No Clear Winner Yet in Us Presidential Election

Senate and the house also to be decided

By Ricky Browne

There is no clear winner yet in the US presidential election.

Earlier today Democratic candidate Joe Biden was believed to be on 224 electoral votes with 213 for President Donald Trump.

In the popular vote Biden was ahead with 50 per cent of the vote, or 69.2 million votes compared to Donald Trump with 48.6 percent of the vote, or 66.9 million votes.

 

 

Millions of votes — many of them postal votes — are still to be counted in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and others. Pennsylvania may not finish their count until the end of the week.

 

“This is a fraud to the American public.. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly we did win this election,” Trump said.

Trump said he is ready to present a Supreme Court challenge alleging electoral fraud.

“We want the law to be used in a proper manner so we will be going to the supreme court so we want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to discover any votes at 4:00 in the morning.”

Biden’s tone was more cautious.

“Your patience is commendable,” Biden said. “But look we feel good about where we are. We really do.”

“We believe we are on track to win this election” he said.

 

One of the main problems is the huge increase in postal votes, many of which have not yet been counted. In the case of Pennsylvania, it will count postal votes received after the election date, provided they have a postal stamp of November 3rd or before. About 40 percent of the votes in Pennsylvania are believed to be postal votes.

So although Trump had about 55 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania, it is still believed to be possible for Biden to win, as it is believed that the majority of postal votes are Democratic.

If Donald Trump does take this to the Supreme Court, he will have an advantage there as there are currently six justices who were appointed by Republican administrations (including three by him), with only three who were appointed by the Democrats.

“We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!,” Trump tweeted.

Meanwhile Twitter censored the tweet with a warning: “Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process,” inviting the reader to learn more.

Another tweet got no such warning. “I will be making a statement tonight. A big WIN!”. the tweet was liked by some 766,000 people.

Biden was also on Twitter. “It’s not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare the winner of this election. It’s the voters’ place,” Biden tweeted. The tweet was liked by 520,000 people.

Florida was a big win for Trump last night. The state is always pretty evenly split between the two parties and many thought that if Biden won the state it would be all over. When the state was eventually called for Trump, many Democrats were deflated, knowing that they would no longer have the blue wave they were hoping for.

But several of the States in contention are must wins for Trump, Michigan, Wisconsin and definitely Pennsylvania — all of which he won by a hair’s breadth in the last election, and all of which are close now. But Trump is also looking at losing Arizona, usually a reliable Republican state.

As the race goes to the wire, it is increasingly looking like the person who wins Pennsylvania will be declared the winner. And given that that may depend on the contentious postal votes, it could well be that the matter will be taken to the Supreme Court.

So instead of a repeat of the 2016 election which this is looking to be from many angles, it may well turn out to be a repeat of the 2000 election, with the lawyers out in full force and a recount and court case establishing the eventual winner.

THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE

 

But this race is not only a presidential one. Also at stake are the Senate and the House of Representatives, with both sides hoping that they will have control of all three arms.

So far those races are still ongoing, with both sides licking their wounds.

As a result the Democrats have got little satisfaction from the Senate race either. Two frontline senators much hated by some Democrats for the Republican party held onto their seats – Lindsay Graham of South Carolina with 56 percent of the vote and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky with 58 percent of the vote.

Not all seats have been declared yet, but the republicans were leading by 47 to 45, giving the Republicans hope that they would hold onto the Senate. A total of 51 seats are needed for the majority.

Over in the House of Representatives, Republicans were equally disappointed to see that outspoken Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez AOC also held onto her seat in New York with 69 percent of the vote.

For the races in the House of Representatives, the Democrats were ahead with 189 seats compared to 182 for the Republicans. A total of 217 is needed for the majority. Although the Democrats are ahead, they had lost four seats which had been gained by the Republicans, making the end result a nail biter.

 

But like Trump declaring victory, Democrat Speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi did likewise.

She claimed that even as the counting continues that the Democrats had held onto its majority. ‘Our purpose in this race was to win so that we could protect the Affordable Care Act and that we could crush the virus,’ she said.

Like the Presidential election, however, she may need to wait until all the votes have been counted before knowing for sure.