USNews.com President Biden campaigned with the “Build Back Better” plan as a keystone of his platform.
On Wednesday, Biden will make his first address to a joint session of Congress. While Biden’s first one hundred days have focused primarily on Trump’s legacy, getting his cabinet in place and COVID-19 relief, this will be Biden’s first attempt at passing the massive infrastructure plan on which his campaign was built.
The “Build Back Better” infrastructure plan, or The American Jobs Plan, is a sweeping infrastructure bill that will fix roads, restore clean water, create new electrical grids and broadband internet for rural communities, create government subsidized caregiver jobs to care for those unable to afford caregivers and restore union and manufacturing jobs. While this bill may sound too good to be true, the $2 trillion price tag that comes along with it makes its contents seem more realistic. While $2 trillion on infrastructure may seem far too expensive, according to American Society of Civil Engineers, the United States would likely have to spend over $4.5 trillion on infrastructure to fully restore its roads and public works projects.
Biden’s previous calls for this bill’s passage have focused on the U.S.’s competition with China, just infrastructure and wages and the bipartisan agreement that a solution to America’s infrastructural decline must be established. Despite these previous pleas for votes, Biden’s congressional address will primarily focus on convincing moderate Democrats and Republicans to vote in favor of the bill rather than keeping their eyes on the federal budget and deficit. Seeing as the COVID-19 relief bill passed without any Republican votes in Congress, the likelihood of this bill receiving bipartisan support remains low. Republicans continue to hold the view that while the bill does address many key issues, the price is simply too high. It is likely Biden will have to unify the Democratic Congress once again to allow the bill to pass with a narrow 51 votes in the Senate.
The bill served as a keystone of Biden’s campaign and, if not passed, will certainly damage his legacy. The bill and its components were frequently discussed in his campaign as additional help to revitalize the post-pandemic economy. While the COVID-19 relief bill was certainly costly and results can already be seen, this bill would quicken the United States’ effort at economic recovery at exponential speed.
Jude Husein, a senior political science major, is a first generation American who moved to the United States with her two siblings at the age of three from Palestine. She still frequently visits her home country where her grandparents reside. She even once taught English at a refugee camp in Palestine for three months. Not only is she a first generation American, but she is also a first generation college student who transferred to La Salle from the Community College of Philadelphia. Since herself and her family has arrived in Philadelphia, she has certainly accomplished more than some fellow residents may do in a lifetime.
Pictured above is Jude with her family in Palestine.
Her interest in public service stems from her mother, an active and concerned citizen who would frequently voice her opinion at city meetings. Since she was seven years old, her mother would bring her to community meetings with the zoning board, interface committees and building committees. “When I was a kid, I would constantly complain about being dragged there, but over time I really began to value it.” Over time, Jude began to slowly pay attention to these meetings and support her mother’s positions and thoughts and began to take part in the meetings herself. At 14, Jude got her first position in a community, serving as a member of the South Kensington interfaith committee. At 17, she got her first board position on the South Kensington community board. Before coming to La Salle, she served as a U.N. youth delegate at the Youth for Human Rights International Conference as one of 70 delegates.
Pictured above is Jude (Left) at the young age of five standing up for what she believes in.
While Jude does enjoy the diversity of people in the classroom and hearing a variety of different viewpoints in Socratic circles, she focuses on getting an education outside of it in a more hands on way through civic involvement. “I find it’s a lot better to learn about policy through community involvement.” Currently, Jude works as the Chairwoman for Jobs and Economics for the mayor’s Philadelphia Youth Commission. She also works for two nonprofits, one of which is Caring For Friends, a nonprofit food bank, where she works as Director of Communication and Strategy. The other nonprofit she works for is the Civic Engagement Campaign for Arabic voters, which is organized by the nonprofit Al Bustan Seeds of Culture. She was once enrolled as a camper in Al Bustan’s camp program, and she serves as a project coordinator.
Jude speaking with commissioner Omar Sabir as they give out food in West Philadelphia.
