Congress Certifies Biden's Win After the Capitol Was Cleared

Congress came back to the Capitol on January 7, 2021, and completed the Electoral College count that had been interrupted the night before when the building was breached by a pro-Trump mob. The joint session had been evacuated on January 6 as lawmakers were rushed to safety. When the Senate and House reconvened the next day, they picked up where they had left off and formally certified Joe Biden’s 306-232 victory. That made the day more than a procedural finish. The vote count was the constitutional mechanism for confirming the election result, and it had been thrown into chaos by the attack on the Capitol. After the election, Trump and some allies pressed fraud claims, lobbied state officials, and urged Congress to reject or delay the results. Those efforts did not alter the outcome, but they did help create the pressure campaign that was running in the background when the joint session was forced to stop. The return to the chamber was stark in its own way. Certification is supposed to be routine, a formal step after voters have already decided the race. Instead, Congress had to resume the count under heavy security after a violent interruption that left police overwhelmed and lawmakers sheltering inside the complex. The facts were plain enough: the count was not changed, the Electoral College result stood, and the transfer of power moved forward. By finishing the certification on January 7, Congress closed the last official chapter of the 2020 presidential election. It did so after an assault on the Capitol had made the process look fragile, but not breakable. The result remained Biden’s victory. The interruption did not erase that. It only showed how much damage had to be undone before the government could finish saying so out loud.