Over ten days after the US presidential election, one would have thought that there wouldn’t be anything new to report and that the winner has already been called. Certainly, with all but two states finalizing their results, the election was called for Joe Biden. However, there is a continued uncertainty over the transition of power, a process that should have begun already but has not.
Incumbent President Donald Trump has refused to acknowledge the election results. He has claimed that the election is being ‘stolen’ through voter fraud in an attempt to delegitimize the results. Senior GOP officials have also backed the President instead of trying to bring him back to reality.
Trump’s team has engaged in several legal challenges to try and change the outcome of the election. The states of Wisconsin and Georgia are currently undergoing recounts. The former is not expected to produce anything new, as Biden’s lead in Wisconsin was substantial and recounts usually only affect a couple hundred votes at most. Georgia, however, is a closer call, so there is a small chance for Trump there.
Some of Trump’s court cases have already been dismissed. In other instances, states are investigating signals of possible fraud. Trump claimed that dead people have voted for Biden. While this investigation is still happening, already it has been confirmed that in one case, it was a person with the same name as someone who had died but a slightly different spelling; another case was a dead man’s widow voting by listing herself as “Mrs.” and her husband’s name. It’s likely that the rest of the “dead people voting” reports are mistakes, or rather misunderstandings, of a similar sort.
Nevertheless, while this process has been going on, Biden’s lead has increased. The states of Nevada and most recently, Arizona have been called for Biden this week. He currently sits at 290 electoral votes. This is without counting Georgia, which he technically won before the recount began.
A recent development has been that some Republican senators have stood by Joe Biden, asking for the transition process to be allowed to begin. Normally, in the time between the election and stepping into office, the President-elect is briefed on current security issues. They also use this time to obtain security clearances for their team and do other important prep.
Republicans are arguing that previously, in 2000, when the results of the election were highly contested, the President-elect was not given enough time to prepare, which contributed to the 2001 terrorist attacks. Thus, Joe Biden is now getting some support from the Republican Party as well, since many politicians recognize national security is more important than Donald Trump’s personal aspirations.
Still, we expect that risk aversion will continue to dominate the markets until the government finally acknowledges defeat and makes room for Joe Biden to get things ready for his term as President.