When she isn’t working to improve her community, Jude spends her free time learning a variety of different skills and spending time with her siblings, who are her “mentors and best friends.” One of her most recent endeavors has been teaching herself to code from scratch. After struggling to learn at first, she eventually created her own website, judehusein.com, where she blogs and posts news articles involving Philadelphia, contact information and freelance consulting information.
While Jude certainly prefers learning mostly outside of the classroom, she does plan on seeking further education, whether that be a masters or a law degree. If you have not seen her around campus, keep an eye out, because you certainly may see her one day holding office.
Business Insider Joe Biden after asking where President Coolidge is, what he was doing in the Oval Office and where he could get a new ice cream cone.
President Biden has been emulating liberal icon FDR since the beginning of his presidency. While he originally channeled the former president through passing legislation with similar policies to the New Deal and hosting fireside chats, he has now begun to mimic another aspect of the second Roosevelt’s presidency. After verbally berating a constituent for asking what he would do about bringing back blue-collar jobs followed by saying a bunch of gibberish and slumping over, he was taken to a doctor for a “perfectly normal routine check-up.” Since then, he decided to spice up his look as the new FDR by being wheeled around the White House in a wheelchair. The press secretary claims there is nothing to worry about, Biden simply wants to show the public that he is a true advocate for helping the disabled. Since then, Jill Biden (who we all know a bizarre amount of information about especially since none of us knew that much about Melania) and Vice-President Kamala Harris have been speaking on his behalf. The dynamic girl-boss duo claim nothing is wrong and that “Joe is working hard to save America from the fascist state created by the GOP.”
Since the incident, Biden has been wheeled around the White House in his classic aviator sunglasses and while he has not said any words out loud, he has high fived and waved at numerous people. Why he may be wearing sunglasses indoors is still yet to be known, however, media outlets have been told that if they ask or mention of this is in any way as a “Weekend at Biden’s” type of situation they would be censored, shut down and declared a fascist news source bent on nothing less than the destruction of American democracy. President Biden is really cementing himself as a modern progressive icon and a second FDR!
The Postillion Newly appointed Tzar Donald Trump riding into the sunset after vanquishing the radical left: the marxists, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters and the people who in many instances have no idea what they are doing.
Former President Donald Trump has once again called his supporters to action this week. After rallying a militia of patriots, the true, actual, real and rightful president led them into D.C. where he and his troops of pure-blooded patriots took back what was once taken from him. After initially dealing with the two capitol security guards in charge of defending the most important buildings in the nation, President-for-Life Trump and his forces of true Americans took back what was once taken from them. After doing so, he deposed all the “marxist” and “socialist” politicians and placed them on permanent leave to Guantanamo Bay. Afterwards, he replaced them with real red, white and blue blooded Americans. A man dressed as a viking is now speaker of the house.
After initial backlash from two republican politicians, the GOP has decided to support the second American revolution. The only two dissidenters have mysteriously disappeared. Senator and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been accused of being a Chinese spy by the Committee of Un-American Activities and is now on death row. Representative Liz Cheney has been drone striked at her home in Wyoming as reparations for her father’s actions in the Iraq war. Surprisingly enough, the rest of the GOP has fallen in line after these actions and support Trump’s new regime presidency because they are the party of patriotism, freedom and law and order, which Trump has always exemplified.
Trump has just announced his new policy plans for his second term as president (which will last one thousand years rather than four. We usually would question whether or not he will last a full term, however, we all know the monarch will live eternally in the soul of America). He will first be abolishing all privatized news networks for being fake and dumb, and replacing them with a new news station run by the state. This is now the only accurate news source in the nation. He will also be erasing all of “liberal history” from school curriculums. While no one is exactly sure what this means, new textbooks are already being produced by Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and Steven Bannon, some of the greatest historians in modern American according to the newly appointed god-emperor.
CNN The seven Democratic Senators and the one Independent Senator who voted no on amending the coronavirus relief plan to include a $15 minimum wage.
After the inauguration of President Biden and the swearing in of the 117th Congress, progressives were optimistic about the new year and hoped to pass numerous components of their agenda. This optimism has quickly shown to be misplaced as the president and numerous Democrats (and one independent who caucuses with Democrats) have returned to the typical moderate Democratic agenda that most American citizens witnessed under President Obama.
