Joe Biden wins Presidency, defeats Donald Trump

SRINAGAR — Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump to become the 46th President of the United States on Saturday, positioning himself to lead a nation gripped by historic pandemic and a confluence of economic and social turmoil.

His victory came after more than three days of uncertainty as election officials sorted through a surge of mail-in votes that delayed the processing of some ballots.

Joe Biden, the former vice president and longtime fixture of national politics, crossed 270 Electoral College votes with a win in Pennsylvania, according to The Associated Press.

Biden has won a bitterly fought contest for President after vowing to usher in a robust response to the once-in-a-century pandemic and a renewed focus on civility that has been largely absent during four years of chaos and division under President Donald Trump.

The Democrat, making his third run at the White House this year, campaigned on a promise of expanding access to health care and investing in middle-class jobs while combating the COVID-19 pandemic with a more vigorous response from the federal government. He promised to restore international relations with allies in Europe and Asia whom Trump bickered with, while confronting adversaries he argued Trump coddled in Russia, China and North Korea.

But by far the biggest difference between the two men was stylistic: Biden had run largely on his character and temperament, offering it as a contrast to the bombastic, unconventional approach Trump has taken to the presidency for the past four years. Biden essentially proposed to rebuild a functioning federal government based on his experience as vice president under President Barack Obama and his 36 years in the Senate representing Delaware.

He contrasted his approach with Trump’s lack of a national plan to address the coronavirus pandemic, and the president’s inability to broker a compromise with Democrats in Congress to deliver additional stimulus to millions of Americans who were left jobless by the pandemic.

Throughout the course of the campaign, Trump tried to frame Biden as far left – a “socialist” in his words – despite the former vice president’s long career as a centrist in Washington and the fact he ran to the right of more liberal candidates in the primary, including Sens.

Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Biden never embraced a “Medicare for All” system of health care or the so-called Green New Deal for the environment backed by liberals.