With both The Associated Press and election tabulators Edison Research calling the presidential election vote counts in Pennsylvania and Nevada wins for Democrat Joe Biden, controversial and scandal-ridden Donald John Trump is denied re-election for a second term.
“With the campaign over, it’s time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation,” Biden said in the statement issued Saturday. “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.”
The AP Electoral College vote count from the AP gives Biden 290 votes, 20 over the total needed to win, with the former vice president leading in one undeclared state: Georgia. A win in Georgia, where a recount is already ordered, could put Biden over 300 Electoral votes.
The Washington Post still lists Arizona and Nevada undecided and puts Biden’s win at 273 votes, still a clear win. Trump is threatening continued legal actions to disqualify votes counting after the polls closed, but election laws provide for counting legal votes and no evidence has emerged to suggest any of the votes counted so far has been illegal.
The Biden win also gives America its first female vice president, Kamala Harris, who was a tireless campaigner for the Biden-Harris ticket.
That, of course, doesn’t matter with hard-core Trump supporters who traffic in discredited conspiracy theories and outlandish claims on social media.
“Beginning Monday, our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated,” Trump said Saturday. “The American People are entitled to an honest election: that means counting all legal ballots, and not counting any illegal ballots.”
On Friday night, Trump had claimed he was the winner “by a lot,” but the vote counts said otherwise. He claims election fraud but offered not evidence. Campaign officials in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona and other states where Biden has leads or is the declared leader say they have found not evidence or indications of any fraud.
“It’s been a long and difficult campaign,” Biden said Wednesday in Wilmington, Del. “But it’s been a more difficult time for our country, a hard time.”
“I know how deep and hard the opposing views are in our country,” he adds. “But I also know this as well: To make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as enemies. We are not enemies.”
Trump will leave office with a long list of unfulfilled or broken promises. He said he would be “the greatest jobs president God ever made,” but he will leave office with millions jobless and a higher unemployed rate than the one he inherited from Barack Obama.
Biden also has a clear lead in actual votes, a current lead of 4 million plus that could reach 5 million by the time all votes are counted.
Trump’s loss after just one term puts him in a small group of ex-presidents who lost their second term elections. George H.W. Bush was the last.