Despite President Biden’s ideologically moderate reputation and his conservative-democrat career in the senate, he campaigned on numerous progressive promises such as clean energy and increasing the minimum wage. He also supported withdrawing American troops and attempting to switch from gunboat diplomacy to more “civilized” methods of dealing with foreign powers, however, he has already betrayed some of these promises.
Last month, President Biden withdrew support from the Saudi-led offensive in Yemen. Biden claimed that America will put diplomacy first when dealing with the Middle East during his administration, however, he has quickly backpedalled on this by dropping numerous bombs in Syria, seemingly out of nowhere. President Biden claimed the reasoning behind this attack was to protect American troops within Syria who were fighting Iranian troops in a proxy fight. The American troops in Syria are providing support for rebels against the Syrian government. Despite the American government’s claim to no longer destabilize the Middle East, backing rebels in a civil war seems like a method of doing so.
Whether or not one supports military intervention in Syria, this attack was done illegally even in American presidency terms, since the Biden administration failed to get authorization under law of Authorization of Military Force of 2001, the law used by the president to receive authorization for all attacks focused on terrorism based threats. Biden has quickly betrayed the progressive anti-war agenda he once set out for during the campaign trail, in the name of a country that the United States is not even allies with.
The progressive Democrats’ anti-war policy was not the only aspect of their agenda to take a serious blow over the past few weeks. Democrats surrendered their plan to abolish the filibuster during the transition of the 116th congress to the 117th congress because of Republican threats to slow the transition process if the filibuster was not guaranteed to stay intact. Progressives also failed to keep the fifteen dollar minimum wage increase in the COVID-19 relief bill because of eight senate Democrats who voted against the addendum, many of whom did so because of the Senate Parliamentarian, an undemocratic position based on appointment by the Senate Majority leader, recommended it be removed since she did not believe it would hold under senate budget rules. Progressives have already failed to achieve two of the major goals in the legislature and it seems Biden has already turned his back on a progressive foreign policy and has focused on continuing traditional American foreign policy in the Middle East.
Pictured above is Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The seemingly unending election season of 2020 has not only resulted in Joe Biden assuming the presidency, but also in a unique situation not seen in the Senate since 2001. With Kamala Harris’ tie breaking vote, the Democrats have achieved a narrow majority in the Senate, split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans. Despite President Biden’s calls for unity and bipartisanship in the country’s time of crisis, things have begun with a rocky start. Between the Capitol insurrection, claims of election fraud, social media censorship, the pandemic and the partisan divide on major issues, the Senate is already facing major problems. Despite this massive divide, the Senate is currently debating some major issues that will affect the political landscape of America forever.
The new majority leader, moderate democrat Chuck Schumer, is dealing with a logistical nightmare with the progressive wing’s desire to abolish filibuster. Former President Barack Obama and Representative Cortez have called on majority leader Schumer and President Biden to abolish the filibuster. Over forty progressive groups have already begun running ads throughout the state of New York and national media outlets to push this unprecedented legislation, claiming that the filibuster is the largest detriment to passing landmark bills such as: Medicare for all, reform for ex-convicts’ voting rights, COVID relief bills and more. Schumer is also aware of the fact that, if he does not placate the desire of progressives, he is at risk of becoming primaried in his upcoming 2022 re-election. Representative Cortez has refused to make a statement on whether or not she plans to run for his seat, which she would be significantly more likely to attain if Schumer does not answer to progressives within the next two years. As progressives pressure Schumer to abolish the filibuster, minority leader McConnell pressures democrats to stop in the name of bipartisanship. McConnell is currently demanding Schumer to shut down the filibuster issue if he wants a peaceful transition of power within the Senate. The divide between the two parties in the Senate has already resulted in gridlock despite the fact the issue is not even on the floor, since McConnell is refusing to accept the transition until the issue is resolved. This situation has resulted in a very bizarre turn of events where all committees in the senate are currently being led by Republicans, despite the Democratic majority. Of course, it is unlikely for the filibuster to even be abolished since president Biden has actively stated it must remain in place for the sake of bipartisanship, which likely means Vice President Harris will vote against abolishing it, and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) has stated he will not abolish it unless it is absolutely necessary.
