In the end it's a number game and despite the rallies, the debates and the speeches, winning the United States presidency is dependent on gaining 270 electoral college votes that translates into victory; and the contest between former Vice President Joe Biden and incumbent president, Donald Trump has boiled down to just that. And, it is Biden that is within striking distance of winning the top job. With 253 electoral votes and needing just six more,he is sure to win the presidency, but also without a victory in Florida or Ohio, and will make the controversial incumbent a one term president, whose unbridled tongue, as well as tweets, have changed the American presidency to suit his own irascible style, giving little and taking much from traditional relations.
Exuding presidential demeanor, Biden has urged caution in the count of the necessary voters to giver him that edge into the White House, and wins from Pennsylvania or Nevada are the predictors to do just that.
Politico reported that “Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon told reporters that the campaign felt good about its position in Nevada and was “looking for that moment in Pennsylvania and Georgia today where we see that ticker overtake Donald Trump. We think it's going to happen ... We're very optimistic and we don't we don't really care which state takes us over the top.”
Many American are looking forward to the day of departure, as some wags have politely labelled the end of the Administration, and to one that has faced, despite myriads of supporters, to one of havoc, where there was an endless exodus of staff, both high and low, including chiefs of staff, press secretaries and headline burning of children of illegal immigrants placed in detention, often in cages, and where hundreds of well intentioned, and innocent, visitors from certain middle eastern countries were detained and sent back to their home countries without fail.
What a Biden administration will look like depends largely on balancing the ideas of progressives, idealists and party loyalists as they charge headlong into the abyss, or morass of the Trump years, but first facing a burst of outrage from the president's family who, like son Eric “this is absolute fraud” have called the steady actions of counting the ballots for a final count an outrage and a travesty of justice, but the inexorable beat of loss is tainting what will inevitably be a victory of party.
It ain't all over for the shouting, as threatened lawsuits against the process that only awards the winners, and not the losers. Winning is all that counts in the end and the Biden campaign has won Michigan and Wisconsin, that were lost by Hillary Clinton in 2016, and by some small miracle of demographic change has turned Arizona from red to blue, in no small part to Trump's trashing of hero John McCain, but also a sense of decency towards the military, and an ethos that old school conservatives have long eschewed with financial conservatism and strong foreign policy. And, while many have said that their defeat was inevitable, it may mean a resurgence in a Biden administration, unless hamstrung by the young Turks of the GOP, who might want a resurgent tea party.
That of course is the future.
Meanwhile the Democrats are smarting from a loss of seats they had hoped to flip in several key area, while the GOP faces a changed, and shamed, party that strategists say should claim its losses and reach out to racial minorities, and college educated suburbanites who, while not surging towards Biden, lost some key constituents that were turned off by Trumpian excess.
Yet they kept some in office, namely Lindsay Graham, and others such as in Georgia, and Florida, which while a narrow victory was still a victory, where scare tactics of the spectre of socialism were used towards Cuban Americans, facing the memory of Castro.
Others say that the message from Trump was directed towards their mostly youthful electorate, who were gullible to disinformation; but, still, turning Florida was never a strong hope by the Biden campaign.
While many people cannot define socialism or identify it, perhaps it's like Chief Justice Potter's earnest claim, decades ago, that while he could not define pornograpy, he knew it when he saw it.
Thee sights of looters following the George Floyd murderers, gave proof to the night that law and order were not there; and with the rocket's red glare came visions of Americans facing anarchy, despite that the looters were a noisy minority amidst mostly peaceful protestors. But, the damage was done, and Florida stayed red, and true to Trump.
Remarkable for the election, one of historic perspectives, was that over 92 million votes were cast by mail, due to the the fears of Covid as well as fear of violence at the polls, presaged by the kidnapping plot of the governors of Michigan and Virginia by armed militia centered in the former, which caused many states to have the national guard at the ready, for threats of observers, maybe armed, with the tacit approval of the president.
Significantly, a Biden Harris tour bus was nearly toppled io a Texas freeway by Trump supporters, and who he later called "patriots"
As stated, more than a week ago, Trump has threatened legal action, in addition to his son's pleas to stop counting, and this seems to many, an act of desperation.
"I want to emphasize that for their purposes, these lawsuits don't have to have merit," he added. "The purpose is not to bring bona fide claims before the court. It is to create an opportunity for them to message falsely about what's taking place in the electoral process,” said Bob Bauer, a Biden legal advisor, and former White House counsel.
Waiting in the wings is new Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the president's human firewall to keep him in office. But, she may not be needed as Biden may have a solid gain of 270 electoral votes.
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