By Katie Goss ’23
Staff Writer
On Saturday, Nov. 7, media reports called the 2020 presidential race for former Vice President Joe Biden after he won the electoral votes from Pennsylvania, pushing him over the 270 electoral vote mark needed to win. The outcome of the election took four days to be determined. Although mail-in ballots are still being counted in Pennsylvania and a number of other states, there were so many votes for Biden that it would not matter if the rest of the votes were for President Donald Trump. As of Nov. 11, Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona were still counting their mail-in ballots, with North Carolina leaning toward Trump and Georgia and Arizona leaning toward Biden.
Biden is not only winning the electoral vote, but also the popular vote, which David Hernández, associate professor of Latina/o studies, does not feel has been addressed as largely as it should be.
“Biden has a 4 million person lead in the popular vote,” he said. “That’s a million more in the popular vote than Hillary [Clinton] won by. I haven’t heard anyone say it.”
Along with Biden’s victory, the U.S. also elected its first female vice president on Nov. 7. California Senator Kamala Harris will be taking on the role of vice president on Jan. 20, 2021.
In response to this milestone, Harris said in a speech on Saturday, Nov. 7, “I am thinking about … the generations of women; Black women, Asian, white, Latina, Native American women, who throughout our nation's history have paved the way for this moment tonight. Women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality and liberty and justice for all. Including the Black women who are too often overlooked, but so often prove that they are the backbone of our democracy. … Tonight I reflect on their struggle, their determination and the strength of their vision — to see what can be unburdened by what has been — I stand on their shoulders. … But while I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last.”
“I had to take a second and stop and recognize and really reflect on how historic of a moment this is, and how monumental this election is for so many people in this country,” Kate Murray ’22 said. “Particularly women, particularly women of color, women of East Asian descent, African American women, women who are immigrants or whose parents are immigrants. This is huge, and the historical significance of this moment should not go under-acknowledged.”
Maggie Micklo ’21, president of the Mount Holyoke College Democrats, also commented on the historical significance of Harris being the first woman elected to this position. “I definitely think this is a huge win for women, and women of color,” she said. “Especially since women of color have been the backbone of the Democratic Party for decades now. I think she has the experience, I think she has the mind. She is so smart. And I trust her to guide us through this crisis in a lot of ways. It is historic, and it means a lot for a lot of people, and I think we deserve to celebrate that, even with the reservations we might have about [her] policy and her record. I am just really proud.”
As of Nov. 11, Trump had refused to concede the election, which is traditionally expected from the runner-up of an American election. This process is meant to ensure a smooth and peaceful transition between the two administrations.
“By law and by tradition, this is a period we call the ‘lame duck’ period,” said Adam Hilton, assistant professor of politics. “Many members of Congress, and in this case the president, will not be returning after the new Congress is sworn in.”
Trump has continued to blame his loss on “fraudulent” mail-in ballots, although there is no credible proof of fraud. He has continued to blame Democrats on Twitter for “stealing the election” from him, and has stated that if they only “count the legal votes,” he would “easily win” the election. Because some states, such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, initially leaned red before shifting blue, Trump is using this as an indicator that fraudulent votes were cast in order to aid Biden.
“When he is winning, it’s not rigged. When he is losing, it’s rigged,” Hernández said. “He is like a child that way.”
Hernández elaborated, claiming that Trump’s post-election actions are only his latest ploy to enact voter suppression. “The final act is to stop counting ballots, the post-final act is to throw out ballots that have already been cast and counted,” Hernández said. “Again, that’s just another aspect of voter suppression.”
Alongside Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also refused to recognize Biden as the future president. On Nov. 10, he said in a statement to the U.S. Department of State, “There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.” His statement sparked outrage among politicians in the U.S., who have called for Trump and his administration to put an end to making claims of voter fraud without evidence and concede the election. Because the department has not communicated with American diplomats about how to discuss this election with their foreign counterparts, diplomats have also been put in an unusual position.