As the transition is halted by filibuster talks, former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is resulting in even more chaos within the Senate. According to the Constitution, the Chief Justice only presides over currentpresident’s impeachment trials and senators preside over all other impeachment trials; thus, since Trump is no longer president, President Pro Tempore Patrick Leahy will preside over the trial, not Chief Justice John Roberts. The time frame for the trial is currently unknown, but many believe it will not take as long as the previous trial, twenty-one days, to reach a verdict. The trial officially begins Monday, Feb. 8. Ten house republicans voted for impeachment; it is likely Republicans in the Senate will as well. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) is currently filing seven counter-complaints to the ethics committee against Democratic Senators who requested investigations into Hawley and Cruz’s conduct surrounding the capitol insurrection. Senators Portman (R-OH) and Toomey (R-PA) have also both stated they would not run again in 2022, adding even more discord and discontent among Senate Republicans during this time of struggle for their party. The impeachment trial is just one of the many current issues that demonstrate the collapse of cooperation within the Senate.
Despite the various issues within the senate surrounding procedure, impeachment, ethics and resignation, Majority Leader Schumer and President Biden want a new COVID-19 relief bill by March. With McConnell and other Republicans against the $1.9 trillion bill, it is unlikely it will get the 60-person support necessary for it to pass. If this occurs, Senator Sanders may invoke a rule allowed by the chair of the budget committee to pass fiscal bills with only a 51 person majority. However, he will still need support from across the aisle if he invokes the rule because Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Angus King (I-ME) have already pledged to vote against the $1.9 trillion bill because of the cost and certain statutes within it.
Despite Biden’s inaugural address’ focus on unity among the nation and its two parties, it looks as though the United States will continue to grapple with its polarization and partisanship within the Senate.
Business Insider A car driving over cracked pavement, one of many examples of infrastructure that needs repairs.
America has had a long history of transportation and public works projects implemented by the government in an attempt to take the United States from good to great. One of the earliest major partisan political policies was Henry Clay’s American System, which supported internal improvements and federally-funded roads and canals to help the agricultural market. Stephen Douglas and Lincoln orchestrated the creation of the transcontinental railroad, one of the world’s most remarkable engineering achievements in its time. Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt responded to the Great Depression by funding infrastructural improvements to provide jobs to those who lost them in the major economic downturn. In the 1950s Dwight Eisenhower passed the Interstate Highway Act, which created over 41,000 miles of highways and made transportation across the United States easier than ever. Despite all of these great achievements for modern infrastructure throughout American history, throughout recent years, things have not been going as well. In 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) published its quadrennial grade for the infrastructure of the U.S. The United States scored the same as it had in 2013, a D+. According to the ASCE, the United States would need to spend about $4.5 trillion over the course of the next five years to improve the state of American roads, bridges, dams, airports, schools etc. The report has sixteen different categories that discuss the grading for each individual aspect of infrastructure and shows the reasoning why it has such a poor grade, ranging from just under 100-year-old pipe systems that desperately need repairs to the poor conditions of urban and rural roads throughout the country.
Unlike most issues circulating in Washington, this is not a partisan issue. President Trump has stated numerous times in his 2020 State of the Union address that he wants to increase federal spending on infrastructure. He even claimed to be in support of creating a two-trillion-dollar infrastructure plan as a part of phase four of the stimulus package. In 2019, the house passed a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill that would follow the instructions and recommendations of the engineers who warned us of the dangers of the current state of infrastructure. However, both of these plans were shot down in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Senate Minority Leader McCarthy both said they would like to wait and see the state of things as the pandemic continued before they passed Trump’s initiative. McConnell also publicly stated that the House’s infrastructure bill would never see the light of day as he stated it was a “pure fantasy” that would die in the Senate. Trump also claimed he would veto the bill if it made it to his desk since it contained too many clean energy initiatives.
