Democrat Salud Carbajal, Santa Barbara’s representative in Congress, issued a public congratulations to former vice president Joe Biden after the AP news service declared Biden the winner in Pennsylvania, giving him that state’s 20 electoral ballots, 14 more than Biden needed to achieve the 270 electoral vote threshold for victory.
In addition, Biden picked up another six electoral votes from Nevada, giving a total of 290 at this point.
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The outcome in Georgia remains unresolved. While Biden also won the popular vote — by about 4 million votes or three percentage points in an election that witnessed a record number of votes cast — the Trump Campaign has vowed to challenge the results in court. Trump has alleged wholesale voter fraud and irregularities, though his legal team has yet to provide the substantiating evidence to give credibility to such claims.
“We sorely need steady and compassionate leadership, and today American voters delivered by electing Joe Biden to the Presidency,” Carbajal stated via press release. “For too long, the Trump Administration has stood in the way of progress. Today, voters said enough is enough. Let’s get to work.”
In terms of the work Carbajal had in mind, his statement enumerated several specifics — such as waging a campaign to control the spread of COVID, re-joining the fight against climate change, and ensuring that the Affordable Care Act is expanded, not defeated. Carbajal’s statement obliquely acknowledged how excruciatingly close the race proved to be and how divided the nation remains. Trump did significantly better than polls predicted and most Democrats expected, bringing in 10 million more voters in this election than in 2016.
“It has become clear that voters, both across the country and on the Central Coast, recognize we are better than the divisive politics of Donald Trump,” he said, adding that Biden will provide the “steady and compassionate leadership” the country needs. Carbajal was first elected to Congress in November 2016, the same year that Trump won.