Biden Is Projected To Be The President-Elect. Here’s How It All Went Down.

Biden is taking the stage now, and we’ve noted a few times that it’s pretty unusual in the modern presidency for the incumbent to lose. It’s also notable that when this usually happens, it’s someone who represents something new in politics. Franklin Delano Roosevelt came in after Republicans had held the White House for over a decade, when only one other Democrat had been elected president since the Civil War. When Ronald Reagan won the presidency in 1980, he had been in politics for some time but represented a new turn in Republican politics; Republicans won control of the Senate for the first time since the mid-1950s. Bill Clinton entered office after three consecutive Republican terms, a relative newcomer to the national stage and the first “New Democrat” to win the presidency.

With Biden, the situation is different. He was vice president only four years ago, and while he may move left with his party to some extent, he’s not a new figure or someone who represents an emerging faction. This appears to have been a change election, but in an unusual way.

Running mates sometimes change the ideological reputations of major-party nominees. Ryan made voters view Romney as more conservative and Biden made voters view Obama as more moderate, for example. But choosing Harris does not seem to have changed ideological perceptions of Biden, despite her liberal voting record. Republicans tried to tie her to the leftmost voices in the party, but it did not fit well with her demeanor or image.

Building on Lee’s point, the extent to which the GOP can be the “party of no” will hinge on the Georgia Senate runoffs. But recent presidents have been lucky to start their administrations with a friendly Senate to confirm an initial cabinet; Biden may not be so lucky. Early on, we’ll see just how Biden does getting his administration through the Senate confirmation process, to say nothing of his judicial nominees.

A 2020 twist to these victory speeches: car honking. Many attendees are in cars in order to be socially distanced due to the COVID-19 outbreak (which, not to be a downer, has only gotten worse over the last few days as the U.S. surpassed more than 100,000 daily cases for three days straight).

“But while I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last,” says Harris.

These firsts are important! Political science has shown that young women grow more politically active (and hopeful about democracy) when they witness women holding higher political office. These “role model effects” are important for encouraging more women to run for office down the road.

Harris accomplishes a number of firsts this evening. She will be the first woman VP. Not to mention, she’s the first Black woman on a general-election ticket. And the first Indian American to be nominated for president or vice president by either the two major political parties.

One issue that’s immediately going to be on the agenda once folks move on from the election — what should be done about the economy? Congress has been deadlocked over a second stimulus plan for months. Now a big question is, does the outcome of the election change that at all?

As our colleague Julia Azari wrote on the blog last night, two other women selected as running mates — Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Sarah Palin in 2008 — were seen as sort of a Hail Mary choice, added to underdog campaigns to shake things up. Harris, on the other hand, was selected as Biden was favored.

I hate to be a killjoy here, but I do think we need to talk about the COVID-19 implications of the celebrations that have been happening in the streets today and what I’m seeing on the live feed from Wilmington right now. Part of Trump’s legacy is going to be his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, including the way he encouraged his followers to show up for big rallies, unmasked. I’m seeing a lot more masks on the Biden crowd today, but not really any social distancing. It’s an understandable, common and dangerous mistake to use masks a single protection point against the spread of COVID-19. Evidence suggest masks work and that they’re important. But they’re also not foolproof. Experts have told me that we should be thinking about our COVID-19 protections as a series of defensive walls, and using just one isn’t necessarily enough to protect yourself. So here we are, watching a Biden rally that is better protected than a Trump rally … but still not practicing safe socializing. I definitely have some concerns about whether these events today end up contributing to the spread and becoming part of Biden’s legacy.

My view is that this election actually shows that the death of Bush Republicanism may have been called prematurely. Like with Bush, Republicans successfully expanded their electorate, did better with Latinos, and moved Florida and Ohio to the right of the popular vote. They fell short, but many anti-Trump Republicans still voted for Republicans in state and House elections and do not seem to have moved away from the party for good. It might also cause us to re-evaluate the 2004 electorate. Stronger support from Latinos and low-education whites may just be Republicans’ route to competitiveness when turnout rises, rather than a pattern specific to Bush or religious issues.

