CELEBRATIONS ERUPT AS DELAWARE'S JOE BIDEN ELECTED PRESIDENT

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was elected the 46th president of the United States after a campaign engulfed by a global pandemic and racial reckoning led to a record-breaking number of Americans voting in the election. 

On Saturday, Biden overtook President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, getting him over the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the election, according to the Associated Press. 

The tense days after the Nov. 3 general election saw razor-thin margins in some battleground states, forcing Americans to wait for millions of mail-in ballots to be counted. A vast majority of mail-in ballots skewed toward Biden. 

The Trump campaign has said the president would not concede. Trump has made repeated false claims about the state of the election, and he and his campaign have lodged legal challenges in at least four states. In some cases judges have already dismissed the cases. 

Biden will become the first Delawarean and second Catholic to hold the nation's highest office. Though he was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden was raised in and crafted his brand of politics in Delaware. He famously paraphrased Irish poet James Joyce when he said: "When I die, Delaware will be written on my heart."

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Biden has coveted the presidency since he was a teenager in Claymont, and his election comes after two failed presidential attempts and about 50 years in public life. At 77, Biden will become the oldest sitting president in the country’s history.

U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris will become the first woman of color to serve as vice president, adding further cracks to the country's highest glass ceiling. 

Biden won the office with more than 74 million popular votes — outpacing the record held by his previous boss, former President Barack Obama. The total comes with a certain sense of irony as Trump often mocked Biden for holding small campaign events and many on the left initially believed there was little passion for a Biden presidency.

In the end, it was the Keystone State that led Biden — who had once been known as “Pennsylvania's third senator" — to victory. From the moment Biden launched his candidacy, his campaign paid special attention to Pennsylvania, particularly in the race's final days. 

As of Saturday afternoon, Biden had a slight lead over Trump in Georgia, a state last won by a Democratic presidential candidate in 1992. He also held slim leads in Arizona and Nevada, which the Associated Press has called as Biden wins. 

The president, who falsely declared victory in the early hours of Nov. 4, has said he planned to go to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop counting votes, though it’s unclear how he would do that. It's also unclear if there will be any additional legal challenges or recounts. 

As the votes were being tallied, Biden and his campaign expressed confidence about winning the election and urged Americans to be patient. Trump, however, made statements Thursday night and Saturday to reporters that consisted of false claims about the validity of mail-in ballots and Biden's victory.

Because of the coronavirus, several states expanded and created mail-in voting options for Americans. GOP leaders in some cases tried to block these efforts before the election, but were often unsuccessful.

Biden is only the fourth candidate to defeat an incumbent president. In his path to the White House, he was able to rebuild parts of the Midwestern “blue wall” that Trump won in 2016, particularly by flipping Michigan and Wisconsin.

When Biden's victory was declared, people across the country filled the streets to celebrate. The atmosphere in Wilmington's Trolley Square was festive less than an hour after the race was called.

"We're thrilled for, that the itty bitty city has produced a president," said resident Tracy Schofield. "We're thrilled for the Biden family. We're thrilled for the country. This is the first time I've smiled in a week.

“He’s a Delawarean and he's a good man. He's a good decent man. That's what our country needs right now.” 

When Biden first announced his candidacy and entered a crowded Democratic field, many feared the politician was too old, too moderate and too white to excite liberal voters and defeat a president who wasn’t afraid to attack the former vice president or his family.

Hundreds of people gathered at the Riverfront in Wilmington to celebrate and await Biden's victory speech at the Chase Center. Though it wasn't open to the public, many wanted to hear Biden's speech and take in the historic moment.

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Now as president-elect, he will face the biggest task of his career: uniting a deeply divided country. It is not yet known if Biden will have to work with a Republican-controlled U.S. Senate because two runoff elections in Georgia could determine what party controls the chamber.

While Democrats still control the U.S. House of Representatives, the party lost a handful of seats. 

Biden will also face a pandemic that is only getting worse. While the tones of Trump's and Biden’s campaigns were polar opposites from the beginning, how they handled and viewed COVID-19 only deepened the contrast.

In the early months of the pandemic, Biden canceled traveling the country and resorted to campaigning virtually, out of the basement in his Greenville home. During the final months of the race, Biden visited battleground states, though never attracting large crowds typical for campaign events. Instead, there were drive-in rallies. 

He always wore a mask, and his campaign obeyed social distancing guidelines.

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Trump, in contrast, made fun of Biden for wearing one and continued to hold rallies that attracted thousands of people. A September event at the White House in honor of then-Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett became a superspreader event for the coronavirus.

Not long after, Trump and several White House staffers tested positive for the virus. How Trump handled the pandemic — which has resulted in more than 237,000 deaths — became one of the defining issues of the campaign.

Another was the racial reckoning the country now faces and the protests that erupted this summer, particularly after the death of George Floyd. At times during the campaign, Trump refused to denounce white supremacists and fiercely criticized, and also mocked, the Black Lives Matter movement. 

While support among Black voters is a major reason Biden won the primary and then the general election, the candidate faced questions and criticism throughout for his role in the passing of the 1994 crime bill — which is credited for contributing to the mass incarceration of Black men. 

Biden has apologized for portions of that bill and has proposed plans for criminal justice reform, though for some, it remains a mark on his decadeslong career. 

For Biden, who believes politics is deeply personal, the most climatic and final moments of his campaign took place in his hometown. 

Just hours after announcing his candidacy in 2019, Biden took his beloved Amtrak ride into the train station that bears his name and got a slice of pizza with his sister and confidant Valerie Biden Owens. When the coronavirus upended the campaign, the Democratic National Convention was hosted at the Chase Center on the Riverfront.

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And on election night, the convention center parking lot was transformed into a drive-in rally. 

Wilmington has long served as the backdrop to the political education of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. It's where he learned to overcome his childhood stutter, where he was elected U.S. senator at age 29 and where he faced intense tragedy with the deaths of his wife and daughter and then decades later his elder son. 

The memory of son Beau played a significant role in Biden’s campaign, as he was mentioned in almost every one of the candidate’s speeches. His friendship with Harris also factored into Biden choosing her as his running mate. 

But Biden's living son, Hunter, also had an impact on the campaign. His business dealings in the Ukraine were at the center of Trump’s impeachment and later came under attack by the president’s campaign. 

Delaware politicians also played an important role in shaping the Biden campaign. U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester served on the committee that helped select Harris to be Biden’s running mate, while U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, who was once an intern for Biden, was a campaign surrogate.

There has been speculation that Coons could play a significant role in the Biden administration’s Cabinet, particularly as secretary of state. Former U.S. Sen. Ted Kaufman, who served as Biden’s Senate chief of staff for years, is running his transition team.

In five decades, Biden — known for his aviator sunglasses and pearly smile — has perfected his brand as a retail politician. Everyone in Delaware has a Joe Biden story. His gaffes have become infamous. 

Yet throughout the race, Biden remained consistent with his message. He declared that America was in a “battle for the soul of the nation” and that “character is on the ballot.”

Biden is set to take the oath of office on Jan. 20. 

Marina Affo contributed reporting to this article.

Contact Meredith Newman at (302) 324-2386 or at mnewman@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter at @merenewman.