The Fight Over Election Results Begins

“Your patience is commendable!” Joe Biden told supporters in a parking lot, at about a quarter to one in the morning. His motorcade had travelled from his home to the Chase Center, in Wilmington, so that he could give not a victory speech but a placeholder. “We believe we’re on track to win this election,” Biden told the crowd, many of whom remained parked in their cars. They honked back, and then Biden quoted, a little selectively, from recent developments on television: Fox News had declared that he’d won Arizona, and a larger group of media outlets had said that he’d won Minnesota. Biden said that he was optimistic about Wisconsin and Michigan, and confident that Pennsylvania and ultimately the Presidency would be in his column. He sounded confident, too, breaking now and then into a big toothy grin. Biden said, “It ain’t over until every vote is counted, every ballot is counted. But we’re feeling good.”

It may emerge, in the coming days, that the pandemic, as expected, swung the election decisively toward Biden, but for the moment it seems to have added layers of uncertainty to the outcome, as county officials continue sorting millions of mail-in ballots. Michigan and Wisconsin were still counting votes early Wednesday morning; Pennsylvania has said to expect its results on Friday at the earliest. Biden, who positioned himself as a figure of unity during the final weeks of the election, is now something slightly different, a champion of the Democratic position. But that position, too, has a sedate, nonpartisan quality to it: it is to wait, to count the late-arriving votes, to avoid jumping to conclusions.

Biden praised voters’ patience, but, as he spoke, the President was on Twitter, pushing the opposite case: “We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it.” Twitter quickly flagged Trump’s false claim as “disputed” and “misleading”; it remains to be seen whether Republicans will do the same. On stage, Biden congratulated the Democrats who had won reëlection in Delaware. “Keep the faith, guys; we’re going to win this!” he said again. The cars honked. The candidate said to his wife, Jill, “Let’s walk over here,” and they strolled to one end of the stage and waved out at a crowd that was not so big, but still might be enough.