Biden projected as 2020 presidential election winner
Graphic by Hana Beaty
After a historic Presidential Election, former Vice President Joe Biden has been projected as the winner, and the former senator will succeed President Donald J. Trump, who failed to win a second term, according to the Associated Press.
The Biden campaign declared victory Saturday evening in a prime-time address.
The Associated Press projects that Biden will win the election with 290 electoral votes, with Trump estimated to get 214.
So far Trump has refused to concede. He has filed lawsuits in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan and asked for a recount in Wisconsin.
A number of states, like Georgia, have already announced recounts, which will ultimately determine who earns the state’s electoral votes.
On Wednesday, the election looked as though it may go in the opposite direction. Despite being ahead in electoral votes, Biden trailed in undecided swing states that first reported in-person ballots.
Two of those states, Georgia and Pennsylvania, flipped on Thursday, throwing Biden into the lead after more mail-in ballots were counted. On Friday, Biden increased his lead, but the margins remained razor thin.
The Associated Press called the election on Saturday morning after new ballots were counted in Pennsylvania.
The Trump campaign held a press conference in Pennsylvania late Saturday morning, led by Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who claimed without providing evidence that fraudulent ballots were cast.
“These lawsuits will be brought starting on Monday,” Giulani said. “(The poll watchers) were uniformly deprived of their right to inspect any single part of the mail-in ballots. As you know from the very beginning, the mail-in ballots were a source of some degree of skepticism, if not a lot of skepticism, as being innately prone to fraud.”
Trump’s Twitter feed echoed that message, but some of his tweets have been flagged by Twitter.
Biden will serve as president until January 2025. He will not be sworn in until Jan. 20, 2021.
Joel Moret can be reached at [email protected] or @JoelMTheOrion on Twitter.
