Joe Biden has been declared President-elect of the United States on November 7, 2020, after 4 days of vote counting. Biden makes US history by winning over 80 million popular votes, beating Barack Obama in 2008 with 69 million, and being the oldest president (78). He is planning to step into the White House and begin his duties alongside senator, and Vice President-elect, Kamala Harris on January 20, 2021. Current President Donald J Trump will finish the remainder of his presidency from now until that date in January.

Harris is the first woman and woman of color to serve as US Vice President, as well as the first Indian American and second African American woman to serve in the senate. 

Previously, she served as California’s attorney general from 2011-17 and then was elected to the US Senate in 2016. 

Prior to his presidential run, Biden also served as a senator, and the Vice President of the United States, under President Barack Obama. Biden attended the University of Delaware and became an attorney for 4 years. He won reelection in the senate in 1978 and spent 36 years in the US Senate. 

This was one of the longest ongoing elections in history. Election Day was November 3rd, 2020, however, the ballot counting ran on until November 7th, causing the voting process to continue for 4 days.  The counting of votes this year is taking especially long because of the mail-in ballots. In the US this year, there were double the amount of voters this year, many of them via mail. To win the presidency requires 270 electoral votes. Biden won 306 of those, while Trump fell behind with 232 votes making Joe Biden the 46th President of the United States.

The recent election has sparked some theories that the voting ballots are fraudulent and the election polls were inaccurate. Over 100 million Americans voted early, absentee, or by mail-in ballot this year. This caused some problems; many voters claimed that ballots for Trump got discarded and thus weren’t counted. Trump and his supporters also claim that some of  Biden’s ballots were fake and that many of the submitted ballots were cast by deceased people. Ballot fraud is highly illegal and can result in a $300-1,000 fine as well as 1-5 years of jail time. 

Currently, President-elect Biden plans to meet virtually with a group of bipartisan governors, while Covid cases surge. Meanwhile, President Trump refuses to accept his loss in the election and has had multiple states recount the ballots, only to find the same results. Despite Trump’s refusal to concede his position (and the election), Joe Biden is still planning to step into office in January. 

“I’m running as a proud Democrat, but I will govern as an American president. I will work with Democrats and Republicans, and I will work as hard for those who don’t support me as for those who do. That’s the job of a president. It’s a duty of care for everyone,” the president-elect informed supporters at a presser in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Some of Biden’s policies and plans to better the US include shutting down the country for a few weeks, create more testing sites and at home covid tests, require masks, create more jobs, build an economy that works for everyone, create an affordable health care system, tackle the climate emergency, improve racial economic equity, strengthen the caregiving and education workforce, create a clean energy future, safely reopen schools, empower and protect women, support essential workers, strengthen ties w Central America, fix the bankruptcy system, serve military families, end gun violence, end the opioid crisis, and support and protect the LGBTQ+ community, etc. 

Many of these policies and topics are very important to voters, especially the younger voters who make up the future of America. All of Biden’s plans and policies for the future of America are on his website www.joebiden.com. However, some topics like immigration, Iran, and trade and tariffs were excluded from the website, despite being very important topics for voters. Overall, Biden has a plan for most or all of the topics voters consider to be important to them.  It will be interesting to see how our country changes during the waning months of Trump’s administration and to see what Biden has in store once he takes over in January.