Tuesday, November 3, 2020 was not the day Americans anticipated.

Those who voted blue probably went to bed that night disappointed and discouraged. On the other side of the spectrum, those who voted for the incumbent president were probably happy. Donald Trump was projected to win Florida and Texas after a long night of back and forth. These two states had a lot of potential to flip democratic, but failed to do so.

If Joe Biden had won either one of these states, the race would have been over. However, Wednesday, November 4 brought some surprises. It was announced early in the day that Biden had won the battleground state of Wisconsin, gaining it’s 10 electoral votes. Later that afternoon, Michigan was announced as a Biden victory as well.

Both Michigan and Wisconsin were Trump wins in 2016. At this point, the Trump Administration started filing lawsuits against various states. Many of these lawsuits were throwaways, as they had no proper evidence of any “fraud”. Many of Trump’s claims of fraudulent ballots have been shut down. With the ongoing pandemic, there were more mail-in/absentee ballots this year than ever before. Any vote cast before or on election day is a legal vote. Donald Trump had discouraged his supporters from voting by mail, therefore most of the mail-in ballots were votes for Biden.

The margins in critical states like Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia were all closing in. Trump had been leading PA and GA all week, but on Thursday morning that changed.

At first, Biden had small leads in those states, but they gradually got larger. On the other side, Biden’s lead in Arizona had begun to shrink. Trump supporters chanted “stop the count” outside polling places in PA and GA, as they thought the votes were cast illegally.

Oddly enough, the opposite was happening in Arizona. Republicans chanted “count every vote” outside polling sites in Arizona. Hypothetically speaking, if they had stopped counting votes in Pennsylvania and Georgia at that time, Biden would have been the declared winner of those states anyways. On Saturday, around noon, former Vice President Joe Biden was projected the winner of Pennsylvania giving him 20 electoral votes, ultimately winning the 2020 election.

Vice President-elect, Kamala Harris, made history as being the first woman ever elected VP. Not only that, but she is the first Asian American to be elected into office. Americans erupted into the streets in big cities like New York City, Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago. Celebrations occurred all over the country. American flags were being waved proudly once again. Strangers began to sing and dance with each other. People of all ages, genders, races, religions, and sexualities gathered to celebrate a victory not for themselves, but for all Americans.

As of today, Trump has refused to concede the election but Biden and his team are moving forward with transition plans. December 14 is when all states are to submit their Electoral College votes.