Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States.
Biden surpassed the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the election on Saturday, taking his birth state of Pennsylvania.
At last count, Biden led sitting-President Donald Trump in the popular vote 74,857,880 (50.6%) to 70,598,535 (47.7%).
Biden’s victories in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada gave him a 306 to 232 victory in the electoral college.
“I am honored and humbled by the trust the American people have placed in me and in Vice President-elect Harris,” Biden said in a statement released Saturday morning. “In the face of unprecedented obstacles, a record number of Americans voted. Proving once again, that democracy beats deep in the heart of America.”
Biden and California Senator Kamala Harris, became the first Democrats to win Arizona in 24 years and the first Democrats to win Georgia in 28 years. The Biden/Harris ticket flipped Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — re-building the “Blue Wall” — to secure victory.
“Pennsylvania is the birthplace of American democracy and now we’re securing it for the next generation,” tweeted Pennsylvania Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, a gay Black man and Biden campaign surrogate.
On Thursday, Trump tried to cast doubt on the results by essentially calling the entire city of Philadelphia corrupt. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney responded by telling Trump to “put on his big boy pants” and concede.
Biden’s late surge in Pennsylvania came on the strength of mail-in ballots, which officials do not process until election day. Born in Scranton, Pa., Biden served as a U.S. Senator from Delaware for 36 years before being selected as former President Barack Obama’s vice president.
He announced his intentions to seek the Democratic nomination last April and overcame a field of 20 candidates, thanks largely to the support of Black voters, energized by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the death of Congressman John Lewis of Georgia and Trump’s constant dog whistles to his followers about conditions in urban, inner cities.
“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. “It’s time for America to unite. And to heal.”
In two weeks Biden will turn 78 making him the oldest president ever elected. Harris, 56, will become the first female Black vice president ever elected.
Meanwhile, Trump becomes the first one-term president since George H.W. Bush was defeated by Bill Clinton in the 1992 election. Retreating to his golf course in Palm Beach on Saturday, still in denial, Trumped tweeted “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!”
