Dutch PM, political leaders congratulate Joe Biden on winning U.S. Presidential Election

Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Netherlands, joined a chorus of Cabinet ministers and politicians in the country who congratulated Joe Biden on Saturday for his apparent victory over incumbent President Donald Trump in the 2020 U.S. General Election. “On behalf of the Dutch Cabinet I would like to congratulate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris with their election victory after a close race,” Rutte said.

Biden, who served as Vice President to Barack Obama, was projected to win at least 290 electoral college votes by the Associated Press and Fox News, and 273 by ABC News, CNN and NBC News. To take the Presidency in this year’s election, a candidate needs to win the vote counts in enough individual states to accumulate 270 electoral college votes out of a total of 538.

Rutte issued his statement just after 7:20 p.m., about two hours after President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris were declared the winners by most major media outlets in the United States. “I am looking forward to continuing the strong bond between our countries, and hope to speak with him about these matters soon,” he said.

On Friday, Rutte said he would not congratulate either Biden or Trump until it was clear who would be seating in the Oval Office on January 20 at noon local time, the traditional moment every four years when a president is sworn in to office. "I am Prime Minister of the Netherlands, and, when there is a clear winner, my job is to work well with them. I am not going to comment on everything going on and happening in the meantime,” Rutte said.

Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said Saturday on social media, “Biden and Harris. What a great outcome to these exciting elections. A new chapter for America, with the important task of overcoming the great divisions in the country.” De Jonge, the new leader of the CDA will be among those challenging Prime Minister Mark Rutte during the election in the Netherlands next year.

His fellow Cabinet member, Minister Sigrid Kaag of foreign trade and development, said, “At long last. A historic change. Biden and Harris. Values matter, integrity matters. Leadership matters. The country can start its healing process into its future.” Kaag, a former resident of New York City from when she worked at the United Nations, is the new leader of D66 and has also said she aspires to lead the Netherlands.

Her colleague at D66, Member of Parliament Rob Jetten and Labour Party leader Lodewijk Asscher distributed their own messages on social media along with a video of Van Jones, a former aide to President Barack Obama, tearing up while presenting election coverage on CNN. “This is so beautiful. America can breathe again after today. Go Joe! Go Kamala!” Jetten wrote.

”Politics matters,” Asscher stated.

Meanwhile, GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver tweeted out a simple, “YESSS Joe Biden president!” above a series of mobile phone alerts he received from a variety of news outlets announcing a Biden victory. Gert-Jan Segers of ChristenUnie and the VVD’s party leader in Parliament, Klaas Dijkhoff, both sent out messages of support to Biden.

Neither of the two nationalist party leaders, Geert Wilders of the PVV and Thierry Baudet of FvD, issued statements by 8 p.m. on Saturday.

Each state in America is assigned a number of electors to represent the state based on their population. Different media outlets hesitated to declare that Biden was the President-Elect until enough votes had been counted in Pennsylvania, worth 20 electoral college votes, to create an insurmountable lead. Biden’s win in Pennsylvania was likely because of a high voter turnout in the cities of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and securing a hundred thousand more votes in he suburbs of Philadelphia than the 2016 Democratic Party candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Some American news outlets and analysts were still divided on Saturday about the vote counts in Arizona (11 electors), Georgia (16), Nevada (6) and North Carolina (15).

By 8 p.m., Biden’s popular vote count was approximately 74.5 million, four million more than Trump’s total.

Biden was first elected to the U.S. Senate on November 7, 1972, and 48 years to the day he was projected to be the next U.S. President.