Biden secures win over Trump as electoral college votes
WASHINGTON – Joe Biden has amassed the electoral votes to secure his White House win. California and its 55 electoral votes put the president-elect over the top.
Members of the electoral college convened in state capitals throughout the country Monday to formally vote for Biden. After the gatherings, Biden plans to address the nation and say, “The flame of democracy was lit in this nation a long time ago. And we now know that nothing - not even a pandemic - or an abuse of power - can extinguish that flame,” according to excerpts of his speech.
Trump has planned no public events but continues to tweet grievances about the election, which he said Sunday is “under protest.”
Based on the results of the Nov. 3 general election, Biden is set to have 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232 by the end of the day. To win the White House, a candidate needs 270 of the 538 total electoral votes.
The votes are cast by individual electors, who are typically leaders and loyalists of the political party that won the state’s popular vote. Their ballots will be formally counted during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.
A top Senate Republican on Monday warned members of his party not to challenge the electoral college results when both chambers of Congress meet next month to officially tally them.
“I think that would be a bad mistake,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters at the Capitol on Monday afternoon when asked about a possible GOP effort to object to the results.
“I think there comes a time when you have to realize that despite your best efforts, you’ve been unsuccessful. That’s sort of the nature of these elections,” Cornyn said. He added: “I just hope they realize that it would be futile and it’s unnecessary.”
At least one Trump ally, Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., has suggested that he will try to use an 1880s law that allows members of Congress to challenge a state’s results during the Jan. 6 tally and make the whole Congress vote on whether to accept the results.
To do so, however, one senator would have to join in Brooks’s effort. No senator has publicly declared that they would, though Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., have reportedly declined to rule it out.
Cornyn also on Monday inched
closer to calling Biden “president-elect,” telling reporters that the title is warranted “subject to whatever additional litigation is ongoing.” But he declined to call on other Republicans to use the term, saying, “I’ll leave that up to each individual.”
Meanwhile, in a prime-time address Monday night, Biden is planning to deliver another victory speech, speaking to the nation after the electoral college has affirmed his
presidential victory.
“If anyone didn’t know it before, we know it now,” Biden plans to say, according to early excerpts of the speech. “What beats deep in the hearts of the American people is this: Democracy. The right to be heard. To have your vote counted. To choose the leaders of this nation. To govern ourselves.”
Biden has spent the past several weeks forming his Cabinet and preparing to take the oath of office on Jan. 20. Just as he did in his election victory speech more than five weeks ago, the incoming president plans to speak to Trump’s large number of supporters, many of whom view Biden as an illegitimate president-elect.
“I will work just as hard for those of you who didn’t vote for me as I will for those who did,” Biden plans to say, before turning toward the coronavirus pandemic and the plan to vaccinate millions of Americans.
“There is urgent work in front of all of us,” his remarks continue. “Getting the pandemic under control to getting the nation vaccinated against this virus: delivering immediate economic help so badly needed by so many Americans who are hurting today and then building our economy back better than ever.”