Image: Business Insider
Faizel Patel – 07/11/2020
Democrat Joe Biden has defeated Donald Trump to become the 46th President of the United States.
Biden’s victory on Saturday comes after more than three days of uncertainty as election officials sorted through a surge of mail-in votes that delayed the processing of some ballots.
Biden crossed 270 Electoral College votes with a win in Pennsylvania.
The Associated Press (AP) reports that Biden was on track to win the national popular vote by more than 4 million, a margin that could grow as ballots continue to be counted.
Trump had no immediate reaction to the announcement, but as Biden’s lead grew during vote counts since Tuesday’s election, the Republican president lashed out with unsubstantiated claims of fraud and claimed, falsely, that he had won.
Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris also made history as the first Black woman to become vice president, an achievement that comes as the U.S. faces a reckoning on racial justice.
According to AP, the California senator, who is also the first person of South Asian descent elected to the vice presidency, will become the highest-ranking woman ever to serve in government, four years after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.
Trump is the first incumbent president to lose re-election since Republican George W Bush in 1992.
Meanwhile, a political analyst told Radio Islam on Saturday that a Biden victory would not bode well for Palestinians saying nothing will change under his administration.
AB Dawjee says Biden will not reverse all the gifts that Trump gave Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.
“Yes he will talk about a negotiated deal, a two state solution and so on, but there will be just empty words because Israel has already taken huge chunks of the West Bank which makes it impossible for the Palestinians to have an independent viable state. Israel has already consolidated its position, it’s building more and more settlements and Israel is taking more and more land everyday.”
It is unclear whether Trump would publicly concede the election to Biden.
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