Joe Biden on the verge of presidency as he edges past Trump in POTUS' birth state Pennsylvania and Georgia
Democratic nominee Joe Biden, on Friday, November 6, took a lead against President Donald Trump in Georgia and Pennsylvania as vote counting continued in other critical swing states of Nevada, Arizona, and North Carolina. Biden, as of early Friday, clinched 49.5 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania compared to Trump's 49.4 percent, according to the Associated Press' tracker. In Georgia, the Democrat took a slim lead of over 1,000 votes against Trump. A win from Pennsylvania could make the Democrat the winner of the 2020 presidential elections.
Biden eclipsing Trump in his birth state of Pennsylvania is considered a symbolic movement in the Democrat's political career that has spanned nearly five decades. Biden, according to the latest batch of tabulated vote counts released on November 6 morning, has a lead of 5,587 votes in the Keystone State. The former vice president, during the course of the 2020 Democratic primary, had consistently insisted that he was the only contender in the party who could sway blue-collar voters who abandoned the party in 2016 to support Trump. The Democrat had also vowed to rebuild the Democrats' "blue wall" in the Midwest that was demolished by Trump during the 2016 elections. According to CNN's projections, Biden has succeeded in his goal by clinching victories in Michigan and Wisconsin and is fast closing in on Pennsylvania.
Biden, before his lead in Pennsylvania, had made a final trip to his childhood home in Scranton to greet supporters as they wished him good luck. The Democrat, in one of the living room walls of his childhood home, wrote: "From this House to the White House with the Grace of God," and signed his name and the date, "11.3.2020."
The Secret Service, on Thursday, November 5, sent additional agents to Delaware to increase protection around Biden as he inches closer to becoming the next US president. The move was made after the Biden campaign noted that they would be making use of the Wilmington Convention Center for one more day, suggesting that the former vice president could make a major announcement on November 6. Dozens of Secret Service agents are reportedly providing security for the Biden campaign currently at the Chase Center at the Riverfront Convention Center in Wilmington. The Democratic nominee's additional security detail will begin on November 6.
Biden appeared confident of his election win as he addressed voters in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, on Thursday, November 5, asking Americans to be calm and patient and wait for the final ballots in the race to be counted. He made an appeal for calm amid increasing anxiety in American voters over the long wait for the election results and fear of public unrest. The Democrat nominee said: "Democracy is sometimes messy. It sometimes requires a little patience as well. So I ask everyone to stay calm, all people to stay calm. The process is working. The count is being completed and we'll know very soon."
The former vice president, in the same statement, assured supporters that he and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, would emerge as the winners of the 2020 presidential elections. "We continue to feel, the senator and I, we continue to feel very good about where things stand," Biden said. "We have no doubt that when the count is finished Sen. Harris and I will be declared the winners."