Hello, and welcome back to another edition of Lace ‘Em Up’s Presidential Election series as will be going over the Election of 2020. Donald Trump has been president for four years and his looking for re-election as goes up against former Delaware Senator and Vice President, Joe Biden…Let’s get into it.

The Presidency of Donald Trump

After shocking the world with his victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, Donald Trump embarked on one of the more unique presidencies in Modern American History.

Trump, like the majority of Republicans both in the Senate and the House wasted no time attempting to undo much of Barack Obama’s achievements in office with the biggest being to repel and replace ‘Obamacare’ which nearly faced extinction when a vote to repeal it came to the Senate floor. In July of 2017, a small number of Republicans including Senator John McCain refused to support the motion and thus ending the GOP’s final efforts of wiping away Obamacare.

Other unsavory domestic efforts saw Trump’s relief response to tropical disasters be might with criticism, he had numerous members of his adminsration resign or fired with 43% of turnovers happening by 2018, he placed three new Justices (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett) on the Supreme Court, he gave tax breaks to the rich and his actions during many nonviolent protests or the August 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia weren’t received well by the public.

On foreign affairs, America nearly avoided a war with Iran after a top military general was killed via drone strike under Trump’s orders, he escalated a trade war with China, he pulled the U.S. out of the Iran Nuclear Deal and the Paris Climate Agreement and the less said about the Muslim ban and seperating immigrant families across the border the better.

That said Trump did have some achievements: he repealed the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), he signed the First Step Act which reduced harsher prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders but also reduced the amount of inmates in prison, and he passed tax cuts for Middle Class Americans with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017; Ultimately, Trump easily won re-nomination with Mike Pence again as his running mate.

The Coronavirus aka COVID-19 Pandemic

In early 2020, a virus stemming from Wuhan, China began to spread throughout various parts of the global with every country and nation affected in some form or fashion. Known as the Coronavirus (or COVID-19 Pandemic for short), the death toll went into the millions worldwide and the virus would soon make it’s way to America.

President Trump’s downplaying of the virus and slow response to it invading the U.S. would lead to multiple lockdowns for businesses and schools while the number of dead in the U.S. went around over 230,000 people with that number continuing to grow in size.

Although the economy remained stable under Trump’s first few years, the pandemic as well as his penchant for deregulation saw the U.S economy suffer the worst crash since the Great Recession and the Great Depression with unemployment getting around 15%.

2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates

Needless to say, the Democrats had more than enough things run against Trump and Republicans going into the 2020 presidential election with 29 candidates announcing their bid for the presidency which is the highest number of presidential hopefuls for the Democratic Party since 1972.

Without taking too much time, here are a few key names who ran for the nomination:

• Michael Bloomberg- A Billionarie and former Major of New York City
• Elizabeth Warren- Senator from Massachusetts
• Pete Buttigieg- Mayor of South Bend, Indiana
• Tulsi Gabbard- U.S. Representative from Hawaii, War Hero and former official to the DNC
• Andrew Yang- New York Native and Entrepreneur
• Kamala Harris- Former DEA Agent and Senator from California
• Amy Klobuchar- Senator from Minnesota
• Bernie Sanders- Senator from Vermont
• Joe Biden- Former Vice President and former Senator from Delaware

Names like Kamala Harris, soon dropped out before the primaries even began thanks to Tulsi’s scathing remarks about her while others would stick around longer than expected like Warren, Buttigieg, Kloduchar, Yang and Bloomberg.

The two major candidates that got the most attention were Biden and Sanders with Biden being the former VP to Obama and Sanders who was still riding his wave of popularity since the previous election.

In fact, Sanders had the most support from the majority of the party’s minority and young adult voters which scared the establishment Democrats who feared a Bernie Sanders presidency and thus launched a plan in which high ranking Democrats like President Obama would convince the remaining candidates to drop out of the race and throw their support behind Biden going into Super Tuesday.

The plan worked, as Biden (who found success in a few primaries) soon became the party’s nominee for president and he choose Kamala Harris as his running mate.

Debates & Campaign Strategies

With a health crisis taking over much of the United States, the traditional way of campaigning around the country was out of the question with former Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe later admitting that keeping Biden away from the campaign trail and having him talk with people via Zoom was part of the strategy.

That being said, when Biden did go out and campaign he talked in front of people inside their cars who then proceeded to honk their horns at him either in approval or opposition.

Trump on the other hand, held many rallies with himself nor the people in attendance not wearing any masks to protect themselves from the airbourne virus. Trump also became the third president to face Impeachment and found not gulity by the majority of Republicans after he tried to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on Hunter Biden (Joe Biden’s son) going into the election.

The 2020 debates can best be described as a hot mess when it came to Trump and Biden as the first debate essentially came off as two old men yelling at each other all while former Fox News now CNN anchor and debate moderator, Chris Wallace failed to restore order.

A second debate was cancelled due to Trump contracting the Coronavirus and the third debate went on after the president was healthy enough to do so, with the moderators now being able to shut off the mics of candidates who are speaking when they shouldn’t.

As election day quickly approaches, many expected to see another close presidential race with many believing Biden could squeak out a victory.

Election of 2020: The Results

The turnout in this election reached 66-67% which not only broken the record for highest voter turnout in the 21st century with the 2008 election, but it also became the highest turnout for a president election since 1900 thanks in large part to many voters choosing to mail their votes in due to the pandemic.

When it was all said and done, Joe Biden became the 46th President of the United States and the oldest president ever elected since Donald Trump or Ronald Reagan.

Biden carried 25 states plus D.C. and the second congressional district in Nebraska to get 306 electoral votes and 51.3% of the popular vote compared to Trump who also carried 25 states and the second congressional district in Maine to end up with 232 electoral votes and 46.8% of the popular vote.

With this loss, Trump became the first one term Republican President since George HW Bush; Speaking of Bush, Biden became the first VP since HW to become president and Kamala Harris became the first female VP and first African American woman to become Vice President.

Unfortunately, we all know what came next…

January 6 & The Aftermath

After refusing to accept defeat and trying on numerous occasions to overturn the election results, Trump decided to host a rally not far away from the U.S. Capital where the electoral and popular votes were being counted on January 6th 2021.

The rally ended up with Trump insighting his audience to walk down to the Capitol which they did, before storming the buliding through violence and vandalizing much of the area; Some were even going so far as to try and find Mike Pence who was certifying the results with the rioters hoping to capture and hang the VP from a noose placed just outside of the Capitol.

Somehow only a handful of people died, many were injured and dozens of arrest were made with Trump losing his Twitter account (until he got back thanks to Elon Musk who rebranded the site as ‘X’), but more importantly Trump faced impeachment once again for his role in the instigating the riots but once again was found not gulity.

Biden and Harris would have to lead the nation out of the pandemic among other important events and Trump would end up facing some legal troubles before making it clear he wanted his old job back running for the presidency again in 2024.

And with that we’ve done it ladies and gentlemen; Every single U.S. Presidential Election has been documented on this website. I would like to take this time to thank everyone for joining me on this journey through history as we get closer to the 2024 general election.

If you like this kind of content, be sure to follow Lace ‘Em Up on X @laceemupoffice you can follow me also on X @hakeemfullerton and I’ll see you for the next article.