After four long, stressful, gaslit years of a Donald Trump presidency, eight months of the coronavirus ravaging America – killing more than 240,000 people to date, to a constant refrain from the White House that the virus would ‘simply go away’ – and a presidential election campaign that has felt as though it would never end, the morning after the date we had all been waiting for, and hours after the last polls closed…there is still no clear winner. In fact it's closer than many had predicted.
Speaking earlier this morning UK time, Joe Biden did give a speech, saying: 'We knew this was going to go long, but who knew we would go into maybe tomorrow morning, maybe even longer. But we feel good about where we are. I'm here to tell you tonight we believe we're on track to win this election. I'm optimistic about this outcome.
'It ain't over until every vote, every ballot is counted.'
Donald Trump almost immediately tweeted, saying: 'We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!' However, Twitter quickly moved to put a warning on his Tweet - something his camp have acted angrily to.
Donald Trump did later give a speech from the White House saying he knew he was going to win the US election and that he would take his fight to the Supreme Court.
Trump said: ‘This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country.’ He added: ‘We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.’
He also said: ‘We will be going to the US supreme court. We want all voting to stop.’
Many have predicted and feared that this kind of behaviour might be a glimpse of what we have to come in the days and weeks until the result is finalised - and accepted by the candidates.
The reason for the delay: the unprecedented number of early in-person votes and mail-in ballots cast this year – by the time polls opened at 6am on November 3, over 100 million Americans had already voted, more than 72% the total number of ballots cast in 2016. But in some states, such as the key swing state of Pennsylvania, counting mail-in ballots doesn’t even begin until today. That it looks like being a record voter turnout, after many years of political apathy in America, is a definite win for democracy. But there may not be a definitive outcome for days.
READ MORE: 9 Things You Missed About The 2020 Election In America You Need To Know This Morning
While many millions of voters have stood in queues for hours – socially distanced, in masks – to exercise their democratic right, in cities across the country businesses have been battening down the hatches, boarding up their windows in readiness for potential civil unrest. Police departments in New York, LA, Washington DC, San Francisco and other cities have reportedly run practice drills on possible post-election scenarios, including violent clashes between Trump and Biden supporters, attacks by armed militias, a bomb or a cyberattack.
That it looks like being a record voter turnout is a definite win for democracy.
As results trickle in today though, one positive aspect is expected to emerge – that if Joe Biden wins, it will be women who have clinched it for him. In 2016, 52% of white women famously voted for Donald Trump. Four years later, disappointed, angry and outraged by his misogyny, many of those women who backed the president have now turned against him.
This year, Biden has led Trump among white suburban women by 51% to 44%, and 84% of Black women have reported viewing Biden favourably, while 87% reported unfavourable views of Trump. Overall, by late October, Biden led Trump by 25% among women – the largest lead in modern political history.
So crucial is the group referred to by pollsters as ‘suburban white women’ (who don’t necessarily live in the suburbs - the term is shorthand for ‘educated and affluent’) that, post-2016, grassroots groups sprung up across the country to attempt to draw this demographic over to the Democratic side. In Ohio, a group called Red Wine and Blue (subhead: Harnessing the Power of Suburban Women) began reaching women through Facebook ads and digital advertising, targeting ‘concerned but unconnected’ voters through their social networks. Once involved, with coffee mornings, and, crucially, regular wine evenings, suburban woman have engaged their own strong, local social networks to help mobilise more supporters for Biden in key swing states.
And Trump knows that means trouble. At a rally in Pennsylvania on 13 October, the president asked: ‘Suburban women, will you please like me?’ Four days later, in Michigan, he begged: ‘I saved your suburbs – women – suburban women, you’re supposed to love Trump.’ The next day in Nevada, he beseeched: ‘Suburban women, please vote for me. I’m saving your house. I’m saving your community. I’m keeping your crime way down.’
But groups such as Red Wine and Blue are far more likely to be sporting T-shirts bearing the logo ‘Momala for Kamala’ (Momala being the vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s nickname from her stepchildren) than MAGA hats right now. And, as America anxiously awaits the final ballot totals for another day, everyone across the country, red or blue, will likely be agreeing on one thing - getting heavily stuck into the wine.