Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be the next president and vice president of the United States. Early Saturday, after days of vote-counting following Election Day earlier in the week, major media outlets called the race for Biden after his victory in Pennsylvania became clear. No matter the swing states that had yet to be conclusively called by the major outlets, Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania put him over 270 electoral votes and handed him the presidency. Former President Jimmy Carter issued a statement of support for the new president-elect and vice president-elect following news of their victory.
Carter’s statement read as follows:
‘Rosalynn joins me in congratulating our friends President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. We are proud of their well-run campaign and look forward to seeing the positive change they bring to our nation.’
NEW: Former Pres. Jimmy Carter congratulates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris: "We are proud of their well-run campaign and look forward to seeing the positive change they bring to our nation.” https://t.co/ic8NPcAsEX pic.twitter.com/WW69eYOYTJ
— ABC News (@ABC) November 7, 2020
Although the major media outlets hadn’t called it as of the time of Carter’s statement, the former president’s own state has boosted Biden in the current presidential race. As of the time of Carter’s statement, Biden had a very slim lead in Georgia, which hadn’t gone to a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992, when Bill Clinton won the state by a small margin. Before Clinton — who only one Georgia during his first campaign and not his second — Jimmy Carter himself won the state twice, including during his second campaign, when he lost nationally to Reagan. This time around, Biden gained his Georgia lead as mail-in votes were tabulated. Due in part to the president’s own conspiracy theories about mail-in voting and the Democratic tendency to take the Coronavirus more seriously than Republicans, mail-in votes have favored Biden across the country.
Interestingly enough, Jimmy Carter himself has worked on confronting problems like those posed by Donald Trump throughout his post-presidency career. The Carter Center has led international election observation operations that have been meant to help root out threats to democracy. Donald Trump himself has been peddling anti-democratic conspiracy theories about the election both before and now after Election Day. He has claimed that there’s some kind of nationwide conspiracy to include fraudulent ballots in final tallies, but this claim is laughably baseless. He has even repeatedly claimed that he won the election, as if he is hoping to use dictatorial strong-arm tactics to sway results. In reality, he has lost.
