An Unprecedented Electoral College Amidst an Unprecedented Year
Infographic by Carolyn Burt and Johnny Neville / The Corsair
Over the past 48 hours, many Americans have been glued to their televisions as results began to pour in for the United States Presidential Election. The Associated Press (AP) has called Joe Biden as the projected winner of Arizona, though media outlets such as CNN have said the race is still too close to call. Biden’s total tally as reported by AP currently sits at 264 electoral votes, with President Trump at 214. Biden also leads in Nevada, a state with 6 electoral votes.
If Biden wins Nevada and Arizona that would put him at 270, the exact amount required to win the presidency. This would be the closest the election has been since the 270 rule was put into place in 1964. Previous to this election, the closest race in recent years was Bush vs Gore in 2001, where Bush ended up winning with 271. Besides Bush, the only other President to win with less than 300 Electoral College votes since 1964 was Democratic Nominee Jimmy Carter, when he first ran in 1976. Carter lost the following election with only 49 electoral votes and Republican Nominee Ronald Reagan securing 489.
Biden also leads the popular vote with over 72,000,000 ballots cast in his favor, beating former President Barack Obama's record for the most votes ever cast for a presidential candidate.
“Indeed Senator Harris and I are on track to win more votes than any ticket in the history of this country, that ever won the presidency and vice presidency. Over 70 million votes. I’m very proud of our campaign” said Biden in his speech to the nation on Nov. 4.
Voter turnout is especially significant in this election, given the global pandemic where there have been over 9.5 million cases in the United States. Because of the pandemic, many Americans opted to vote by mail, as to avoid exposure to COVID-19. An estimated 97 million votes were cast before election day, by both absentee ballot and early voting. Those who did go to polling centers in person had to comply to COVID-19 regulations, which in California included wearing masks, social distancing, and limiting the amount of people in the voting center at a time.
If Joe Biden were to become president, he would also be the fourth nominee to defeat an incumbent president since the 270 electoral votes requirement was put into place, following Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, and Jimmy Carter. President Trump, on the other hand, would join George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald R. Ford, all of whom lost their second term.
Since the election results started rolling in, President Trump has only made one public appearance. He addressed a crowd in the East Room of the White House at roughly 2:30 a.m. EST.
“We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4:00 in the morning and add them to the list,” said Trump to his largely maskless audience.
Trump’s tone differed from Biden's earlier that night, who spoke to supporters in a parking lot in Wilmington, Delaware. He expressed his optimism for the election’s outcome, but said that “it’s not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare the outcome of this election.”
It is still unclear when exactly the next president of the United States will be announced, as ballots are still being tallied across the nation. Nevada and Arizona are both currently leaning toward Biden, while Alaska, Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania are leaning toward Trump. These key states will ultimately be the deciding factors for the election. Though the gap is narrowing between the two candidates in these remaining states, the 2020 presidential election victor will likely not be announced until the majority of ballots are counted.
With the difference between Biden and Trump in these states getting slimmer, with Georgia separating the two by just .2% according to AP, the 2020 Presidential Election victor will likely not be announced until every ballot in the remaining states is counted.
