The duel between Donald Trump and Joe Biden has been defined after more than three days of agonizing scrutiny. Two of the three states that gave Trump victory in 2016 – Michigan and Wisconsin – fell from the Democratic side in the first hours of the count and propelled Biden to victory. However, the presidency of the United States hung until the end of the calculations of four territories: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. The Pennsylvania needle, which gives 20 electoral votes, leaned this Saturday morning in favor of the Democrat, allowing him to exceed the 270 electoral votes that will boost him to the White House. The Republican thus became the first president to lose a reelection in the last 25 years.
We review the accounts that have decided the election.
Pennsylvania
It was the most coveted territory and can define the election with its 20 Electoral College votes. With 98% scrutinized, Joe Biden won after eleven in the morning on the East Coast with the victory over Donald Trump by 34,414 ballots, which created a scenario without turning back. With that victory, he exceeds the 270 necessary backups. The scrutiny took a turn in the final phase and the Democrat was extending his advantage throughout Friday. The sociological explanation has to do with the fact that the remaining votes to be counted came from large urban strongholds, traditionally loyal to the Democratic Party, such as the city of Philadelphia. It was those positions that gave Barack Obama’s vice president an irreversible victory. Following a lawsuit from Trump’s team, post-election mail ballots were counted separately. There were about 100,000 “provisional” votes, with problems, for example, in the signature. “The numbers are clear. We are going to win this race, ”Biden said late on Friday in the United States (early Saturday in Spain).
Georgia
This State entered counting territory on Friday. The tightness of the results, only one tenth percentage, led the state authorities to announce that they will review the computation in accordance with local law. The contest borders on the technical tie. Biden also cherished victory in that territory with almost 99% scrutinized and with the majority of votes to be counted from expatriates and military personnel living outside the country. Biden has 2,461,498 votes (49.4%) compared to 2,454,256 (49.3%) for Trump, 7,242 more votes for the Democrat. Local electoral authorities say it will take a little over a week for them to recount the more than 4.9 million votes cast. “Where are the missing ballots in Georgia? What happened to them? ”Trump questioned on Twitter on Friday, after losing a lead of hundreds of thousands of votes since election night.
It will be difficult for this traditionally conservative state to have definitive results before Thanksgiving (Thursday, November 26). The count had put Biden’s victory on hold, in the final phase of the count, although the Pennsylvania result makes the Georgia accounts secondary for the purposes of the race for the White House. The last Democratic candidate Georgia won in a presidential election was Bill Clinton in 1992.
Arizona
Since the election night last Tuesday, Arizona has fed the hopes of the Democrats, since the conquest of this State, with 11 electoral votes, could give a significant turn to the contest. The Democratic candidate led his opponent for much of the week, but the margin narrowed in the last hours of Friday. It has 49.5% (1,626,943) compared to 48.9% (1,606,370) of the current occupant of the White House, a distance of just over 20,500 ballots. Unlike what happens in other competing localities, Republicans here dominate mail-in and early voting and hoped to rebound. A spokesman for the president’s campaign said Wednesday on Fox News that he would win by 40,000 ballots. A new results packet was updated from Maricopa County on Friday. That data slightly favored Trump, but not enough to overcome the advantage of the former vice president of Obama.
Arizona, nestled on the border with Mexico, has been characterized by support for a strong hand against migration and by well-coordinated conservative leadership at the local level. That appears to have changed and one of Trump’s old strongholds is shaping up to be painted blue. The local authorities have said that the scrutiny will continue during the weekend, but that this Friday they hope to have a “clearer picture” of the results.
Nevada
Despite representing only six electoral votes, the state also became decisive because it could tip the balance in such a tight contest. The top two urban counties have rallied in support of Biden. The rural area is for Trump. It is one of the territories that lags the most with the scrutiny. Biden beats Trump by 25,699 votes: 642,604 (49.9%) compared to 616,905 (47.9%) for the Republican.
Local electoral authorities have made trickle of scrutiny, which can last until next week because of the mail-in ballots that arrived on Election Day. In Nevada, there are more than 66,000 “provisional” ballots, which still need to be verified before counting. Before the definition of Pennsylvania, winning both Nevada and Arizona would have guaranteed Biden to exceed the threshold of votes to be president.
North Carolina
It was another of the states where Trump won without difficulty in 2016. In these elections he was considered a pendulum state, that is, he could fall on the Republican or Democratic side. Here Trump holds nearly a point and a half ahead of Biden and appears to increase as scrutiny progresses. The polls here predicted an adjusted result, almost a coin flipped, and they have been fulfilled: Trump has 2,732,818 ballots (50%) and Biden, 2,656,303 (48.6%), 76,515 votes difference.
The kind of The New York Times It gave Trump an 86% chance of victory in this state, but there are still more than 120,000 votes by mail that will probably not be counted until November 12, according to authorities. The electoral map puts North Carolina and its 15 constituencies right on the border of a divided East Coast: the south has been painted red, the north is blue. The State has broken a record for participation: about 74% of the electoral roll that went to the polls.
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