As of this writing, election officials in Georgia are recounting votes by hand. Regardless of that outcome, three facts will remain:
President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris will have received the most votes ever in a presidential race with 75+ million votes.
President Trump will have received the second most votes ever at 70+ million.
The Biden-Harris ticket will have flipped five states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin) back to the Democrats and amass 306 Electoral College votes: the same number President Trump received in 2016. And the last time a Democratic ticket carried both Arizona and Georgia was 1948.
As of this writing, President Trump is scheduled to address the American people at 4:00 pm.
While contentious, ultimately the 2020 presidential race was a resounding victory for the Biden-Harris ticket. And for the Northeast, every state, from Virginia to Maine, went for the Democrat ticket. One exception was the one electoral vote, in the second congressional district of Maine, went for President Trump. Maine is one of two states that apportions its electoral votes by congressional district.
In his acceptance speech, President-Elect Biden President-elect Joe Biden committed “to rebuild the soul of America, to rebuild the backbone of this nation, the middle class and to make America respected around the world again.” Biden pledged to be a unifier and not a divider. He said as president he wouldn’t “see red states and blue states, but only sees the United States” and pledged “to work as hard for those who didn’t vote for me as for those who did.”
Despite the intentional delay of efforts toward a smooth transition of power by the Trump Administration, President-Elect Biden and his team have moved forward to assert the roles voters bestowed upon them, and chief among them was taking on the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden named a group of leading scientists and experts as transition advisors to help take the Biden-Harris COVID plan and convert it into an action blueprint that starts on January 20th, 2021. This week the campaign also launched its Agency Review Teams despite a standoff with the current General Services Administration (GSA).
The GSA is responsible for providing necessary resources and access to ensure a smooth and peaceful transition of authority between the incoming and outgoing Administrations. “We must be prepared for a seamless transfer of knowledge to the incoming administration to protect our interests at home and abroad,” Ted Kaufman, the Biden transition co-chairman, said in a statement. “The agency review process will help lay the foundation for meeting these challenges on Day One.” Many of the new advisors are veterans of the Obama Administration. All the names are posted on the Biden campaign’s transition website: www.buildbackbetter.com.
On Veteran’s Day, President-elect Joe Biden announced the appointment of Ron Klain as White House Chief of Staff and Assistant to the President. Ron previously served as Chief of Staff to then Vice President Biden (2009-2011) and has devoted many years to public service, serving as White House Ebola Response Coordinator (2014-15). In the coming weeks, expect additional statements from President-elect Biden on his policy priorities as well as an uptick in the number of names being floated as potential Cabinet picks.