Joe Biden Vs. Donald Trump: Who Is Winning US Election 2020?

Summary

• Biden is inching closer to victory just one state away from victory with 264 electoral votes, as in comparison to Trump who stands at 214.
• Trump’s prospects to victory have been narrowed down significantly, so he chooses the litigation route to claim the win.
• Trump intends to go to the Supreme Court and wants all vote counting to stop.

 

Democratic party candidate and former vice president Joe Biden is taking on Republican party’s nominee and current President Donald Trump locked in a tight race in the ongoing US Presidential election 2020. Biden is supported by California Senator Kamala Harris while Trump has Vice President Mike Pence as his running mate.

As votes are still getting counted, Biden’s chances of defeating Trump in the US Election 2020 are improving. As per media reports, the former vice president is just one state away from victory with 264 electoral votes, as in comparison to Trump who stands at 214.

With 49.3 per cent votes from Nevada, 50.7 per cent votes from Arizona, 50.5 per cent votes in Michigan, 52.8 per cent votes in New Hampshire and 49.6 per cent votes from Wisconsin, Joe Biden is ahead of Trump in his race for the White House*.

However, Trump is not far behind either, leading in key states with 49.6 per cent votes from Georgia, 50.7 per cent votes from Pennsylvania, 51.2 per cent votes from Florida, and 53.2 per cent votes from Iowa*.

However, Trump’s prospects to victory are narrowing significantly. Which is why, he is choosing to take the litigation route that he has relied on many times before. He calls for a recount in the state of Wisconsin, demands halting of vote count in Michigan, plans to file a lawsuit to stop counting votes in Georgia and is looking at several other areas to pick up legal fights. In these critical hours, the officials are laying down firm groundwork and buying time to slow down the counting in states.

President Trump and his team claim to be upholding the rule of law in his fight for victory in the US Election 2020.

Georgia’s law has been clear in this regard – “all mail ballots received by 7.00pm on the election day will only be legally counted.”

This law was cited even when Democrats earlier called for election delay and extension of the deadline for submission of votes by mail ballots. 

Early Wednesday, after the polls closed and the ballots were still being counted, Trump falsely declared himself the winner in a tweet and accused Democrats of stealing the election. He further emphasized on the rule saying, votes cannot be cast after closing of the polls.

Trump for months has criticized the mail-in ballot system and said it will lead to fraud and a rigged election. But Americans relied on postal voting because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Covid-19 threat has forced states to promote mail-in ballot system and modify rules on collection, verification, and tabulation. Also, periods for receiving ballots were extended, due to an overburdened US Postal Service to allow more time for vote counting.

Trump later claimed on Twitter saying that while he was leading solidly in many key states, the votes soon started to “magically disappear” with ballot dumps being surprisingly counted.

In his White House Speech, President Trump demanded all voting to stop and said he will move the Supreme Court to dispute over the counting process. He also expressed concern saying, he does not want to find any ballots at 4am in the morning being added to the list.

Confident of his Presidential win, Trump made premature claims of winning the election even before the official election results were declared. Hence, Facebook and Instagram started running notifications for all US users and began adding labels to Trump and Joe Biden’s posts saying the votes are still being counted and the winner of the US presidential election is not announced yet.

As Biden is inching closer to the 270 electoral votes needed to make it to the White House, narrowing Trump’s winning foothold in blue wall battlegrounds of Wisconsin and Michigan, only a few more states are up for grabs. Trump is losing confidence over the voting system being implemented and pressing legal charges over balloting, hoping to maneuver the course in his favor.

Biden, on the other, hand firmly believes it’s the American people who decide the President of the nation and hence started an initiative called the “Biden Fight Fund”, the largest election protection effort to make every vote count. Indicating that the electoral campaign work could stretch on for weeks, Kamala Harris requested citizens to donate US$5 to the Biden Fight Fund to defend democracy.

While Biden currently seems to be in a winning position, the legal hurdles put forth by Trump will have to be first addressed in individual states or at a federal level before approaching the nation’s highest court.

This morning, the United States officially left the Paris Climate Agreement three years after Trump announced he will leave the international climate change forum. If Biden gets elected, his administration will rejoin the Paris Climate agreement in the next 77 days, he tweeted.

* Figures at the time of writing the story