Joe Biden declared President-elect; Kamala Harris declared Vice President-elect… at last!

Joe Biden will become the next Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. 

Kamala Har­ris will become the next Vice Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States.

That was the inevitable con­clu­sion reached this morn­ing by the Asso­ci­at­ed Press and tele­vi­sion net­works in the Unit­ed States after a long elec­tion results vig­il that began at the end of vot­ing and con­tin­ued through Fri­day night, sev­en­ty-two hours after Elec­tion Day had end­ed. Hav­ing assessed that Biden’s lead in Penn­syl­va­nia was secure, media “deci­sion desk teams” called the Key­stone State for his cam­paign. That put Biden (and Har­ris) at over 270 Elec­toral Col­lege votes.

“I am hon­ored and hum­bled by the trust the Amer­i­can peo­ple have placed in me and in Vice Pres­i­dent-elect Har­ris,” said Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden.

“In the face of unprece­dent­ed obsta­cles, a record num­ber of Amer­i­cans vot­ed. Prov­ing once again, that democ­ra­cy beats deep in the heart of Amer­i­ca. 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. We are the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. And there’s noth­ing we can’t do, if we do it together.”

At the time that CNN declared Biden the win­ner, long­time Biden advi­sor Liz Allen walked by and cheered, the reporter sta­tioned with the Biden cam­paign reported.

At Biden’s stag­ing head­quar­ters in Wilm­ing­ton (the West­in Hotel), there was jubi­la­tion. Min­utes before CNN decid­ed to call the race for Biden, Valerie Biden Owens walked out of the lob­by and said. “It’s won­der­ful. It’s a won­der­ful thing for us but it’s a bet­ter thing for America.”

Cam­paign man­ag­er Jen O’Malley Dil­lon then walked through the lob­by in a white Biden t‑shirt. She had been on a run and her moth­er called to tell her about CNN’s call for Biden, she said, while enter­ing an elevator.

“Ecsta­t­ic — a great day for this coun­ty,” she said when asked how she felt.

Biden and Har­ris won by reassem­bling the “blue wall” of Great Lakes states that Hillary Clin­ton nar­row­ly lost to Trump four years ago. They recap­tured Wis­con­sin, Michi­gan, and Penn­syl­va­nia while keep­ing Min­neso­ta in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic col­umn. (Illi­nois, also a Great Lakes State, was always expect­ed to be blue.)

On Elec­tion Night, tal­lies showed Trump ahead in Penn­syl­va­nia, but only because the Key­stone State had not been able to start pro­cess­ing its mail-in bal­lots due to the Repub­li­can Leg­is­la­ture’s refusal to change a law pre­vent­ing elec­tions offi­cials from get­ting start­ed on putting them through their systems.

As the state’s pop­u­lous coun­ties worked through their back­log, it became clear that Biden was on track to take the lead. And he did. While his lead in Penn­syl­va­nia is not enor­mous, he’s expect­ed to be out­side of the mar­gin for a recount when all bal­lots have been added to the state’s tally.

Neva­da, Geor­gia, North Car­oli­na, and Alas­ka remain uncalled by the AP and tele­vi­sion net­works. Ari­zona has been called by Fox and the AP for Biden.

If Biden wins Neva­da and Geor­gia, he would have over three hun­dred elec­toral votes at the end of the Decem­ber meet­ing of the Elec­toral College.

North Car­oli­na and Alas­ka are like­ly to end up in Trump’s column.

Trump was able to keep hold of oth­er swing states, like Flori­da and Ohio, that went Repub­li­can after pre­vi­ous­ly vot­ing for Barack Oba­ma in 2008 and 2012.

But it was­n’t enough. By fierce­ly con­test­ing the Great Lakes region, the South­west, and the South, Democ­rats put new states into play while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly work­ing to win back the three north­ern states that slipped away from Hillary Clin­ton in 2016 and sealed her fate.

Biden’s vic­to­ry is one of the most impor­tant events in the his­to­ry of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. It is a sore­ly need­ed repu­di­a­tion of neo­fas­cism and corruption.

It is rare that an incum­bent pres­i­dent is boot­ed out of office.

In fact, the last time this hap­pened was in 1992, when Bill Clin­ton defeat­ed George H.W. Bush. Before that, Jim­my Carter, Her­bert Hoover, and Howard Taft lost reelec­tion to chal­lengers. (Incum­bent Ger­ald Ford also was defeat­ed in 1976, though he had nev­er been elect­ed to begin with.)

H.W. Bush and Taft were done in, in part, by the pres­ence of minor par­ty can­di­dates on the bal­lot who attract­ed a sig­nif­i­cant share of the vote.

Biden did not have an H. Ross Per­ot or Ted­dy Roo­sevelt fig­ure around help­ing to siphon votes away from the incum­bent. But he did­n’t need that dynam­ic to pre­vail. Though his oppo­nent proved to be a turnout machine, Biden was able to assem­ble an even big­ger coali­tion of vot­ers, the biggest ever seen in history.

It’s a coali­tion that just might deliv­er him states that not even Barack Oba­ma won, which would be an incred­i­ble accomplishment.

NPI extends its warmest con­grat­u­la­tions to Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden and Vice Pres­i­dent-elect Kamala Har­ris. Though we do not endorse can­di­dates at NPI, we are hap­py to see vot­ers choose the Demo­c­ra­t­ic tick­et to gov­ern this coun­try. Anoth­er four years of Trump would have had unimag­in­able con­se­quences for the coun­try. For­tu­nate­ly, the peo­ple have cho­sen to put Amer­i­ca on a bet­ter path.