The Trump campaign has filed several lawsuits in certain battleground states to either stop votes from being counted or have a portion of mail-in votes thrown out. In Pennsylvania, the campaign sued the state and claimed that Republican poll watchers were not able to be close enough to monitor the ballot counting at the polling location. However, one of the lawyers admitted in the courtroom that there was “a nonzero number of people in the room.” Therefore, the case was rejected.
There is a population of voters who do believe that all votes should be counted and verified before officially announcing anyone as the winner. Sandra Scarlatoiu ’22, president of the Mount Holyoke Republicans, thinks that mail-in ballot votes should be verified before announcing a winner.
“The ballots need to be verified before we can conclude for sure,” Scarlatoiu said. “I mean, who knows, it could very well be that Joe Biden won the presidency and such, and then in that case, Trump, I think, would then concede the election.”
Scarlatoiu continued, “If Biden has won the election properly, then there is no reason that Trump shouldn’t concede the election. I think it's important that we wait and see what happens, that we do make sure that this election is a clean one. I mean, this is the most fundamental part of being a constitutional democracy here in the United States. If our elections are tampered with, if they don’t actually reflect the opinions of its citizens, then what else do we have in that case?”
Micklo thinks that Trump’s attempts to stop the vote is an evasive strategy aimed at delegitimizing Biden’s win. “I have also seen a narrative from a lot of Trump supporters or conservatives who have said, ‘Well, you know, if Biden was legally elected, if this was a legitimate election, then sure, I would support him, because I support America,’” she explained. “It’s going to be easier for folks to completely reject the idea that Biden is a unity candidate and adhere to bringing people together.”
Along with suing states, Trump is calling for revotes in all the states that he can, especially states he was originally leading in on election night, such as Pennsylvania and Michigan. He is also calling for recounts in states that have not projected outcomes yet, like Georgia and Arizona. Although it is within a candidate’s rights to call for a recount within a certain margin, it typically does not change the outcome of a state’s winner, according to Hilton.
“The research on statewide recounts, of which there has been several dozen or so over the last set of years, usually finds that recounts change the margin by on average 250 votes,” Hilton explained. “No recount has, to my mind, ever shifted the margin that Trump would need, which is where he is down by over 1,000 in some cases, and in others he is down by 5,000 or 10,000. That is why I think all of the networks felt quite comfortable calling this for Biden on Saturday.”
In state level elections, an outcome within one percentage point of the margin automatically allows candidates to request a recount, but at their own expense. If the margin is within 0.25 percent, then the state will pay for the recount. In this case, the Trump campaign is paying out of pocket for the recount.
“For posterity, they should recount,” Hilton said. “These official counts should be verified by independent judges. If they find against Trump, he will probably just accuse the judges of being biased or corrupt or something. But for posterity sake, the more secure, accurate, certified and verified an outcome we have, the better going forward.”
Before official election results were released, it had been speculated that, should Trump lose, he may bring it to the Supreme Court, similarly to what happened in Al Gore v. Bush in 2000. Because he has secured one-third of all judicial appointments in the country, including seats at the Supreme Court, many are worried that his appointees may rule in favor of him even if it meant overturning the election results. However, now that Biden’s victory has been announced, and the Electoral College and popular vote numbers are not extremely close, that doubt has faded away in some voters, like Micklo.
“I think I am no longer worried about this election being decided in the courts. It is not close enough,” Micklo said. “It ultimately just comes down to the idea that anyone can sue anyone if you have the right amount of money. Just because you’re bringing something to court doesn’t mean that a judge is going to listen to you if the claims are as baseless as they are right now.”
Trump’s refusal to concede has created some major roadblocks for President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris. Administrator of the General Services Administration Emily Murphy will not ascertain the win for Biden, currently leaving him and his growing administration without federal funding or access to information from the current administration. These are also usually a part of the concession process, but it does not seem that Trump plans to use this peaceful transitioning process anytime soon.
