Riding the blue wave: Former Vice President Joe Biden has been elected as the next President of the United States

BY CAMILA FERNANDEZ AND EMMA HUERTA

Only one wall has been built, and it’s blue.

On November 7, 2020, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 United States Presidential Election. This comes four days after the highly-anticipated General Election arrived in the country on November 3. Regardless of a worldwide pandemic and cultural tensions, the blue wave triumphed.

Biden ran on the presidential ticket as the Democrat against incumbent Republican President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Biden’s running mate was California Senator Kamala Harris, who is now the first woman and person of color to become U.S. Vice President. 

“I’m def[initely] relieved Trump is out of office, but I’m still worried people are going to get complacent with Biden just because he’s a Democrat and not Trump,” senior Piper Breslin said. “We all still need to continue to fight for LGBT and [Black, Indigenous, and People of Color] (BIPOC) voices, and not idolize Biden and Harris. Just because Trump is out of office, doesn’t mean every issue we had is fixed.”

“I’m def[initely] relieved Trump is out of office, but I’m still worried people are going to get complacent with Biden just because he’s a Democrat and not Trump.”

Senior Piper Breslin

The road to the White House for both the Biden-Harris and the Trump-Pence campaigns has been turbulent. As the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent social distancing regulations limited people’s ability to vote, the amount of vote-by-mail ballots surged, with 64 million mailed in before Election Day. 

About 160 million people voted, another record-breaking number that reflects the high stakes of the election and made history as the highest voter turnout since 1900. This makes Joe Biden the candidate to receive the most popular votes in history with over 74 million, and Donald Trump the close second with over 70 million.  

The overwhelming numbers made for a complicated and tedious vote count this year. The pressure to declare a winner was shifted onto the shoulders of poll workers, who were accused by many of voter fraud. However, the process of double-checking and constant supervision by an equal balance of Democrat and Republican workers made it “virtually impossible” in the eyes of many for fraud to be present. Meanwhile, some still cast their doubts.

“[I believe that] the election is rigged [and there] is so much fraud that is getting looked away,” senior Nick Egleston said. “[I think that] everyone hates Trump because [of] the way he spoke and never talked about policy, which doesn’t get shed light on, which is terrible because he made this country great.”

“[I believe that] the election is rigged [and there] is so much fraud that is getting looked away.”

Senior Nick Egleston

The results of this election came down to a couple thousand votes in a handful of swing states, which are those that are equally likely to grant either candidate a win. Some of these states that were in the spotlight for this year’s election were Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Although President Trump was previously leading in states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, these flipped on him as Biden took the lead when mail-in ballots began to be counted.

Ultimately, Biden picked up more than the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency with his win in Pennsylvania, a state with 20 electoral votes, bringing him up to 273. As the finalized results come in from states like Nevada and Georgia, where Biden holds a lead, his electoral vote count is bound to go up. With these projected wins, Biden has reclaimed the “blue wall” that includes 18 states and the District of Columbia during elections.

Despite his win, the road ahead for the Biden-Harris campaign seems tough, with the impending repercussions of the pandemic, economic fluctuations, social turmoil and pending Senate elections. Many agree that this election marks the beginning of work that’s to be done.

“I’m glad Trump lost but there is still so much work that needs to be done because Trump was only the symptom to the problems [in] our country, not the disease,” senior Christopher Berry said. “As the next generation, we need to pressure the establishment of both corporate parties and we need to be willing to organize outside of Democrats and Republicans to get serious climate change action, tackle systemic racism, protect the working class from exploitation and overall uplift our country to work for all of us.”

Illustration by Mia Tunon