Amelia, two things I wonder about Trump’s legal strategy are 1. how much it just serves as a fundraising tactic (potentially to pay off his campaign debts), and 2. how much it is purely symbolic so Trump can claim he was cheated and carry on with his grievance politics.

Yes, Clare, and in the year of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the constitutional right to vote, no less!

Micah, I have. My plans include ☀️ and a new live blog! Uh … you read that right, readers. Your fearless crew will be back tomorrow tracking all the outstanding races. Biden might be headed to the White House, but there are still a number of Senate and House races where we don’t know the outcome — not to mention the presidential race in a few states. Arizona anyone?

Sarah, have you thought about how you’re going to close out this weeklong (or thereabouts) live blog after Biden’s remarks?

I’m not sure the future of the Republican Party will be resolved until the current face of the party steps off the stage. And as I said earlier this year, he may not; I think there’s a good chance Trump runs for president again in 2024. At the very least, the starting gun for the 2024 presidential primary can’t start until Trump says outright that he’s not running.

And Harris, the first woman vice president-elect, is wearing suffragette white.

Harris coming out to speak now.

As we wait for Biden, this comment stood out to me in ABC’s coverage: This is in some ways the first general election campaign rally for Biden. Given the pandemic, Biden didn’t really hold campaign events as one normally would. Clare Malone wrote on this earlier in the campaign cycle and how this would hurt Trump’s brand of politics in particular.

Yeah, Micah, I wonder how long it can last, too, if only because legal challenges are expensive! But I think as long as Trump is fighting this in court, however futilely, it will give at least some of Trump’s supporters a (false) sense that the election results aren’t valid — and that obviously isn’t good in terms of bringing the country together.

Amelia, to your question about how long the Trump legal “strategy” will play out, I wonder a bit if it will just peter out. The Trump inner circle itself appears to be divided on the utility of those lawsuits, according to reporting by ABC News. We may end up with people like Rudy Giuliani and Pam Bondi still carrying on, but everyone else … might basically ignore them?

One thing I’m wondering about is how long Trump will continue to file legal challenges to the election — and what impact that will have on the country’s divisions. At this point, the outcome of the election is not going to be changed in the courts. But those lawsuits could mean that it takes longer for his supporters to come around to the idea of a Biden presidency. How prominent Republicans respond could be a part of that, too — will other Republicans stop joining and promoting those suits? Is there any chance some of them openly acknowledge the suits aren’t going anywhere?

Yeah, Lee and Julia, as you said, Trump has definitely reshaped the GOP since 2015. In a recent survey of online Pennsylvania residents, I asked whether Republicans would prefer a 2024 candidate who was “more like a typical politician” or “more like Donald Trump,” and 81 percent said they wanted to see a candidate more like Trump. That would suggest that at least as of now, Trump still very much has the heart of the party. And this election was close enough that we may not see a major break with Trump in the GOP in the near future.

That’s a good question, Lee. And it’s the question on everyone’s mind, as you said. What kind of influence does Trump have left in the GOP?

From an electoral perspective, perhaps the most important takeaway is that the rest of the party did much better than Trump. Republicans picked up House seats unexpectedly and held onto Senate seats in Iowa and Maine, and most likely in North Carolina.

My read is that this is decent evidence that the claims that the GOP was Trump’s party were a bit overblown. Taking over a political party requires more experience and acumen than Trump — or any newcomer, really — could be expected to have.

That said, the Republicans who survived the Trump era are the ones who could reconcile themselves to his brand of politics. And while a notable number decided they could not — think about Paul Ryan, for example, who retired from Congress — there were also politicians like Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz who started out skeptical of Trump and became more loyal over time, alongside a growing cohort of Trump-style Republicans that has been building over time, with types like Josh Hawley in the Senate.

So I think it’s safe to say that Trump has shaped the GOP, making it a more friendly place to those who embrace Trump’s style of rhetoric and policy positions, but like most presidents, there have been limits on how much he’s been able to transform it.

