Biden breeches through to turn the tide against tempestuous Trump

 "It's over. I said it's over."

-TalkTalk advert in the UK, 2008.

On 7th November 2020, Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden Jnr., who served as Vice-President under Barack Obama and who was a Senator for Delaware from 1973 to 2009 (36 years) made history by not only becoming the oldest President of the United States in history, at age 77 (he turns 78 in less than a fortnight), but also by achieving a decisive victory over divisive incumbent President Donald John Trump Snr, who incidentally in 2016 had set the previous record for oldest President-Elect, being 70 years of age in 2016. With that, Senator Kamala Harris became the first woman Vice-President in American history, and the first BAME US Vice-President, being of Afro-Caribbean and Indian ancestry. All attempts by Trump to throw out the result have been rejected by various state courts as frivolous.

Although the election of Joe Biden was, in the circumstances, predictable given that Trump had angered not only many poorer urban voters in rust belt states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, but also wealthier and better educated voters in states like Georgia where growth of the suburbs was causing demographic change in normally strong Republican states in the southern USA (it was also occurring in North Carolina but not enough to swing the state to Joe Biden.), the swing was actually much lower than polls predicted, just 0.8%. By squeezing the Libertarian vote heavily, even in such already solidly Republican states like Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota, Trump actually increased the Republican presidential vote share by 1%, with Biden increasing the Democratic vote share by 2.6% on 2020; he by contrast squeezed the Green vote even in states which did not matter to the overall result. Furthermore, Trump and co's inept handling of coronavirus, which in the USA has claimed the lives of 250,000 people and counting, was another reason why many otherwise non-voters turned out-or rather mailed out-to elect Biden. The only five states to swing to Biden were Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, in addition to Nebraska's second congressional district, but it was enough to give Joe Biden in Electoral College terms an exact mirror image (discounting faithless electors) of the situation for Trump in 2016: 306-232. 

Demographics and demographic change were correctly predicted to be key factors in the election outcome, as well as millions of early postal votes necessitated by the coronavirus crisis. Notably, Trump performed particularly well with Hispanic voters over fears of a "socialist" candidate (even though Biden is not socialist in any respect) which allowed him to hold the key states of Florida and Texas, which have the largest proportions of Hispanic Americans in the United States; however this factor did not help Trump in Arizona or Nevada, which were also key states in this election and which also have a substantial Hispanic American population. Biden, on the other hand, polled particularly well with African-American voters and younger voters, helped by running Harris as Vice-President, which was an indication of the change needed at the highest levels of office in the United States.

Although counting has not yet finally finished, enough votes have been counted to make the overall result final. Even as of now, turnout exceeds 153 million votes-by far the highest in American history, with Joe Biden's victory of 5.5 million votes one of the highest in American history as well; proportionally it is the highest turnout in a US Presidential election since 1908. Strangely enough, Donald Trump in losing this election, which at this time of writing he is still refusing to concede even though it is obvious by now that Joe Biden has won, actually polled 10.1 million more votes than in 2016, with Joe Biden improving on Hillary Clinton's 2016 vote total by a truly impressive 12.8 million votes. In most elections this year, the coronavirus pandemic has suppressed turnout due to voters being afraid of catching coronavirus during a trip to the polling station, but better postal vote preparation alongside a determination by progressive voters to remove Donald Trump from the White House, has meant the exact opposite has happened.

Joe Biden's outlook is in many ways similar to that of Barack Obama, who he served under as Vice President during Obama's entire tenure as US President, and thus also not too dissimilar from former First Lady Hillary Clinton. However, it is a significant enough change to impact on the course of the transatlantic relationship between Britain and the USA, and with Biden stating that he would look to strengthen relations with the EU, Britain will likely have to concede to some form of Brexit deal, and likely a poor one. Biden's election could also indirectly hasten the downfall of the current British government, which like the USA has been notoriously poor at handling the coronavirus crisis.



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