President-elect Biden has claimed that a large part of his economic revival plan for the country will focus around an infrastructure plan based on FDR’s works progress administration, sending numerous construction workers, engineers and tradesmen back to work. The focal point of his infrastructure initiative is the idea of bringing clean energy into public works and having the government entirely run on clean energy by 2050. His reasoning behind pushing such a plan is not only bringing America infrastructure back to the top of the world’s number national rankings, which it is currently 13th, it is also to reduce unemployment and poverty. His plan is estimated to cost $2 trillion. It is incredibly likely that he will face the same issues as the House and President Trump with this sweeping proposal as McConnell will likely block this proposal from ever being voted on. However, Biden does hope to reach bipartisan agreement on the bill through its initiative to provide jobs to those who are now unemployed because of the Coronavirus.
FairVote A visual explanation of rank choice voting, election reform that promotes third parties.
The electoral college was established in 1788 by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. It was engineered to replicate the British government’s original two party system. Madison even stated that he built the system so it would always have two factions run against each other. Thus, third parties were never meant to win elections, but instead to replace one of the established parties and then participate in elections. Every election between three individuals has also resulted in extreme civil distress, an example being the election of 1912.
The Republicans replaced the Whigs not because of their strong abilities as a third party but instead because they planned to replace the Whigs as the then liberal party. The Progressives (The Bull-Moose party) could’ve replaced the Republicans, if they didn’t immediately disband after their first failure and if modern technology didn’t work in favor of the establishment. The rise of technology led to the failure of all other third party candidates throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Third party candidates cannot win elections, not because of their bizarre political views, but because of the established aristocracy of the party system. Third parties cannot win because they have to replace one of the two established parties, which they can’t because of the rise of mass broadcasting in the modern world. Republicans and Democrats run journalism. They have unrelenting power because the average American doesn’t have the time nor ability to fully educate themselves on the political institution they reside in. Politicians are aware of their stranglehold on the uneducated public and know that even if a new party attempted to replace a party, whether that’s the Green Party with the Democrats or the Libertarians with the Republicans, they could not because of the lower class’ lack of awareness of the “revolution” needed to change things and the upper-class’ desire to keep the system in check through the manipulation of the masses.
This system has led to most candidates who have beliefs coinciding with third parties to run on Democrat or Republican tickets and modify their views to fit the public. Bernie Sanders, an independent, has become a star of the Democratic primary in both elections he participated in. Gallup polls suggest Republicans support Libertarian views more than their own, as many of us saw during the Tea Party Movement. Third parties should not be viewed as their own platform running alongside Democrats and Republicans but instead as replacements for major parties because that’s what the architects of the constitution intended. It is not the faults of the establishment that third party candidates that lack a voice, it is the fault of the system itself. Do not blame the DNC or the RNC for the failures of third party and anti-establishment candidates, blame James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton.
This situation does not necessarily mean the United States is doomed to pick between a lesser of two evils forever. This system can be changed, and numerous states like Georgia and Maine have instituted election laws that challenge the founders’ system. Rank choice voting, open primaries and runoff elections are all viable solutions to fixing this problem and providing people a larger voice in our democracy. Rank choice voting is a system that allows people to vote for third party candidates, and if the third party candidate does not get enough votes for things to matter, the vote shifts to the second favorite candidate voted for and so on and so forth until the race ends with a majority. This would allow people to actually be able to vote independent and still have their vote matter if the candidate gets barely any votes. It would also allow large third parties, like Libertarians and Greens, to stand a chance in state and national elections. Another solution is open primaries which would allow people registered independent to vote in primaries anyways. With more people having a voice during primaries, the radicalism of parties is bound to collapse as a new wave of moderates will have a say in primary elections, thus leading to less radicals in government and less gridlock in government. Georgia’s solution to the problem is not anywhere close to as efficient as these, however, it does serve as a start. This state uses a runoff election system where, if no one receives a majority in the election, the two candidates with the largest percentage are allowed a second election which determines who holds office. This way of conducting elections does provide reform to the system. However, it still works against third party systems as the “throwing your vote away” problem remains. While these are by far the most efficient ways of reducing radicals and restoring the people’s voice in government, establishment politicians have fought these in the state legislature by complaining it will lead to fraud and corruption, which is simply not true as it would allow escape from the corrupt party system we currently live under. The biggest battle in ratifying election laws that will lead to a government that we can have a say is the current establishment and system, thus it is important to be an activist and work hard to actually change the system, as our current representatives certainly will not.