One question lots of folks are asking right now is: What is the immediate future of the Republican Party?

My hunch is it will once again function as the opposition party, transforming into the “party of no.” Without the White House, Republicans can very easily go back to just being the “party of no,” as they were in the Obama administration. And if Republicans’ goal is to win the House in the 2022 midterm elections — building on gains they made this year — they’ll have every incentive to make life difficult for the Biden administration rather than fight amongst themselves.

Don’t expect Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to give an inch. Instead, expect him to keep doing what he’s done for years — find a way to keep his fellow senators from having to take tough votes that might divide the party.

The Democratic Party looked extremely unified this election, because the moderate and the progressive wings of the party could all agree on one big goal: Get Trump out of the White House. But now that they’ve succeeded, where does that leave them — especially considering they didn’t ride a “blue wave” down ballot?

First, there will likely be plenty of blame to go around as to why Democratic candidates didn’t do better, particularly in the House. Expect the familiar fights over whether Democrats should have offered a bolder, more progressive agenda or whether they should have done more to support police officers and been less supportive of Black Lives Matter protesters. There’s enough ambiguity in the results to lend support to either argument.

Second, the Democratic House Caucus will be more progressive, since many of the casualties this year were moderates. This could push House Democrats toward more progressive and ambitious legislation. But party leaders are going to be anxious here, because it is unlikely anything very progressive could pass the Senate (although it remains possible Democrats take back the chamber; control of the Senate seems increasingly likely to hinge on two Georgia Senate runoffs) and they’ll want to figure out a way to keep the House in 2022, mindful that the president’s party almost always loses power.

Third, this means a lot of policy will wind up being decided by the executive branch. As such, there will be a tremendous fight over who Biden puts in key agency positions and how aggressively he uses his executive powers. Again, we’ll see the familiar fights between the moderates, who want to chart a more centrist, potentially unifying agenda that brings along some Republicans, and the progressives, who have no interest in working with Republicans.

Biden himself is, arguably, not a strong enough personality to unify behind, so the chances of Democratic infighting are probably higher than Democratic unity over the next two years, especially if nobody agrees on the 2020 narrative and competing moderate/progressive strategies for 2022 come into conflict. Maybe a Biden administration, working with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can split the difference. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

Biden’s victory event is expected to start shortly, so you might want to save this link for later, but here’s the reaction podcast we recorded earlier today after multiple networks declared Biden the winner. (The podcast crew will also be back on Monday for our regular show for even more discussion and analysis.)

Joe Biden is preparing to address the nation this evening after the major networks declared that Biden had won Pennsylvania, giving him enough electoral votes to become the president-elect.

Concession and victory speeches are an important democratic ritual, though they are largely a product of the TV era and thus, not a terribly old tradition. (The earliest instance I could find of a candidate who was not the incumbent delivering a speech was John F. Kennedy in 1960.)

But these speeches have been happening long enough now that we know a bit about what usually happens. Communication scholars Jennifer Willyard and Kurt Ritter have found that the dynamics of the race, as well as whether the challenger or incumbent wins, matter a lot for the rhetoric used in the speech. Losers in close races, they argue, face more pressure to emphasize national unity in their concession speeches, as do incumbent presidents who lose. These pressures matter for the winner, too. Recent victory addresses, such as Barack Obama’s in 2008 and George W. Bush’s in 2004, explicitly made a point to address citizens who had voted for the other candidate.

But it’s 2020, and the combination of partisan dynamics and Trump’s handling of the results so far suggests that this ritual isn’t going to proceed as usual. Typically, the winning candidate has spoken after a concession phone call — but Biden will address the nation even though Trump has not yet publicly conceded.

So we’ll see how Biden addresses the question of unity, which has been a theme throughout his campaign. It’s clear that this is still a divided nation, but claims to bipartisanship and national healing may come off even more hollow than they did in 2008 and 2004 (and people had doubts then). Then again, they may be even more necessary now.

