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IT’S PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN!

Pennsylvania puts him over the top

with 273 Electoral College votes

Joseph R. Biden Jr. becomes the 46th and oldest president in US history, and Kamala Harris, the first African American and female vice president in the nation’s history. The 2020 presidential elections also registered another first recording more than 140 million ballots, the most in history. Screen grab

LOS ANGELES — Days after a furiously-contested presidential race, Joseph R. Biden has emerged as the decisive winner with millions of mailed-in ballots finally tabulated. President-elect Biden now becomes the duly elected 46th president of the United States of America.

The commonwealth of Pennsylvania put Biden over the top with 273 Electoral College votes to clinch the victory and relegate Trump to a one-term presidency.

The 2020 presidential election did not play out according to script with the polls projecting Biden to win in an epic landslide. That did not happen. Instead, it was a tense battle with President Donald Trump jumping out to the early lead in key battleground states The morning after, the race basically came down to three Battleground states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin with Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina still up for grabs.

Incumbent Trump erroneously declared himself the victor and said the results on Nov. 3 were fraudulent and the counting of ballots in battleground states should be stopped, even though millions of votes remained to be counted. He also threatened to take the issue to the US Supreme court without citing specifics.

Biden becomes the 46th and oldest president in US history after successive attempts, and running mate Kamala Harris has secured a historic milestone as the first female and African American vice president in American history.

Expectations of a blue wave sweep and decisive Democratic 2020 victory never materialized, despite what much-hyped pre-vote opinion polls said. Instead, the 2020 vote was a historic nail-biter with the Biden-Harris ticket notching the win in the Electoral College 273 to 214, while winning three key Battleground states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin; and flipping Arizona, a state Trump won in 2016, and Georgia.

Biden also won the popular vote by 4 million — 74.3 million to 70.4 million for Trump.

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Kamala Harris, historic 49th vice president of

the United States

Kamala Harris has experienced a meteoric rise in her career from licensed profess-ional attorney, to San Francisco District Attorney, California State AttorneyGeneral, U.S. Senator, and now Vice President.

By ANTONIO RAY HARVEY, Contributing Writer

SACRAMENTO (CBM) — Sen. Kamala Harris’s journey to becoming the first Black and first woman vice president of the United States today has been marked by a line of other historic professional milestones, most of them achieved here in her home state.

Today, most national news networks have declared Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 election, although the Federal Election Commission has yet to finalize the results.

In January, when Joe Biden is inaugurated 46th president of the United States, Harris will step into her role as Biden’s number two, the second most powerful leader in the world and the nation’s 49th vice president. Three vice presidents served under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

“Kamala Harris is one of the most experienced and gifted politicians in the world,” said Amelia Ashley-Ward, publisher of the San Francisco Sun-Reporter, the city’s oldest and longest-running African American newspaper. Ashley-Ward has followed Harris’s career since she worked as the district attorney of San Francisco. She was also an early supporter of the president-elect since she declared her own run for POTUS in 2019.

“I am proud that she has made another historic leap as the first woman and first African American vice president of the United States,” Ward said.

After Harris completed two terms as the district attorney of San Francisco, she was elected as the first African American and first woman to serve as California attorney general.

In 2017, Harris was sworn in as the junior US senator for California, the second African American woman elected to the Senate after Carol Moseley Braun, who represented Illinois from 1993 to 1999.

She currently serves on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on the Budget.

In early August, Biden selected Harris to be his vice presidential candidate, despite a contentious relationship between the two when they were opponents for the Democrat nomination for present.

Harris and Biden clashed over race relationships and busing during a debate in June 2019. Harris had concerns about Biden’s relationships with known segregationist senators and his previous opposition to busing.

“It was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing,” Harris told Biden during one of the debates.

“And, you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me,” Harris said.

Harris and Biden were able to work out their differences. Harris, a graduate of Howard University in Washington, DC, has said she does not believe Biden is a racist and has praised him for committing to the “importance of finding common ground.”

Both Biden and Harris have said their disagreements are water under the bridge.

Now, the country has inherited one of California’s most powerful Black female politicians with a vast background in criminal law.

“Back when Kamala was attorney general, she worked closely with Beau (Biden’s late son Beau Biden),” Biden said on his Twitter account after selecting Harris as his running mate). “I watched as they took on the big banks, lifted up working people, and protected women and kids from abuse. I was proud then, and I’m proud now to have her as my partner in this campaign.”

California Black Media.