2020 US Election Reaction Offered Readers in Georgia

“Protect the integrity of the elections system” – said Trump and promised to move the Supreme Court to stop vote counting as he considers himself to be the real triumphant of the 2020 elections. Is history repeating itself like the year 2000 when the winner could not be confirmed until a Supreme Court made a ruling a month later? Nevertheless, as we like to say in Georgia, ‘the caravan keeps going’ and the people of America have spoken – this article offers a brief overview of the presidential race based on the results as of 10 November 2020. The article does not cover the electing of new members of Congress.

With Twitter and social media platforms, it becomes virtually impossible to control who wins an overnight celebrity badge or which country attracts worldwide media attention. Take for instance the case of the US – the whole world has been praising the country for holding a presidential election in the throes of a pandemic that continues to poison our lives. On the other hand, the lesser favorite kid of social media, the Government of Georgia could not advertise it well enough for broader audiences that we also held elections on the 31st of October, and before that other European countries managed to hold elections in their countries, including Croatia, Greece, Ireland, Azerbaijan, Spain, Poland, Italy – to name the few and to deliberately leave out Belarus.

Yet, there is a reason why the Statue of Liberty and her homeland get all the media attention these past weeks: the election results in the country of freedom are very likely to dictate not only internal political dynamics but also influence all of us. This year Donald Trump and Joe Biden competed to win electoral college votes. In the US, each state gets a certain number of electoral college votes, building up to 538 total votes. As of right now, Joe Biden has collected 290 – 20 more than needed to win the race.

Set aside the record-breaking number of Americans opting for early voting in the polls – 100 million! – this election was the most expensive in history, costing a total of $14 billion. Seeing Massachusetts, my second home, light up blue was not unexpected but along with all people in this world concerned with the future of democracy, I was hoping the rational majority would win in the rest of the US.

In the end, the result was astonishing – Biden broke the record and received the highest number of votes ever for a presidential candidate. Says much about Biden but even more about Trump, ha? In 1918, the Spanish flu and WWI were the two factors that resulted in a 1918 midterm election voting drop but this time the nation was determined to elect from the blue camp. Trump is the first president since George Bush Sr. (1992) to not get reelected – since Bush Sr. all Presidents, including Bill Clinton, George W Bush, and Barack Obama have been reelected.

Luckily the aghast and worrying will not be needed, as of right now – the oldest candidate (78 years) in the history of the US is President-Elect, beating the second oldest Reagan by one year.

This election is also unique in terms of the VP role: Kamala Harris will take the post as the first female Vice President. She is the first South Asian nominee for the role of the US Vice President and the first black woman to run for Vice President in the country.