The White House has issued what is called a “travel/photo lid” (love that newsroom jargon, don’t you?), which means we will not hear from Trump today. That is significant given Biden is expected to give remarks to the nation this evening as the president-elect. Trump’s next move remains unclear.

We’re all about the electoral map here at FiveThirtyEight, and with Biden now projected to win Nevada, his electoral vote tally has edged up from 273 electoral votes to 279.

That’s not the only outstanding state, of course, but it’ll probably be awhile before we know who won Arizona (tighter margins) or Georgia (recount). Same situation with North Carolina and Alaska, although those states look more favorable for Trump.

We’re going to take a pause here on the live blog as the takeaway at this point is clear: Biden is on track to become the next president of the United States. Pennsylvania is the state that put him over the edge (270 votes in the Electoral College), but Biden’s electoral map could range from 273 electoral votes to 306 votes if he maintains his leads in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

The vote is still being counted, which makes deeper analyses of demographic changes and trends hard at this point. There are some things we already know: Trump left a big mark on America, and a deep partisan divide remains in the country. But the picture from Election Day is still coming into focus — it’s already a lot different than it was Tuesday night, and it will crystalize even more in the coming days. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this thought, readers, as we continue to track the vote: In our polarized political era, competitive elections are the norm, so if Biden’s popular vote margin is 4 points or more, that is large by today’s standards. But it doesn’t mean our country isn’t still deeply divided.

We’re starting to publish some stand-alone articles on Biden’s win. Here’s Nate on what turned out to be a pretty convincing win.

Slight correction to my earlier post: Grover Cleveland also lost reelection, which would make Trump the 11th president to do so. But, of course, Cleveland was not a one-term president, as he won a comeback bid four years later.

A bit of context about Harris as the first woman elected vice president: The circumstances under which she was chosen were quite different from the first two women to run as vice president on a major-party ticket. Both Geraldine Ferraro (chosen by Walter Mondale in 1984) and Sarah Palin (chosen by John McCain in 2008) were selected by candidates who were not favored to win the race — and needed to do something to shake things up. Biden selected Harris while leading in the polls. He had promised early on to choose a female running mate, and Harris was likely chosen as part of a larger strategy to consolidate the party and pick someone with conventional qualifications for the presidency. Demographic factors were part of the story, but the choice reflected an intention both to make history and to acknowledge the diversity of the nation and the Democratic Party.

As we get clarity into the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, we also get an important early data point for the 2022 midterms. One of the clearest regularities in American politics is that the party holding the presidency loses votes during the midterm. In fact, in late 2016, I wrote for FiveThirtyEight that the loser of the presidential race could look forward to a substantial consolation prize — the 2018 midterms. That said, depending on the outcome of the Senate runoffs in Georgia, Biden may well enter the presidency without controlling both branches of Congress, and so become the first president since the first President Bush to face divided government from his first day in office. That may limit his legislative agenda — and also the backlash it may generate.

Fun facts: Biden becomes only the sixth vice president to ascend to the presidency through an election (as opposed to resignation or death), following Adams, Jefferson, Van Buren, Nixon and Bush 41. But he’s only the second (along with Nixon) to become president after a hiatus from public office. And he’s the only winning VP who ran for president not to run while still serving as VP (Nixon ran in 1960). Biden also breaks a losing streak of three Dem VPs in a row running for president and losing (Humphrey, Mondale, Gore).

Biden is the apparent winner of the 2020 presidential election, but that fact is not so apparent to everyone. The past few days have been filled with unsubstantiated accusations of voter fraud, lawsuits by the Trump team and indications that some portion of Trump’s supporters will not see the results of this election as legitimate — much as some portion of Clinton’s supporters didn’t see Trump’s 2016 election as legitimate. We often connect the acceptance of election results to how free, fair and well-administered the election was. But researchers have found numerous examples of objectively good elections leading to outcomes that significant portions of the public would not accept.

