After years, months, weeks, and days, the 2020 election results are in. The 46th president of the United States will be Joe Biden. It was finally called four days later on Saturday morning, and it was a rollercoaster for both parties. Tuesday night, many states were called, and it was looking like a landslide for Joe Biden. At points, he was leading in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Texas. We later realized that these were the mail-in votes, and it turned out, most of those states were awarded in Trump’s favor. We all went to bed with Trump leading in the majority of uncalled battleground states but that changed overnight.
On Wednesday morning in Wisconsin and Michigan, more mail-in votes were counted, and they were leaning towards Biden. On Tuesday, Biden was able to flip two Trump states, Wisconsin and Michigan. Wednesday afternoon, more votes in favor of Biden came in from Georgia and Pennsylvania, while his lead in Arizona and Nevada increased. Thursday, the Trump lead in Georgia and Pennsylvania shrunk to under 10,000 votes. When we all woke up on Friday, Biden was leading by 1,000 votes in Georgia, and Biden was now leading by 10,000 in Pennsylvania. Friday, as more votes were counted, Georgia ordered a recount as Biden’s lead grew.
His lead in Pennsylvania increased so greatly that on Saturday morning, around 8:30, the major news networks called the race for Joe Biden. His win in Pennsylvania and Nevada put him over 270 electoral votes. Two weeks later on Friday, the last states were called. Joe Biden won Georgia and Arizona while Trump held on to North Carolina. The final electoral votes are 306 for Biden and Trump with 232. These are just projections and it is not over until the results are verified, the electoral college to votes on December 14th, and 46th President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are sworn in on January 20th, 2021.
While most primarily care about the presidential race, there still were races for the Senate and the House. With Democrats and Republicans each controlling one side of the Hill (Democrats for the House and Republicans for the Senate), the two parties hope to win both branches of Congress. The Democrats have already won the House, and Nancy Pelosi will spend one last term as Speaker; she said she is retiring after this term. While when the Democrats took control of the House history was made, the Republican party was able to gain eight seats.
Although the House may have been called, we might have to wait until January 5th or later to know the results of the Senate. There are three seats that have yet to be called and two we must wait for. In North Carolina, the Senate race is close between the incumbent, Republican Thom Tillis, and Democrat Cal Cunningham, but it looks as though Tillis could have the votes to win (he has won as of 11/13). We will have to wait until January 5th due to a special Georgia runoff election. Both of Georgia’s Senate races will have to go to a runoff on January 5th because none of the candidates reached the 50 percent threshold.
This was a wild election, and in every state, there are still votes to be counted. Most states have until the end of this week or next week to count all the votes and verify their results. Even after all that, we will have to wait until December 14th for the Electoral College to vote, January 5th for the Georgia Senate runoff, and it will all, finally, come together on January 20th, 2021 when we swear in the 46th, and oldest, president, Joe Biden, and the first black and Indian-American vice president, Kamala Harris.
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