Who won the US election? Donald Trump or Joe Biden? In theory, Election Day has passed. In practice, some Americans still have to vote and millions of ballots will not be counted today or tomorrow, but in the next few days. The votes expressed by mail are many and many have not yet arrived at their destination. The counting, where it began, proceeds slowly. The final result is therefore still far away, also because – despite the Covid – the turnout was impressive: even the highest since 1908.
Il American electoral mechanism, moreover, requires rather complicated calculations: it is not whoever wins the most votes at a national level who wins, but whoever wins the majority of large voters, whose number varies according to the State. Four years ago, Hillary Clinton won more votes overall than her Republican opponent, but in the end she lost the election, and by no means a small amount.
In short, it is too early to say too much: at the moment we are in a stalemate. The only certainty is that there was no blue wave: Those who expected a clear statement from Biden as a reaction to the way Trump is handling the pandemic were disappointed. Quite the contrary: The Donald manages to hold on in traditionally Republican states and vies for victory with his opponent in many usually Democratic-majority territories.
For now, major US news organizations are awarding victory to the incumbent president in key states Texas and Florida, as well as in Ohio, Mississipi, Idaho, Oklahoma, Tennesse, Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas and South Carolina, but also in North and South Dakota, Louisiana, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana and Iowa.
Instead, Biden would have won the key state of theArizona, plus Virginia, Vermont, Illinois, Delaware, District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Washington State, California, Oregon, and Minnesota.
There are no results from Michigan, Wisconsin and today Pennsylvania (the latter usually decisive), where the ballot can go on until Friday.
Ma Biden plays in advance and presents himself to his family in Delaware to show great optimism: “We are on the road to victory”, said the Democratic candidate.
More defensive Trump, who tweets: “We will not let them steal our elections”. Shortly thereafter, Twitter flagged the post as misleading content and removed it.
The fear of many, including the financial markets, is that the United States is heading towards a constitutional crisis made up of appeals, controversies, claims and allegations of fraud that could go on for weeks. If this is the outcome, Trump will be able to count on an overwhelming advantage: the majority of six Republican judges against three Democrats in the Supreme Court, after the controversial nomination of super-conservative Amy Coney Barrett just before the election.
