gestures in celebration after delivering remarks in Wilmington,
Delaware, on November 7, 2020, after being declared the winners of
the presidential election. ANGELA WEISS / AFP
Democrat Joe Biden won the US presidential race after he
won Georgia and its 16 electoral college votes, US media reported
on Friday.
Victory in Georgia is a first for Democrats since Bill Clinton
did it in 1992.
Biden’s victory brings his tally of electoral college votes to
306 in the state-by-state Electoral College that decides who wins
the White House, against 232 for Donald Trump, according to CNN,
ABC, and other US networks.
Trump meanwhile claimed victory in North Carolina, CNN and NBC
projected, putting his final tally at 232.
Biden has been the presumptive winner of the election since
victory in Pennsylvania took him over the 270-vote threshold on
Saturday.
Georgia, one of five states flipped by Biden after going into
Trump’s column last time around, hadn’t been won by a Democrat
since Bill Cl inton in 1992.
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Trump took a comfortable early lead in the state as the largely
rural vote was counted but it ended up being the closest race in
the nation as the cities of Atlanta and Savannah began tabulating
results.
Biden is currently up by some 14,000 votes, and a hand recount
is expected to be completed next week. Audits of state-wide
elections never bring the kind of reversal that Trump would need to
change the result.
In traditionally-Republican North Carolina, a drive to get out
Black voters by Democrats was not enough to overcome Trump’s hugely
loyal base of white, non-college-educated men and rural voters.
Trump, who has refused to acknowledge defeat, was due later
Friday to address the public for the first time since becoming the
projected loser six days ago.
It was unclear whether he would take questions or finally
address his defeat but Trump has repeatedly referred to his
306-vote victory in 2016 as a “landslide” and a “shellacking.”