Crying ‘tears of joy,’ Americans take to streets to celebrate
In New York, car horns and shouts of joy permeated the air as news spread that Democratic nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden had won the presidency Saturday morning and Kamala Harris would be his vice president, becoming the nation’s first woman of color in that role. In downtown Chicago, hundreds of people gathered across from Trump Tower, hugging, popping champagne and singing “We are the champions.” And in Lansing, Michigan, hundreds of supporters of President Donald Trump took to the Capitol steps to protest what they consider a rigged presidential race.
After anxious days filled with uncertainty, legal wrangling, street protests and unfounded claims of voter fraud from the White House, Biden was unofficially declared the nation’s next president as the painstaking counting of votes in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Alaska drew to a close.
Biden’s supporters hoped the outcome would bring renewed efforts to solving some of the nation’s deepest troubles, including racial injustice, immigration reform, climate change and the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. Some Republican voters resolved to give Biden a try, while others were not ready to say goodbye to the Trump White House.
In the traditionally liberal stronghold of Boulder, Colorado, Marisole Bolanos, 38, listened Saturday as a wave of cheers spread among the crowd at a farmer’s market, powered by smartphone alerts. Passing cars honked their horns and people whooped in celebration in this county where Biden took more than 77% of the vote.
“These are tears of joy,” she said, taking a break from ringing up tortillas.
Bolanos said she’s been frustrated at how Trump scapegoated immigrants like herself. She came to the United States as a four-year-old but has been a U.S. citizen since college.
“I feel like the last four years have given us a lot of division among each other. I hope we can all come together in respect for each other, to respect our differences but be a more respectful United States,” she said. “All that promoting hate and blaming things on immigrants? Ugh. It’s a direct attack on who we are.”
In Washington, D.C., Jerry Hauser, 52, a nonprofit organizer, rushed out to a street corner to celebrate with his family with noisemakers and percussion instruments. He hoped the next four years would bring, “an end to the madness if nothing else.”
“It will bring progress on all the issues I care about, climate change, immigration, civil rights, health care, but I think more than anything, end the madness,” he said.
Many Trump supporters, however, were in disbelief over Biden’s victory.
Mike Quillen, who owns several restaurants in Sarasota, Florida, said he’s concerned that a shift in the White House will mean higher taxes, more regulations and tougher COVID-19 restrictions on small businesses.
“A lot of the policies the Trump Administration has done is to help small business, which is the backbone of the country,” Quillen said. “I’m really afraid of a one-size-fits-all” approach.
In Los Angeles County, Dan Welte, 40, who splits his time between Southern California and New Mexico, said he was disappointed Trump didn’t win and had lingering concerns about how votes were counted.
“I hope it’s a fair election and I hope President Biden will rule as a person who makes both sides happy,” said Welte, a sales worker who said he is registered independent, as he waited to pick up food at an IHOP restaurant. “Everyone needs to have their voices heard.”
The news came after a tense week that saw Americans on both sides of the political divide take to the streets. In Michigan and Arizona, Trump supporters converged on vote counting centers with signs and chants that demanded the process be stopped. In Washington, D.C., Biden supporters staged days of largely peaceful protests in front of the White House, dancing and setting off fireworks at nearby Black Lives Matter Plaza. The Electoral College fight – with some state races coming down to fewer than 50,000 votes – highlighted the divided nature of the nation after four years of Republican and Democrat leaders exchanging accusations of corruption and wrongdoing and less than a year after Trump was impeached by the Democrat-led U.S. House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Republican-controlled Senate later acquitted Trump on both impeachment articles.
The U.S. and its citizens were uniquely tested this election season.
A new civil rights movement sprung up in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police earlier this year. A pandemic that flared in March gathered steam in the fall to render voting even more challenging, with COVID-19 now infecting 120,000 Americans a day as winter nears. And the resulting recession seemed to further galvanize voters.
Those pressures conspired to drive voting to record levels, with some 100 million casting votes early and largely by mail to avoid contagion and have their voices heard.
Across the nation, Black voters overwhelmingly picked Biden, securing his White House victory.
Sonna Singleton Gregory, a county commissioner in her fourth term in Clayton County, Georgia, said “we are ecstatic to see Joe Biden win.”
“We let our voices be heard. This is a big win for Clayton County,” she said.
Contributing: Trevor Hughes in Boulder, Colorado; Dennis Wagner in San Diego; Mark Johnson in Lansing, Michigan; Chris Woodyard in Los Angeles; N’dea Yancey-Bragg in Arlington, Virginia; Josh Salman in Sarasota, Florida; Jessica Guynn and Elizabeth Weise in San Francisco; Claire Thornton in Washington, D.C.; Alan Gomez in Miami; Grace Hauck in Chicago; Lindsay Schnell in Portland, Oregon; Ryan Miller and Kevin McCoy in New York, and Hollis Towns in Clayton County, Georgia.
“I hope we can all come together in respect for each other ...” Marisole Bolanos Of Boulder, Colorado