A projected election win by Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden has caused a divide in the Republican Party, as some of its key figures rushed to congratulate him, while others agreed with Donald Trump that the race isn’t over yet.
Biden declared himself the winner in the US presidential election on Saturday after several major television networks projected that the 77-year-old candidate had defeated the incumbent following four days of tense vote counts in several battleground states.
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, a member of the Bush family, which gave America two Republican presidents, was one of the first to congratulate the candidate from the rival party.
Bush wrote on Twitter that he had been praying for US presidents most of his adult life and that he was going to continue doing the same for Biden. “Many are counting on you to lead the way,” he said, addressing the Democratic nominee.
Mitt Romney, who was the Republicans’ presidential candidate in 2012 but lost to Barack Obama, insisted that Biden and his running-mate, Kamala Harris, were both “people of good will and admirable character.” He also promised to pray for them during their time in office.
Republican Party veteran and senator from Tennessee, Lamar Alexander, stopped short of congratulating Biden. The 80-year-old only urged both candidates to accept the results of the vote, reminding that the presidential election was “the most enduring symbol of our democracy.”
Junior senator from Missouri, Josh Hawley, also pointed out that it wasn’t up to the media to designate the president, and called on the public to wait for the official results.
There were some in the Republican camp who weren’t yet ready to accept defeat. Representative for Arizona Paul Gosar insisted “the election isn’t over until all the votes are counted,” basically repeating an earlier statement by Trump, who blasted Biden for falsely posing as the winner.
Former Republican Senate majority whip John Cornyn warned that Biden and the Democratic majority in the Senate “would cinch the radical agenda of the left.” He called for the Democrats to be stopped during the runoff in the Senate race in Georgia in early January, as it’ll determine who will have control of the upper chamber of Congress.
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