr projected that “if President-elect Biden can provide significant economic recovery to America especially to families of auto industry workers and other blue-collar occupations as well as provide meaningful and immediate tax cuts for small businesses” it could “greatly decrease Trump’s chances of being reelected.” If Americans have learned anything over the course of Trump’s presidency, it’s to expect the unexpected.
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