Joe Biden’s popular vote lead over Donald Trump has now stretched to more than 6m as he continues to rack up the highest number of votes in American history.
The Democratic challenger, and now president-elect, currently has 79,823,827 compared to the president’s 73,786,905 – itself a record for a losing candidate in terms of sheer number of votes cast.
Trump’s last-ditch efforts to overturn results fail to make dent in Biden victory
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Biden’s win in the popular vote tally has also delivered him a convincing mandate in the all-important electoral college, which actually decides who becomes the next occupant of the White House, after flipping states like Georgia, Arizona and the midwestern rust belt states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
However, it has not stopped Trump and many of his Republican allies from seeking to undermine the result of the election by launching a series of lawsuits and technical objections and asking for recounts. None of the tactics have shown any evidence to back up Trump’s false claims of widespread ballot fraud.
Biden, who has denounced Trump’s attempt to reverse the election results as “totally irresponsible”, was spending Saturday meeting with transition advisers as he draws up his administration. Trump was scheduled to participate virtually in his last summit of the 20 biggest world economies.
Senior Republicans have remained largely silent about Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of election fraud or have defended his right to seek redress, but pressure was building after several voiced doubts on Friday.
Two Republican sources said a press conference on Thursday at which Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani accused Democrats of engaging in a “national conspiracy” to manipulate vote totals, while conceding that he had no evidence, may have been a turning point for some former allies.
The General Services Administration, run by a Trump appointee, still has not recognized Biden’s victory, preventing his team from gaining access to government office space and funding normally provided to an incoming administration ahead of inauguration day on 20 January.
The president-elect spent his 78th birthday on Friday in his home state of Delaware at work on the government transition, including a meeting with Congress’ top two Democrats: the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer.
In two months, he will take the reins of a politically fractured nation facing the worst public health crisis in a century, high unemployment and a reckoning on racial injustice.
As he wrestles with those issues, Biden will be attempting to accomplish another feat: demonstrating to Americans that age is but a number and he’s up to the job. Biden will be sworn in as the oldest president in the nation’s history, displacing Ronald Reagan, who left the White House in 1989 when he was 77 years and 349 days old.
The age and health of both Biden and Trump – less than four years Biden’s junior – loomed throughout a race that was decided by a younger and more diverse electorate.
Out of the gate, Biden will be keen to demonstrate he’s got the vigor to serve.
“It’s crucial that he and his staff put himself in the position early in his presidency where he can express what he wants with a crispness that’s not always been his strength,” said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University who has advised legislators from both parties. “He has got to build up credibility with the American people that he’s physically and mentally up to the job.”
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