The United States Presidential Election remains undecided as several key battleground states continue to knife-edge votes in what has turned out to be a close race for the White House. Over the course of Tuesday evening and into the early hours of Wednesday morning, President Trump won Florida, Iowa, and Ohio, giving his campaign an important electoral boost and increasing Biden’s reliance on the remaining undecided states and uncounted mail-in votes.
Despite his narrowing lead, Biden announced his confidence in the race, citing a surprising win in Arizona and expected surges in Democratic votes as millions of mail-in ballots wait to be counted. Some key states such as Pennsylvania and Georgia, which currently favor Trump, contain urban Democratic strongholds which may flip those states as votes are tallied. In his speech, Biden advised patience and faith in the democratic process. “Your patience is commendable,” he said. “It’s not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare who has won this election. That’s the decision of the American people.”
Early Wednesday morning, President Trump took the stage and declared a premature victory. In his speech, the President preached optimism about the race and gratitude to those who voted for him, while also decrying the vote counting process and claiming that any further counting of votes is fraud. “We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. This is a fraud on our nation” Earlier in the night, in a tweet that has since been labeled by Facebook and Twitter as false, Trump claimed that Democrats are trying to steal the election and that votes should not be counted after the polls closed. The tweet and Trump’s speech represent a dangerous and authoritarian rhetoric that undermines the process of democracy in the United States, threatening to delegitimize the votes of millions. It also indicates that Trump will not accept the results of the election should they favor Biden, which could take American political tension to breaking point and give credence to rising fears of destabilizing conflict within the country.
As vote counting continues steadily onwards, the world watches anxiously as America’s future seesaws unpredictably between its history as a global leader and its potential to decline into internecine conflict.
For Times Media Mexico
Kieran Hadley in Idaho
