The 2020 presidential election was called for former Vice President Joseph Biden by most major news outlets on Nov. 7, prompting mixed reactions by the American public.

Since then, President Donald Trump has refused to concede the election and maintains that he is the rightful winner. His supporters, politicians and public figures, aligned with his argument that Biden will only win if there’s fraud.

Biden won the popular vote by around five million votes, with over 78 million ballots cast in his favor, compared to Trump’s 73 million votes.

Since many states changed their laws, making it so electors in the Electoral College have to vote the same way that the state’s popular vote does, Biden also won the necessary 270 electors to win the presidency. He won with 306 electors, exactly two more electoral votes than when Trump won back in 2016.

The Ticker asked Baruch College students to share their thoughts on the election and its presidential, congressional and local winners through a Google survey shared on social media. Four students have responded to the survey as of press time.

Based on the responses of this survey, although not representative of the Baruch population, there seemed to be a consensus that Biden was the lawful winner in this election.

“I believe the results are right and there was no fraud,” sophomore Kasper Gacek said. “And Biden is the rightful winner. Trump should accept his loss and not be a baby about it. A president should be formal and he’s not formal in his behavior,” he said.

This line of thinking is not uncommon among Bearcats, it seems.

“President Trump needs to concede,” public affairs major Maleeka Zainab said. “He is embarrassing himself and the country by spreading misinformation. I accept the Biden presidency and am looking forward to his administration bringing about real policy changes that will make the country more progressive.”

However, not all participants in the survey were particularly happy with this outcome, such as junior finance major Yehuda Wexler.

“3/5 of the presidential candidates on the ballot,Kanye wasn’t on the ballot in New York, have significant sexual assault/ molestation allegations against them. We should be ashamed of ourselves as a country,” he responded.

The Ticker also asked students to explain why they believed in the results of the election.

“As in the acceptance of the result, there is no doubt in my mind that those who wanted a change made sure to vote and as a result had their vote heard and counted, even if it took a couple of days,” senior Kathrin Deda said. “To accuse of a ‘rigged election’ because one has lost is not only poor sportsmanship but most importantly a threat to democracy. It’s not just Americans watching, but the whole world. For such serious accusations, it can ruin not only the relationships between Americans and Politicians but also international relations as well. At the end of the day, the United States is a representative democracy. Our government is elected by citizens and these officials represent the citizen’s ideas and concerns in government. The people have spoken and they wanted a new president and administration for the next four years,” she said.

As for the congressional races, students agreed a bit more. All three of the respondents who wrote about their thoughts on the congressional races admitted that they were not entirely happy with the way they turned out.

“As a Democrat, it really bothered me how poorly the party performed with regards to losing seats in the House. It is debatable what caused these losses but Democrats should’ve maintained a strong majority in the House without losing seats,” Zainab explained. “As for the Senate, it looks like there will be gridlock moving forward because of how competitive the races were. It really all comes down to Georgia. Thinking about the future of the Senate worries me.”

However, no matter who wins or loses, one student respondent said, there is still more work to be done.

“It is a sigh of relief that America has elected a new president, however much work needs to be done,” Deda said. “The current administration is not solely at fault for the flaws of America that need to be confronted and fixed. These issues that we currently face have been around for a very long time in American history, but from the past 4 years, it has been heightened to the maximum. From this current administration and the experiences the American people and immigrants had faced for the past 4 years, our standards have stooped to a new low, and just about anyone but this current president will be better for America’s future and based on the results I’m certainly not the only one that has this opinion.”

Editor’s Note: Yehuda Wexler, who was quoted in this article, is a former Ticker news writer.