One example of this was Mexico in 2006, when an election internationally praised for its transparency and efficiency still ended with the losing presidential candidate leading months of street protests. In that case, poor communication of the election results may have contributed to the perception within the country that the results were unfair, even while outside observers believed otherwise. One of the basic things we have to remember is that the perception of free and fair elections, not just the fact of them, matters. And that perception is something that’s being heavily messed with in this particular election, as Kaleigh has explained, through misinformation spread on both social media and through official sources — like the president himself.

There are of course still many ballots to count, but 2016 and 2020 seem to stand out in the number of states in which there were close races. Wisconsin sits at a margin of 0.6 percentage points now, Georgia at a razor-tight 0.1, Pennsylvania at 0.5 and Arizona at 0.6. (To be sure, those margins may shift, but it’s not clear by how much.) 2016 was similarly tight, with Wisconsin at 0.8, Pennsylvania at 0.7 and Michigan at 0.2 — and the tightest state of all, New Hampshire, which was separated by just a few thousand votes. Put differently, in a country with more than 150 million people voting, both elections seem to have come down to tens of thousands of votes across a few key states.

To Nate’s point about Democrats and demographics on the ticket, I thought a lot about this during the primary. Since 2000, Dems have had someone from a historically underrepresented group on the ticket — Obama, Clinton, Harris. Joe Lieberman, the 2000 VP nominee, was the first Jewish American to appear on a major party presidential ticket. They won the popular vote each time. The one time they lost the popular vote, in 2004, was when they had two white, Christian men. It’s still not very many observations, but it does suggest that Americans are generally willing to vote for a presidential ticket that doesn’t look or worship like all the ones in the past.

Exactly right, Nathaniel. In fact, a number of states are still counting, and all of them still have to canvass the results and certify their election results in the coming weeks. This is the same as in any year — states have statutory rules governing their elections that they follow to complete their counts and protect the integrity of elections.

Just because Biden has won doesn’t mean other states will stop counting their votes! Clark County, Nevada, just reported a good chunk of votes, which pushed Biden’s lead in the state to 2 percentage points.

Maybe worth noting that Democrats are 3-0 this century when they have a Black person on the ticket, and 0-3 when they don’t.

It was 48 years ago today — Nov. 7, 1972 — that Biden won his first election for U.S. Senate. He’s gone from one of the youngest senators ever elected to the oldest president ever elected.

How did Biden win Pennsylvania? Geographically speaking, the state’s suburban counties had a lot to do with it. In fact, for all the talk of Philadelphia in recent days, Trump has already won more votes in the city than he did in 2016, while Biden has not yet gotten above Clinton’s 2016 vote total. But in Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh but also many of its suburbs, Biden has already netted 33,000 more votes than Clinton did. And then there are the Philadelphia suburbs, which were really where Biden outpaced Clinton:

Yeah, Nate, the margin in Pennsylvania is the much more likely explanation than coordination.

It does seem noteworthy that all the major desks called the race at once. I’m sure that others will do reporting on whether there was any sort of coordination, but clearly the 0.5-point margin in Pennsylvania served as a focal point.

With so many prominent news organizations, including Fox News, declaring Biden the apparent/likely winner, it will be interesting to see what Republican elected officials do. First, do they congratulate Biden on his victory, either on Twitter or in other public statements? Second, do they encourage Trump to concede and/or end the various lawsuits he has going in many of the closest states?

To Julia’s point, just consider Biden’s focus on Pennsylvania in terms of his limited travel and state visits during the campaign.

What’s really important about the question of Pennsylvania as the tipping point is that it (maybe) validates my teaching decisions. I assigned this Washington Post piece from Oct. 10 that highlighted the importance of the state and mentioned both campaign tactics and the relevance of various election rules. And it underscores how much the Electoral College shaped both the campaign strategy and the path to the outcome.

Some long-run narratives about this election could really come down to how things pan out in Georgia and Arizona. Both turning blue would be a notable shift compared with past presidential elections — Arizona last went Democratic in 1996, Georgia in 1992. But both times, Bill Clinton won with a plurality in the low- to mid-40s because of the presence of Ross Perot. This time, if Biden wins them, he’ll be very close to 50 percent in each.