A longer-than-usual wait for the Presidential election outcome ended Saturday morning as news organizations across the country called the race over and the Democratic nominee, former Vice President …
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A longer-than-usual wait for the Presidential election outcome ended Saturday morning as news organizations across the country called the race over and the Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, was named the presumptive winner.
As of this writing, President Donald Trump had not admitted defeat and was, instead, insisting without evidence that widespread voter fraud had cheated him of victory.
Pennsylvania, which in 2016 broke President Donald Trump’s way, was the tipping point. It’s 20 electoral votes pushed Biden across the 270-vote line he needed to claim the Presidency. Philadelphia was a big source of votes Biden collected in overturning 2016’s results and, unsurprisingly, Northwest Philadelphia was a significant contributor to those Democratic vote totals.
According to City Commissioner’s office, the 9th Ward, which covers all of Chestnut Hill and a northern slice of Mt. Airy, produced 9,291 votes (90.41%) for Biden. Mt. Airy’s 22nd Ward tallied 12,930 votes (95.88%) for Biden. Trump managed only 892 (8.68%) in the 9th Ward and 428 votes (3.17%) in the 22nd.
Biden improved over Hillary Clinton’s 2016 totals, which were 8,579 votes in the 9th Ward and 12,599 in the 22nd. In just those two wards, Biden added 1,043 votes to 2016’s total.
As is typically the case, turnout in both wards was high. The 9th ward turnout rate was 77.94% and the 22nd Ward enjoyed a 73.26% turnout – both notably higher than the city average of 62.85%.
According to the city, 100% of the 9th Ward votes were accounted for and 99% of the 22nd Ward’s votes had been counted. Also, a lawsuit filed last week by the Trump campaign has challenged the validity of mail-in-ballots cast before the Nov. 3 Election Day deadline but received on or after Nov. 4. The state had planned to count any votes received by Friday, Nov. 6 but the Trump campaign lawsuit has put those votes in limbo while the case gets a hearing before the judge. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said those ballots had already been set aside in anticipation of legal challenges and are not now part of the state’s voting totals.
