Joe Biden celebrates his new position as the President of the United States. Photo from nbcnews.com.
On Saturday, Nov. 7, the majority of media outlets called the 2020 United States presidential race, naming Joseph Biden president-elect and Kamala Harris vice president-elect.
The highly contested and publicized race has been met with mixed reactions from the public throughout the country.
Students at the University of Rhode Island that have been paying close attention to the race and are politically invested had mixed reactions on the outcome.
President of the URI College Republicans John Pescatore spoke on behalf of the club and claimed that they somewhat expected Biden to surpass incumbent President Donald Trump due to the overwhelming amount of Democratic absentee ballots that were counted later.
“[Absentee ballots are] statistically more likely to be Democrats than Republicans, so we obviously kind of expected that, but not to the extent that it happened,” Pescatore said.
However, Pescatore acknowledged that many Republicans, and Trump himself, have not accepted defeat. There are skeptics around the legitimacy of the mail-in ballots, giving Trump the incentive to file a lawsuit for voter fraud.
“The last time I checked, his team was like zero for 15 for trying to get a lawsuit in the court, and the court denied them all times because they didn’t have substantial evidence to make a case, so I think these claims are a bit ridiculous,” Pescatore said. “I don’t think even if they say ‘yeah, sure we’ll do those things,’ I don’t think that’ll make a difference considering a recount will only make the difference of a couple hundred, not a couple thousand.”
He also said that some of the claims Trump is making about not giving up power are nonsensical and contradictory to what the United States democracy stands for.
However, in terms of a recount, Pescatore said he thinks that it is reasonable for Trump to want to verify the count.
Christopher Bove, president of the URI College Democrats, also recognized that Trump’s transition out of presidency may not be easy.
“Quite frankly, we believe that the president’s actions are extremely irresponsible,” Bove said. “The results of the election are the results of the election, and there’s nothing he can do to change that. The responsible thing would be to concede and begin this transition of power. We believe that the mail-in ballots have been counted, were legally cast, and as such deserve to be counted under the law. We believe that the country made its choice and that the President should respect that.”
Bove said that while he expects the next few months to be turbulent, he also is anticipating to see a lot more from Biden both after his inauguration in January. He expects to see more progressive policy being addressed from the White House.
“I think with the Biden presidency we have a lot to look forward to,” Bove said. “First of all, the president-elect is planning a series of executive orders which he’ll issue on day one which includes the restoration of the [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] program to protect our nation’s dreamers, rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, expanding the protections for health care, extending the Affordable Care Act; there are so many things to look forward to in the Biden administration, but there’s a lot of work to be done.”
Pescatore said that he hopes the Biden administration will be able to improve the health of citizens as the nation struggles with COVID-19, as well as the Earth as a whole.
“One of my biggest worries is the environment, and not to say that he’ll have the solutions or make the changes that need to be made, but I think he’ll start to stop the reverse of [climate change policies], and slow the perpetual motion down,” Pescatore said. “I’m glad to see that, if anything.”
Even though Pescatore knows that the solutions to climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic aren’t confined to one political party, he believes that Biden will take a federal stance to contain the COVID-19 virus, unlike Trump’s administration over the past eight months.
As the runoff elections in Georgia approaches, these two URI student organizations have shifted their focus from the presidency to the U.S. Senate. The outcome of the runoff will determine whether or not the Senate majority will be composed of the Republican or Democratic party.
“Before this election, I thought the odds of us winning a Senate seat in Georgia were slim to none, but obviously now that we’ve seen the voting results in Georgia, and know that Georgia went blue, we’re cautiously optimistic that we can take those seats,” Bove said.
Bove thinks that the Senate seat could swing either way, meaning that the power over Biden’s plans can be in the hands of either the Democrats or the Republicans. The Democrats have essentially maintained a stronghold on the U.S. House of Representatives, but the Senate remains in question.
URI’s iGNiTE chapter is “a movement of young women who are ready and eager to become the next generation of political leaders,” according to their official website.
Fifth-year pharmacy student Hannah Bedard, president of iGNiTE at URI, said that having a female vice president means a lot to the group and women alike.
“We definitely, as a group, think Harris’s election is monumental,” Bedard said. “There has never been a woman or [person of color] in that high of an office before, so to have both demographics, separate and in one person is historic. Whether or not individuals agree with her platform is sort of a null point, because it’s a huge win for women in the political world to prove that they are capable when the country has never seen that before.”
Pescatore also agreed that this is a monumental time for women in America, despite the fact that he doesn’t necessarily support all of Harris’s plans and political choices.
“I might not like her policies and what-not and think she’s somewhat hypocritical, but having that figure up there is great,” Pescatore said.
Bove was excited to see a female vice president get elected as well, considering it monumental for the country as a whole.
“When Senator Harris became vice president-elect, it very much shattered a glass ceiling which women in this country have not been able to crack, especially women of color in our country,” Bove said.