2020 Election results and opinions

Jonah Dietz, Senior Reporter|November 13, 2020

“I am delighted at the way things are going, it seemed like Saturday there was celebration and I like that Biden is going to try to repair things, that he is not being a division artist that we have to hate each other,” said Connie McKee, the head of forensics. “I know there is a lot of hurt feelings if you may have been a Trump supporter and lost, but I think there is a lot of American Patriotism coming back through and I think we are going to find that we need to appreciate our neighbors and appreciate our differences and find ways that cross party lines because, that is what makes democracy great- to cross party lines and still get things accomplished.”
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“Well I was really excited about the election results, I felt an overwhelming sense of hope when Vice President Biden and now President Elect Biden gave his victory speech on Saturday night,” said Dr. Hanson, Head of the Communications Department. “He outlines some issues that he’s going to give attention to and yesterday, he began appointing people to his COVID-19 pandemic team, and so I just feel that he would bring the nation together and I was very happy at the people who elected him as president.”
“Well in my opinion, it got a bit chaotic in the beginning and towards the end there, but I feel like it was a very tight race and both parties were very head-to-head and elections have both positives and negatives about them,” said Dane Glenn, a part time instructor for the Department of Communications. “But I feel like this election has really in ways split the country, and those two sides are very competitive; not only with the president elect nominees, but also with the supporters and followers.”
“On one hand I am glad it is over, or almost over; I think it’s still being contested right now so, whatever the results are, whoever ultimately wins , I hope for the good of the country that they actually carry through with their promises,” said Dr. Michael McFarlan of the Department of Communications said. “Because right now the country is not a good place so hopefully, they can help to make it better.”
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Four years have passed since the U.S. received Donald Trump as its president. And whether or not he would reprise this role or he would be replaced by Former Vice President Joe Biden was meant to be decided on Nov. 4. But the day came and went without any concrete results. Both candidates were without the 270 electoral college points they needed to win, with Biden in the lead after slowly amassing 264 electoral votes. But with Nevada, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina still inconclusive, there was still no decided winner. Regardless of affiliation or specific hope, one’s nerves were shot at the possibility that either could win. Biden had a lead in Nevada, Trump led in the others. And as the day ended, all eyes were on Nevada, who’s six points could win Biden the presidency.

The map of the United States color-coded according to the electoral points each candidate had garnered. All eyes were on Nevada. (Jonah Dietz)

On Nov. 6, Georgia and Pennsylvania switched from red to blue. And the next day, Nevada and Pennsylvania’s points went to Biden, giving him 290 votes, and he was declared the next President of the United States by various networks around the country and internationally, with celebrations occurring all around America and the world. But the delay in producing results quickly in many states and the multiple accusations of voter fraud that have cropped up in the following week have caused many to refuse to accept the results of the election. President Donald Trump was one of the first to voice his displeasure regarding his projected loss. On Thursday, Nov. 5, he took to the White House briefing room to give a speech saying he would not accept the election results.
“If you count the legal votes, I easily win,” Trump said, implying without proof that the votes leading to Biden’s victory were illegal. “If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.” He continued to cite multiple instances of fraud, which would later be disproven, claimed that his momentum would lead to his victory and called the mail-in ballots one-sided sources of “corruption and fraud.”
The one-sided nature of the mail-in ballots comes most likely from the fact that, leading up to this election, Trump was vocally against mailing in ballots and called his followers to vote in person, whereas Democrats and those more inclined to take the pandemic seriously and therefore more likely to vote against Trump, voted by mail. Furthermore, the slow switch from red to blue in many states, including Pennsylvania and Michigan, is due in part to the legal inability of officials to count mail-in votes before election day, and the decision of some counties in these states to hold off on counting mail-in ballots until after election day.
As it stands now, Biden is set to become the 46th President of the United States and Kamala Harris is set to become America’s first woman Vice President. Leaders of countries like Germany, France, Canada, Australia and South Korea have congratulated Biden and Harris on their projected win, and as Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin and many others stated, he “look[s] forward to working with [Biden] in the years ahead.”
Biden himself said he “pledge[s] to be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify; who doesn’t see red states and blue states, only sees the United States.”
Personal reactions to Biden’s projected win are as diverse as the country he will presumably be the president of, and we have compiled a few of these opinions here.