US election: Celebrations in cities across America after Joe Biden becomes president-elect

President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump  triggered celebrations in many parts of the United States, particularly in the battleground key states that have carried Biden into the White House.

While the official count dragged into its fifth day, parties erupted in the streets on Saturday as news organisations called Pennsylvania asd a win for Biden.

It sealed his victory after three days of tense ballot counting. From Philadelphia and New York to Chicago and Atlanta, crowds celebrated Trump’s defeat and hoped for a new political era in America.

While many Trump supporters were out in force, vowing to fight the result and contest the election, in many cities there was dqncing, crying and the honking of car horns as Biden voters celebrated.

The festive atmosphere took over Washington DC on Saturday, with Biden supporters flooding Black Lives Matter plaza outside the White House. Within seconds of the announcement that Biden had won Pennsylvania, thousands of supporters took to the streets while music and cheers could be heard from windows and balconies across the capital. Many wore Black Lives Matter tops and waved US and LGBT+ flags.

Outside the White House, people banged pots and pans and sang, “Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye,” while one man shouted, “He’s gone!”

Blocking the streets, celebrators sat on top of their cars and one person wearing an American cape waved a banner that read, “The nightmare is over.”

The lively Biden supporters, most wearing masks, held up signs that mocked the “loser” Trump while many Biden-Harris signs were raised aloft as people danced to songs like “Please Don’t Stop the Music.”

The day party continued with celebratory anthems such as “We Are The Champions.” A particularly loud rendition of the line “No time for losers” was heard outside the White House, many perhaps singing in reference to an incumbent who is still yet to concede victory.

However, Trump was not present at the White House, and instead heard news come in from the official count while at his golfing club in Virginia.

One Biden supporter among the crowds at the gates of the club held up a sign that read, “You’re fired.”

Meanwhile, in Biden’s home state, large crowds gathered outside the Philadelphia City Hall with one woman shouting “Biden town!” out her car window.

Police cut off traffic from the streets near the State House in Boston, allowing celebrations to continue throughout the day.

Partying well into the night, there were tears among some in the crowd in New York’s Times Square as people watched Biden and Kamala Harris on the big screens addressing their supporters in Delaware during victory speeches on Saturday Night.

Elsewhere, hundreds packed into Grand Army Plaza, Columbia Circle and Washington Square Park, with filmmaker Spike Lee popping a bottle of champagne in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park.

The city’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, tweeted as people took to the streets: “After the darkness, division and hate of the past four years, America has spoken and rejected more of the same.”

In another part of the city, Biden backers grouped outside the Trump International Hotel, chanting, “No more Trump!”

A similar scene played out outside Trump Tower in Chicago, where crowds cheered and rang bells, while cars honked and celebrators popped champagne.

In San Francisco, California – another state won by Biden –  a pinata effigy of Trump was paraded down the streets with signs in the crowd reading, “lock him up.”

Across the state in Oakland, where Kamala Harris was born, supporters toasted to and celebrated the vice president-elect. Harris is the country’s first woman and first African-American vice president.

A historic number of Americans voted in the election, surpassing the previous turnout record in 1908 with president-elect Biden receiving the largest number of votes ever for a presidential candidate.