(VOVWORLD) - The US presidential election ended after a fierce race between incumbent President Donald Trump and Democrat candidate Joe Biden. But the official result has not been announced yet. Biden said on Twitter that with the campaign over, it’s time for America to unite and to heal. That would not be an easy task, even if the coronavirus pandemic were not still raging.
 Democrat Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the city of Wilmington, Delaware on November 7th, 2020. (Photo: AP) |
The US presidential election saw a record high voter turnout for both Democrats and Republicans this year.
A divided America
Analysts say the US is the most divided it’s been in decades. The record voter turnout in the middle of a pandemic was driven by a bitter division between the Republicans and the Democrats.
A recent survey by the Associated Press showed Republicans and Democrats poles apart on social issues and national priorities. Biden’s supporters want the government to control the COVID-19 pandemic even if it means further economic losses. Trump’s supporters, on the other hand, think the pandemic is far less serious than the struggling economy.
50% of Trump voters single out jobs and the economy as their top concern, five times the percentage of Biden voters who do so. Almost all of Biden’s supporters say systemic racism is a serious problem, compared with about half of Trump’s supporters who say so.
The vote counting has finished but controversy around it is escalating. Trump’s backers have demonstrated near vote-counting centers, in some places tens of them, triggered by accusations of election fraud. President Trump has said he will sue over the election results.
The political division in the US is further inflamed by racism. Large protests staged to demand justice for black Americans after the death in police custody of George Floyd have erupted in violence and civil unrest in a number of cities.
Call for unity, healing
Historian Barbara Perry, Director of Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, says that, except for the Civil War, she doesn’t think the US has lived through any time as perilous as this.
On November 7, Joe Biden delivered a message calling for unity. It's time for Americans to come together as a nation to heal, he said, because there are neither red nor blue states, only the United States of America.