Making history, Kamala Harris becomes the first Black and Indian-American woman to serve as vice president
Washington, November 8: Democrat Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. defeated President Donald Trump to become the 46th president of the United States on Saturday, striking a tone of reconciliation by saying “to unite, to heal’’ and “to come together as a nation’’.
“It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, to lower the temperature, to see each other again, to listen to each other again, to make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy,” he said. “We are not enemies. We are Americans,” he said offering himself as a leader who “seeks to unify and not to divide’’ a nation gripped by pandemic, apart from faltering economy and social turmoil.
Biden who crossed 270 Electoral College votes needed to secure presidency with the win in Pennsylvania said in his victory speech “I sought this office to restore the soul of America’’ and “to make America respected around the world again and to unite us here at home’’. He promised to restore political normalcy and spirit of national unity to confront raging health and economic crisis.
His victory came after more than three days of uncertainty as election officials sorted through a surge of mail-in votes that delayed processing.
While Trump refused to concede, threatening further legal action on ballot counting, Biden used his acceptance speech as an olive branch to those who voted for Trump, saying that he understood their disappointment. “I’ve lost a couple of times myself,” he recalled of his past failures to win the presidency, before adding: “Now let’s give each other a chance.”
Biden, 77, will become the oldest president-elect in U.S. history and the first to oust a sitting commander-in-chief after one term since Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in 1992.
His running mate, California Senator Kamala Harris, 56, in a history making moment becomes the first Black and Indian-American woman to serve as vice president, a glimpse at a coming generational shift in the party.
Biden’s victory that made Donald J.Trump a one-term president after four years of tumult in the White House, amounted to repudiation of latter by millions of voters exhausted with his divisive conduct and chaotic administration.