The Story:
Some dust is finally settling over the hotly contested Presidential election this cycle, the one that pitted Former Vice President Joseph Biden (D) against incumbent President Donald Trump (R). President Trump’s lawyers are contesting the result in many ways in many different courts across the country. But pending any surprising ruling, the electors of the various states will meet and vote on December 14, and those meetings are expected to make Biden formally our President elect.
Background:
This year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, what we usually think of as “election day” became a prolonged election season, for votes mailed in, early votes, dropbox votes, and finally, votes cast the old-fashioned way on the first Tuesday after the first Sunday in November, at a polling place.
Given these different tranches of votes, much was left untabulated as November 3 came to an end. Through November 4, it became clear that the votes were giving Biden an electoral College majority. The incumbent was left tweeting snippy things like, “We hereby claim the state of Michigan,” a “hereby” that sounds legalistic but had no legal significance.
The Thing to Know:
Biden may be credited with rebuilding the so-called “blue wall” that Democratic candidates rely on for their electoral majorities: the industrial midwestern states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and the ‘keystone’ state of Pennsylvania, which sits astride the northeast and midwest. That wall had crumbled during Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.
