Democratic candidate Joe Biden captured a record-setting 77 million votes to secure his seat in the White House as president-elect of the United States. Sitting President Donald Trump will become the first one-term president since George H.W. Bush lost his re-election bid in 1994.

The delayed results in key battleground states left students at Goshen College with unanswered questions, until the Associated Press first projected Biden as president-elect on Saturday, Nov. 7.

In his victory acceptance speech, President-elect Biden offered promises of unity under his presidency as he looks to take over the oval office in the middle of a historic pandemic and historic divisiveness across the country.

“I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify and doesn’t see red states and blue states, but only sees the United States,” he said.

Ian Martin, senior sociology major who voted for President-elect Biden, was discouraged by these remarks given in Biden’s victory speech.

“I hope Biden recognizes that his message of ‘unity’ could be our country’s demise,” Martin said. “Republicans have shown us that they have no interest in cooperation, so yielding to their white supremacy at all might be a terrible mistake.”

Others on campus believe there is still hope for a second term under President Trump.

Brooklyn Harris, a senior nursing major who voted for President Trump said she is not declaring Biden as president-elect and is holding out for a different outcome.

“I believe that there was large-scale voter fraud and that is the only reason that it seems Biden and Harris have won the election, but I believe that once all the fraud is exposed, President Trump will be the president once again,” she said.

Claims of voter fraud have been widespread among the Republican Party, but have been largely unfounded and unsuccessful in initial legal battles in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona according to National Public Radio.

With two months before the inauguration of President-elect Biden, there are two decisive senate seats in Georgia set for a run-off in January. Democratic senators need to capture both seats in order to hold a majority, Republicans need just one.

The projected victory was historic on many levels as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will break two glass ceilings, becoming the first woman, and person of color to serve as vice president.