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Salahuddin Haider
Former American President, the late Theodore Roosevelt, had some tremendous advice for his countrymen when he said that “here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children’s children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.”
But it seems some of the golden words of Theodore Roosevelt are lost with the changing time. In present case, this has happened what glaringly than could be recounted. The US election still hangs in the balance despite Donald Trump appearing to have the upper hand in his battle for a second presidential term.
Millions of votes are still to be counted – and may not be counted for days to come – and many will be in the key “battleground” states.
Here’s what we know so far:
1) Joe Biden has received more votes already than Hilary Clinton did in the entire 2016 election, with Donald Trump also surpassing his 2016 count,
2) Donald Trump has retained Florida, a “must-win” for his re-election that narrows Joe Biden’s path to victory, as well as Ohio. A Biden landslide is out of the question,
3) Biden has taken Arizona from Trump in the first swing of the night.
4) A Biden victory appears to depend on winning Mid-West states from Trump, namely Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Biden and Trump have both addressed the nation, with the president claiming without evidence that there had been a “fraud on the American nation” and urging voting to stop, which it already has. Biden, too, said he believed he was on course to win. Of the swing states that will likely decide the outcome of the election, Trump was declared the victor in Florida, seen as one of the crucial states with its 29 electoral votes. But Biden has gained ground, winning the first swing state of the night: Arizona. The early counts in other battlegrounds, though, appeared to be going Trump’s way.
Biden told supporters he is “on track to win” the US presidential election and said his campaign was “feeling good about where we are.” “Keep the faith, guys, we are going to win this,” he said, adding “I am here to tell you tonight we believe we are on track to win this election.”
The sitting president also tweeted soon after, airing his claim that “we are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election”. Twitter flagged the tweet as containing content that is “disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process”. That means making the election controversial, which interpreted deeply would mean damage to democracy, for which America is known world over.
He went further during a televised address when he falsely claimed victory in the US presidential election, even though not all the votes legitimately cast have been counted and the result is not clear.
Speaking in the White House in the early hours of Wednesday morning, Trump claimed without evidence: “We did win this election.”
Trump had appeared ahead early, what important for him was the winning of state of Florida, with part of his strength there coming from an improved performance relative to 2016 in the state’s counties with large Latino populations.
Texas and Ohio have also supported Trump. If Georgia does stay in Trump’s column, focus will move to the states that secured Trump’s unexpected win in 2016.
His victory was predicated on narrowly winning “safe” Democrat states in the Mid-West and dismantling the so-called “blue wall”. Some 79,646 votes made up Trump’s combined margin of victory in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016.
Both Biden and Trump have already earned more votes (68,122,561 at the time of writing to Biden, and 66,060,699 to Trump) than their parties did in 2016. Former candidate Hilary Clinton won the 2016 popular vote with 65,853,514.
In 2016, Trump enjoyed a comfortable victory over Clinton in Ohio by nine percentage points, but Biden appeared to be performing better in the state’s suburbs – giving some optimism for Pennsylvania-Michigan-Wisconsin with its similar demographics.
Attention on those states also pushes back the timetable for getting a result – although this was always expected given the massive increase in postal voting as a result of the pandemic.
State leaders in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan have all said they believe they can finish counting by Friday, meaning we could be days away from the election drawing to an official close.
For months there were complaints from Democratic Latino activists that Biden was ignoring Hispanic voters and lavishing attention instead on Black voters in big Midwestern cities.
The Biden campaign disputed this but in the weeks leading up to the election, opinion polls in key states showed Biden underperforming with Latinos.
Counting is still on, but 270 Popular votes , required for occupation of the White House, Joe Biden was leading with 248, against 213 of Trump. But the way is still far for reality to see the light of the day.