Starting on Monday, Nov. 9, Trump became suddenly active once again, as he had not been making public statements since the announcement of Biden’s win. He fired Mark Esper, the former secretary of defense, announced via Twitter, after a longtime tension between the two after Esper refused to use the country’s military on U.S. protesters this summer. Trump also stated that any cabinet officials or political appointees who are found to be looking for another job will be fired.
One CNN article described his latest actions as a “move, which may have made a president who is losing his power feel briefly powerful, [and] only adds to the perception that the U.S. leader is flailing his way to the exit.”
Although Biden has been elected as the new president, his term will not officially start until Jan. 20, 2021. Therefore, Trump will remain in office for the next two months. Hilton said that some members of the Republican Party may be worried about how Trump’s actions after losing the election will reflect on them in the future.
“It is just not good for normal governance for the president to resist an incoming administration,” Hilton said. “I think they are somewhat concerned about the president finishing out his term in a way where he will kind of be remembered as the worst loser in history, as a sore loser.”
Even though Trump is blocking a traditional rite of passage for the new president and his administration, Biden has not waited on Trump to start planning for his own changes. On Monday, Nov. 9, Biden and Harris put together their own COVID-19 advisory board made up of public health officials, doctors and current and former government officials. Biden has stated that he intends to work with governors and mayors in states to set a national mask mandate at the beginning of his term in January. This new board and the basic plans the new administration spoke about on Monday came the same day drug producer Pfizer announced that their COVID-19 vaccine has shown to be more than 90 percent effective so far.
“It doesn't matter your party, your point of view,” Biden said in his statement on Monday. “We could save tens of thousands of lives if everyone would just wear a mask for the next few months. Not Democrat or Republican lives — American lives.”
Micklo believes that the pandemic is the first thing Biden and Harris have to address. “It might mean more shutting down and longer economic turmoil, but dealing with the pandemic also has to come with more economic stimulus packages, and I am a little more hopeful that can happen under a Biden administration,” she said. “I think the economic crisis and the pandemic are extremely important day one issues.”
Hernández talked about other day one issues. “Trump has smothered the asylum system,” Hernández said. “These are our global responsibilities to the world, to our neighbours, and [Biden] has to fix those. So that is what I think needs to be done immediately. But there are so many other things.”
Murray stated her hopes for issues the new Biden administration will be able to tackle surrounding issues of justice. “I am certainly hoping for tackling racial justice in profound ways that the Trump administration has certainly not gone near and, honestly, I think the U.S. really in the last few decades hasn’t tackled … in an extreme way,” she said. “I think we are starting to see this is an issue that a lot of Americans care about very deeply. It will be interesting to see how Biden handles that.”
Hilton thinks that Republicans will make it difficult for Biden to get anything done through Congress, especially if they keep the Senate and possibly take back the House in 2022. However, he thinks Biden may be able to get some minimal work done that does not involve Congress.
“Everything Trump did unilaterally, like immigration changes, a lot of the horrendous things he did with immigration policy, the Biden administration will be able to unilaterally undo,” Hilton said. “But so long as we have divided government, I don’t think we can expect a Green New Deal, the Obamacare public option. The rather progessive agenda proposed by the Biden ticket, I think, will probably not come to be.”
On the same topic, Murray also said, “A Democratic presidency doesn’t guarantee that Democratic policies will be implemented. Checks and balances are really complicated, obviously.”
Biden has been assumed to be a transitional president “among political science scholars and the news community,” according to Murray. Hilton also commented on this, saying that it is expected to see Harris play a larger role in the upcoming administration in order to get her ready to run on her own ticket for the 2024 presidential election. Therefore, Biden may only be a one-term president with Harris as his successor.
“I think it is going to be another hard four years for U.S. politics, but at the same time, there are glimmers of hope here,” Hilton said. “Most importantly, Trump, who I think presented a singular threat to American democracy, … will not be in the Oval Office anymore, and that is significant.”