Historic US Election: Biden Leads by a Narrow Margin, but Everything Could Change
We sum up the first results of the vote and explain how the US election system works.
On Tuesday, November 3, the United States held presidential elections in which former vice president under Obama Joe Biden, the Democratic Party candidate, and incumbent president Donald Trump, the Republican Party candidate, took part.
The election will be remembered for record turnout in US history: according to AP, 102 million Americans voted by mail alone. For comparison, in 2016, during the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, only 136.6 million people voted in total. There are 239 million Americans eligible to vote.
At the same time, mail-in voting slows down the tally of election results, the outcome of which is usually decided by 5 states: Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Ohio, which together account for more than 20% of the votes.
How the US presidential election system works
The US has a unique two-stage presidential election system with indirect voting. Because of this, a candidate who receives more votes from the electorate does not necessarily win the election. For example, in 2016, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton: he received almost 3 million fewer votes in the popular vote, but 77 more electoral votes.
First, a popular vote is held for president and vice president. However, the outcome of the election is determined by the vote of the electoral college from each state (their number depends on population). In total, the electoral college has 538 electors, and a minimum of 270 votes is needed to win.
The electoral college votes on the 41st day after the popular vote (this time, December 14). However, this is often already a formality, as suspense remains only in so-called swing states, or 'battleground' states. Moreover, in most states, all of that state's electoral votes go to the candidate who wins a simple majority in the popular vote.
Most likely, the whole world will learn the name of the next US president today.
First results of the US election
Both candidates are confident of victory, and the incumbent president has even declared it. Meanwhile, vote counting in Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes), Michigan (16), Georgia (16), North Carolina (15), Arizona (11) and Wisconsin (10) has not yet been completed. Also, more than a third of voters cast their ballots by mail (results are not yet known), so it is too early to speak of anyone's victory.
In the key states, except Arizona, Trump is leading. In Pennsylvania, the lead is almost 13%; in North Carolina, about 1%. The mail-in votes could affect the results in these states. It is assumed that early voting was mostly done by Democratic supporters. Trump accuses this method of attempting to 'steal' victory from him.
At the time of publication, Joe Biden holds a slight lead. According to CNN and CNBC, it is 220 to 213 in Trump's favor. According to NYT, it is 224 to 213 in Trump's favor. Even the 'red' Fox News is so far giving victory to Biden: 238 to 213 for Trump.
It should be taken into account that American media rely not only on published voting results, but also on forecasts from their own analysts.
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