Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. is elected the 46th president of the United States. He promises to restore political normalcy and a spirit of national unity to confront raging health and economic crises.
Mr. Biden’s victory amounted to a repudiation of Mr. Trump by millions of voters exhausted with his divisive conduct and chaotic administration and was delivered by an unlikely alliance of women, people of color, old and young voters and a sliver of disaffected Republicans. Mr. Trump is only the third elected president since World War II to lose re-election, and the first in more than a quarter-century according to New York Times.
The result also provided a history-making moment for Mr. Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris of California, who will become the first woman to serve as vice president.
As NYTimes notes, with his triumph, Mr. Biden, who turns 78 later this month, fulfilled his decades-long ambition in his third bid for the White House, becoming the oldest person elected president. A pillar of Washington who was first elected amid the Watergate scandal, and who prefers political consensus over combat, Mr. Biden will lead a nation and a Democratic Party that have become far more ideological since his arrival in the capital in 1973.
According to CNN in a written statement Saturday, Biden, who is expected to address the American people later in the day, said he was “honored and humbled” by the trust the American people have placed in him.
“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 said. “With the campaign over, it’s time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation.” “We are the United States of America. And there’s nothing we can’t do, if we do it together.”
Trump, who was on the golf course when CNN and other networks called the race for the former vice president, has shown no indication that he intends to concede. While en route to his course in Virginia, he tweeted: “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!”
But Biden supporters — whose face masks reflected the extraordinary circumstances of a pandemic-era election poured into the streets across the country in a moment of catharsis to celebrate the President-elect’s victory, which also means that California Sen. Kamala Harris, his running mate, will make history as the first woman, the first Black person and the first person of Southeast Asian descent to become vice president.