Former Vice President, now President, Joe Biden Won the Popular Vote
The 46th presidential race has come to an end, with Joe Biden as the winner.
Former Vice President Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris have won the election with 50.5 percent of popular votes. Biden’s campaign focused on beating COVID-19, economic recovery plans and health care.
The Biden campaign won Colorado, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Minnesota, New Mexico, California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Virginia and the District of Columbia. They also won the electoral votes for Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, all of which voted republican in 2016. Those three states were the only ones to switch party lines, voting democratic in the current 2020 presidential election.
Pennsylvania, a battleground state, ultimately decided the election, with 49.6 percent of votes for Biden and 49.1 percent of votes for Trump. Nevada, Arizona and Georgia have not finished counting votes, but are all projected to vote for Biden.
The popular vote does not always determine the outcome of the election. The electoral college votes on the presidential race on December 14. However, many states have laws in place stopping electors from voting opposite their state’s popular vote. If the electoral college follows the popular vote, Biden has won 273 electoral votes.
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Raeid Ebrahim • Nov 9, 2020 at 1:06 pm
I also think it’s worth mentioning that usually, the electors in the electoral college vote for who they were supposed to vote for. It is rare for electors to step out of line from the popular vote, and if they do, they usually vote for a third party candidate or a candidate that isn’t even running as a protest vote. I don’t think electors have ever voted against the state’s popular vote in large enough numbers to change the outcome of the election. And, as you mentioned, many states have laws that directly force electors to vote for the winner of the popular vote, and the US Supreme Court upheld these laws in the case Chiafalo V. Washington earlier this year, if I’m not mistaken.