Joe Biden sealed his landslide victory over Donald Trump in the US presidential election yesterday after winning a state that has been a Republican stronghold for almost 30 years.
The result comes as Donald Trump appears to have acknowledged for the first time that he may not be in government much longer.
Biden, now president-elect, won in Georgia by just over 14,000 votes, gaining 49.5% of the vote to Trump’s 49.2%. He is the first Democratic to triumph in Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992.
The victory announced yesterday gives him a total of 306 votes in the electoral college, the system the US uses to choose its president.
Donald Trump, meanwhile, won North Carolina and its 15 electoral votes, giving him a total of 232. The results are the last to be called in the race for the White House.
Biden was declared the winner last Saturday after securing more than the 270 votes needed to win the election, but Trump has insisted that he has been the victim of widespread voting fraud.
But in his first public appearance in almost a week, Trump appeared to concede for the first time there may soon be a new president.
Speaking at the White House on Friday, he refused to have another Covid-19 lockdown under his presidency, despite coronavirus cases surging across the country.
Trump said: “This administration will not be going to a lockdown. Hopefully whatever happens in the future, who knows, which administration it will be I guess time will tell, but I can tell you this administration will not go to a lockdown.”
However, Trump’s most hardened supporters have refused to accept the outcome of the US election.
Far-right groups, including the notorious Proud Boys, were set to hold a rally in Washington yesterday afternoon in support of Trump’s unsubstantiated claim of widespread voting fraud.
Trump tweeted on Friday night that it was “heartwarming to see the tremendous support out there”.
Some left-wing groups were planning counter-demonstrations.
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