Joe Biden remained confident on Wednesday that his campaign was on track to win the White House, while Democrats and voters who had been hoping for a blue wave were left sobered and disheartened by election night results.
In a televised address from Wilmington, Delaware, Biden told reporters that he would not yet declare victory, but he believed he would hit the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
“My fellow Americans, yesterday once again proved democracy is the heartbeat of this nation,” Biden said. “I’m not here to declare that we won, but I am here to report that when the count is finished, we believe will be the winner,” Biden said.
“Senator [Kamala] Harris and I are on track to win more votes that any other ticket in history,” Biden said, referring to his running mate, who stood next to him at the podium wearing a face mask. He said only three presidential campaigns had won against an incumbent in US history.
“When it’s finished, God willing, we’ll be the fourth,” he said. “This is a major achievement.”
The race for the presidency remained too close to call on Wednesday afternoon – a far cry from the landslide that some pollsters predicted. Democrats down the ballot had not pulled off the upset in the Senate they were aiming for, and had not made the gains in the House that had seemed on the cards.
The Biden campaign insisted the veteran Democrat appeared on track to oust Trump, as hundreds of thousands of outstanding mail-in votes continued to be counted in key battleground states. In the face of Trump’s false claims of victory and efforts to launch legal battles to the curtail the vote counting, its messaging became defiant.
Source: Elections - theguardian.com
