Joe Biden could be first election winner since Kennedy to lose both Florida and Ohio and still become president
If former vice president and Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, is declared the winner of the 2020 presidential elections, he would be the first American president since 1960 to lose both Florida and Ohio and still secure the victory. The former vice president took 45.2 percent of the votes in Ohio, in comparison to political rival President Donald Trump's 53.4 percent. In Florida, Trump secured 51.2 percent of the votes and Biden received 47.8 percent.
Ohio, known as the "Bellwether State", is traditionally viewed as average American voters representative, voting in line with the national ballot every election since 1964. Although winning the state for the second time consecutively has brought Trump 18 electoral college votes closer to the 270 votes required to be re-elected to the White House, Biden appears poised to win the 2020 election with just a few electoral votes away from victory. The former vice president just requires six more votes to reach the 270 benchmark, while Trump is left behind at currently 214.
Biden also lost 29 electoral college votes from Florida, generally seen as a key state to predicting the presidency. However, with the former vice president well on his way to secure victory, it will be the first time since President John F Kennedy, also a Democrat, that the country's president has not succeeded in securing majority votes in Florida and Ohio.
Reports state that the only time either of the two states broke away from the national ballot since 1960 was in 1992 when George Bush Sr won Florida but was later defeated by Bill Clinton.
In the 1960 presidential election, which was set on November 8, Republican Richard Nixon won Ohio, beating Kennedy in the state 53.3 to 46.7. Similar results emerged in Florida, where 51.5 percentage of votes went to the GOP to Democrats' 48.5. Kennedy, however, still won the election despite losing the states and Nixon waited for another eight years to establish an electoral victory against Democrat Hubert Humphrey in 1968.
Early polling in Florida this year has suggested that the incumbent's victory in Florida could be credited to increased support among Latino, non-White and college-educated female voters as Trump witnessed significant increases in support among all three of the demographics.
As Biden edges closer to election victory, President Trump's campaign, in an unprecedented move, declared victory in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, November 4, at a time when a large number of votes remained uncounted. The campaign has also vowed to sue the state and Michigan, calling for a stop in counting citing lack of transparency, according to reports.
Trump's campaign manager, Bill Stepien, on Wednesday said that he was "declaring victory in Pennsylvania” with less than 80 percent of the vote being counted. His announcement was followed by a similar one from White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and the president's younger son Eric Trump. The premature announcement of the state victory appeared to be a coordinated attempt to disrupt the counting of legitimate ballots in the state where Trump's lead is dramatically narrowing.