Marketplace Rudy Giuliania announces the election is not over.
Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and Trump’s personal lawyer, berated people celebrating and lamenting the outcome of the election pre-maturely by saying, “networks don’t get to decide elections, courts do.” Immediately after this remark, many dismissed Giuliani’s statements as false on the premise that courts do not decide elections, voters do, and the voters have chosen Biden. With a projected 306 votes, Biden has won. While ignoring the states that networks have refused to call such as Georgia, Alaska and Arizona, Biden still leads with 279 votes. Despite this, Trump supporters still have faith in the President by believing that voter fraud is rampant in the election and will be stopped once the court steps in.
Trump has made three major claims surrounding voter fraud that have all been called to national attention. The first was a video circling social media of a man burning ballots in a plastic bag. Election officials, however, have proven that the ballots burned in the video were not actual ballots, but actually sample ballots. The absence of bar codes on the ballots shows the viewers that they were not actually real ballots. In response, the Trump camp claimed that you cannot trust election officials. The second major claim was from a picture that went viral of Michigan’s count for Biden’s drastic increase by 138,000 votes. This too has been deemed false, as it was apparently a clerical error from the Shiawassee, MI county of presidential data. Once the error was identified, it was replaced by the correct information. The election officials then proved that there was an error, and quickly fixed it. Despite this, Donald Trump has reposted the picture onto his Twitter account and claims that it serves as evidence that the establishment and the election officials are out to get him. The final major claim of the Trump camp is that a large amount of votes received for Biden were actually by people who died before election day. This is the only concrete argument he makes, so is it enough to derail Biden’s trip to the White House? According to Axios, even if the Trump camp managed to delegitimize numerous votes, it would take a miracle for over 12,000 to be thrown out in each swing state. According to Deutsche Welle, the Trump administration’s argument is that 14,000 votes cast in Michigan were actually by the deceased. This has subsequently been proven false. The only example given for this statement was that William Bradley, a man who died in 1984, voted for Biden. This was a clerical error as the ballot was supposed to be registered for William Bradley Jr. who voted for Biden. This means no extra vote occurred, in this case at least.
Many supporters of Trump believe that a similar outcome to Bush v. Gore is possible after the election. However, things are not the same twenty years after this famous court decision. While the Supreme Court remains conservative and a presidential candidate is demanding a recount, the situations are quite different. While Gore’s failed attempt at winning a recount was over 600 votes in Florida, Donald Trump hopes to win a recount by flipping 12,000 votes at the minimum in numerous states. David Boies, Gore’s lead election lawyer, has stated, “There’s no legal avenue for the Trump campaign to plausibly dispute the results in any one state.” Gore’s recount also began because all major news outlets claimed Florida was too close to call, while Georgia and Arizona remain too close to call, despite Biden’s 13,000 and 14,000 vote lead. Trump does not have this luxury either as, even with Arizona and Georgia switching sides and voting red, he still lacks the majority needed to win. Finally, the butterfly ballot issue was the primary argument for Gore. Butterfly ballots were the method of counting votes in Florida, where a hole puncher would stamp out who your vote would go to. This system was flawed, however, as many votes were not fully stamped out, thus a recount was a logical move since many of the ballots were thrown away despite being filled out. Mail-in votes also do not have this issue, as they were all filled out via coloring in a hole on the ballot. Thus, the precedent set by Bush v. Gore does not necessarily apply to this election as the circumstances were widely different. Gore argued over 500 votes because of ballots he believed were counted incorrectly. Trump is arguing that numerous states have committed fraud and election officials have formed a kabal to take him out of office.
