After five days of Americans sitting on the edge of their seat waiting for the election results to come in, it has been announced by the Associated Press that former Vice President Joe Biden has won with (currently as of Saturday, Nov. 7 at 6 pm) 290 electoral votes, and is ahead by over four million popular votes.

President Donald Trump was wrong to have declared victory so soon in the election with few mail-in ballots counted. His declaration was in blatant disregard to our democracy and spread baseless claims of fraud in a last-grab attempt to undermine our election process in his favor.

 It was embarrassing to watch his supporters chant to keep counting the ballots in Arizona where he was losing, but on the east coast in Pennsylvania and Georgia, his supporters were rallying to stop the votes from being counted while Trump was ahead in those states. 

All ballots deserve to be counted, and leniency and patience should have been the policy in the middle of a pandemic. His behavior only proves that first, he knew that he was going to lose and was making every effort to try to spread false conspiracy and doubt in our democracy, and second, that he is an incredibly sore loser.

Overall, Trump’s actions do not paint him in a good light. Instead of accepting his loss graciously which has been the precedent set by the past leaders of our country and committing to a peaceful succession of power, he’s pouting like a spoiled child and claiming fraud. He sued in Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania based on voter fraud with mail-in ballots, and all of those court cases were thrown out because there is no evidence to prove that there was any substantial fraud in those states. 

Even after they got thrown out and Biden was declared the winner by the Associated Press and other major news outlets, he issued a statement saying that this election is not over and he will continue to fight legal battles to “ensure that all votes are properly counted and the rightful winner is in place”. 

Based on his actions, it is no surprise that Trump lost this election. His highest approval rating over the past four years was 49%, and he did not win the popular vote in 2016, he lost it by two million votes to Hillary Clinton. On top of not having the majority of support from the American people, he has also been claiming that mail-in ballots are fraudulent and urging his supporters to vote in-person via polling booths. It is no surprise that mail-in ballots were in Biden’s favor considering this and that states that were red before mail-in ballots were counted turned blue once they were. 

All in all, Trump’s behavior is not what we should expect or accept from our President, and it is extremely unprofessional and dangerous, breaking the proud American tradition of a peaceful and stable succession of power.