IT’S BIDEN
All major TV networks declare Democratic candidate’s victory after he is seen to have wrested Pennsylvania
Joe Biden will become the 46th president of the United States of America after a victory was announced in Pennsylvania, the State in which he was born. Following what many call one of the ugliest election campaigns in the country’s history, Democrats sighed in relief on Saturday morning as the news was announced. In New York, a predominantly Democratic state, residents cheered from their windows, clanging pots and pans, and clapping in excitement for the next president.
Rami Rosen, a New York Democrat who spoke with Khaleej Times, said this victory marks a return to the America we love.
“I feel relieved. I feel like sanity came back to reality, I feel like there’s hope, I feel like this is a new beginning — that the coronavirus will now be under control and that we are back to the normal world. We’re back to sanity and we’re back to hope,” Rosen added.
In a Friday night address to the nation, Biden promised to restore unity and work both for those who voted for him and those who did not. Reaching out to Republicans, he said, “We may be opponents but we’re not enemies, we’re Americans. This is the United States of America.”
Many Republicans, meanwhile, continue to question the integrity of the election as President Trump prepares for legal action. Shortly after the Presidential announcement was made, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said
With the campaign over, it’s time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation. It’s time for America to unite. And to heal.
— Joe Biden
We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him. The simple fact is this election is far from over.
— Donald Trump
He has channeled personal tragedy into a heart- on- his- sleeve compassion for everyday Americans, but President- elect Joe Biden faces the challenge of a lifetime as he inherits a nation both traumatized and spellbound by his White House predecessor.
Biden’s victory — projected by TV networks on Saturday in a cliffhanger election with the United States in crisis — turns the page on Donald Trump’s most divisive of presidencies, and rewards his appeal to the better angels of a deeply-riven country.
But can the man who has cast himself as healer-in-chief make headway in a nation where Trump’s ideology, regardless of the president’s defeat, shows little sign of diminishing?
Rarely have presidential rivals differed so sharply as in the 2020 race, which pitted the empathetic Democrat against the brawling Trump, the billionaire businessman who ran as the outsider despite his four years in the Oval Office.
As the sun rose on Washington’s National Mall, the morning after a fraught Election Night, the razor-tight contest looked as if it could go either way.
But as the quietly confident Democrat picked up state after state in the ensuing days, his victory slowly but inexorably took shape. By Saturday, US networks projected he won the pivotal state of Pennsylvania — and the White House.
“The work ahead of us will be hard, but I promise you this: I will be a President for all Americans,” the 46th US president-inwaiting said shortly after networks made the call. Now, all of his work is ahead of him. He inherits a coronavirus pandemic that shows no signs of abating and an office he believes has had its credibility shattered by the “liar” Trump.
Biden ran for the White House twice before, in 1987 and 2008.
A loss to the deeply polarizing Trump — Biden said in the election’s final stretch — would mean he had been a “lousy” candidate, lowering the curtain on a prolific but ultimately unfulfilled political career.
But “Middle Class Joe” had made it his life’s crowning mission to unseat the Republican and, in his words, restore the “soul” of America. And despite a campaign muted beyond recognition by Covid-19 — conducted largely from home while his high-octane rival charged around the country — Biden ultimately showed Trump the door. When he takes the oath of office on January 20, at age 78, Biden will be the oldest US head of state ever inaugurated. He hit the national stage at just 29, with a surprise US Senate win in Delaware in 1972.
One month later tragedy struck: his wife Neilia and their one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in a car crash as they were Christmas shopping.
Biden’s two sons were severely injured but survived, only for the eldest, Beau, to succumb to cancer four decades later, in 2015. Throughout his life Biden has spoken poignantly of his personal encounters with tragedy, seen as having nourished a capacity for genuine empathy — something Trump failed to demonstrate even as the toll from Covid-19 climbed towards a quarter million. His retail politicking skills are peerless: he can flash his million-watt smile at college students, commiserate with unemployed Rust Belt machinists, or deliver a fiery admonishment of rivals.
That personable, gregarious quality was curtailed by the pandemic, which brought in-person campaigning to a halt in March and prompted a more cautious Biden on the trail. —