Despite this, Trump continues to claim the Supreme Court will settle this. Trump has hired lawyers nationwide to run these lawsuits in each swing state. Some of these lawyers include outgoing congressman Doug Collins, former counsel to the president Kory Langhofer and Ron Hicks. Trump is also launching a new campaign in each swing state that voted for Biden in an attempt to garner more support for his crusade against the election results. Trump has also founded a political action committee (PAC) to help fund changing the outcome of the election in his favor. The PAC, known as Save America, is known as a leadership PAC. The PAC is allowed infinite people to donate to it with a max donation budget per person of $5,000. The goal for Save America is to help Donald Trump maintain his power over the presidency as well as the Republican party after he leaves office. 60% of donations to the Trump campaign and the RNC will now be put into Save America. The PAC is said to have been in the making, win, lose or draw. Despite Trump’s belief that the election is far from over, prominent Republicans have congratulated Biden on his victory and denounced Trump for his actions. The 43rd President, George W. Bush, has congratulated Biden and stated that the election was fair and the outcome was clear. Republican senators Ben Sasse (NE), Pat Toomey (PA), Mitt Romney (UT), Susan Collins (ME) and Lisa Murkowski (AK) have all openly stated they believe Biden has won and all believe Trump should cooperate with the transition.
New York Times This map of the election depicts which candidate has won each state, along with percentages of votes counted in states too close to call.
The battle rages on the day after election night, as many mail-in ballots are yet to be counted in the swing states. Mail-in ballots will be the name of the game at this point, as they are the only ballots left to be counted in almost every state. Currently, most states have incumbent candidate Donald Trump beating former Vice President Joe Biden. However, most of the votes remaining are mail-in ballots, which makes things much trickier for both sides. At the time of writing, votes in numerous states — NV, MI and WI are within one percentage point of both candidates. These will likely be the states that officially turn the tide in either candidate’s direction and they are both still anyone’s game. Even though Republicans have a lead with .5 percentage points in Michigan, currently, the New York Times predicts that most of the remaining ballots to be counted will lean Democrat. Michigan is the closest state and the outcome of Michigan will likely be contested by either candidate. In Michigan, the race is still anyone’s game. Nevada has currently stopped counting votes and will resume doing so on Thursday at 12:00pm EST. Despite Nevada’s razor-thin margin of .6 percentage points, it is likely to paint a Democratic picture by the end of the election as the remaining votes are mail-in ballots dropped off on Election Day.
Things become more clear in the states of Alaska, GA, NC, and AZ. While North Carolina and Georgia are still not technically decided, each has over 90 percent of the vote counted and lean towards the Trump column. In Georgia, Trump is up by 2.3 percentage points and the votes there will be counted by the end of the day today. There does not seem to be any information on what kind of votes are left to be counted. Most of North Carolina’s remaining votes will likely go to Democrats as they, like most of the other ballots left to go, are mail-ins. North Carolina’s mail-ins have until Nov. 12 to arrive, which is likely to be the latest day possible this election will end. Despite this, Republicans are currently up in North Carolina by 1.4 percentage points with only 5 percent of the vote left to be counted. This situation leaves the question of “will the mail-in ballots be able to swing the vote in the Democratic party’s favor?” Arizona has been predicted, by Fox and CNN, to go in the Democratic party’s column since Biden is up by 5 percentage points. While Alaska currently has only 36 percent of the votes counted, the state usually leans conservative and many believe it is far too early to even think about whether it is breaking from the party it historically sides with.
This leaves one state remaining to discuss: Pennsylvania. This is the key(stone) state for both parties. The state has the second-least amount of ballots counted and many polls show the remaining votes in Pennsylvania going to Biden. Trump has an incredibly large lead at this point, of about 600,000 votes or 11.5 percentage points over Biden. However, the counties that are still in play are some of the largest, and are thus likely to swing Democrat: Philadelphia, Philly’s surrounding counties, and Allegheny County, which houses the city of Pittsburgh, still have hundreds of thousands of votes to be counted. Mail-ins are far from being fully counted, which makes this election much closer than it seems currently in Pennsylvania. The question for voters is can Trump hold onto the lead he has which consists of mostly in-person voting and rural counties?
Most of the votes remaining are absentee ballots and urban centers. Trump currently has the lead in Pennsylvania, but by the end of the election many news outlets predict this may change. It is still anyone’s game.
The La Salle Collegian 