Biden defeats Trump in an election he made about character of the nation and the President Home Post

Trump, who was on the golf course when CNN and other networks called the race for the former vice president, has shown no indication that he intends to concede. While en route to his course in Virginia, he tweeted: "I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!"

But Biden supporters -- whose face masks reflected the extraordinary circumstances of a pandemic-era election poured into the streets across the country in a moment of catharsis to celebrate the President-elect's victory.

After four years of Trump's incessant lies, bullying and vilification of his political opponents, the former vice president said he was running to restore the character of the nation and bring dignity back to the White House. Biden, who turns 78 at the end of this month, will become the oldest president when he is inaugurated in January amid the worst public health emergency in 100 years, the deepest economic slump since the 1930s and a national reckoning on racism and police brutality that is still unresolved.

His election will end Trump's tumultuous hold on Washington and condemn the Republican, who has had a lifelong obsession with winning, to the ranks of chief executives who lost after a single term.

Former President Barack Obama released a statement that served as testimonial to the character of his former vice president and asked Americans to set aside their political differences and give him a chance.

"When he walks into the White House in January, he'll face a series of extraordinary challenges no incoming President ever has -- a raging pandemic, an unequal economy and justice system, a democracy at risk, and a climate in peril," Obama wrote. "I know he'll do the job with the best interests of every American at heart, whether or not he had their vote."

The former President asked every American to "give him a chance and lend him your support."

"The election results at every level show that the country remains deeply and bitterly divided," Obama said. "It will be up to not just Joe and Kamala, but each of us, to do our part -- to reach out beyond our comfort zone, to listen to others, to lower the temperature and find some common ground from which to move forward, all of us remembering that we are one nation, under God."

In a cinematic twist, it was Biden's boyhood state of Pennsylvania that put him over the 270 electoral vote threshold and delivered the White House. Trump had held a wide lead over Biden on the night of the election, but as election officials counted hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots, the race shifted dramatically in Biden's favor, infuriating Trump and his allies, who knew the President's path to the White House was over without the commonwealth.