WASHINGTON — Inauguration Day will be January 20, 2021.
With Joe Biden's projected win of the presidency, many are looking to see how Inauguration Day will look amid the coronavirus pandemic.
"We're going to decide," said Sen. Roy Blunt, (R-MO), chair of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies on Sunday. "We're planning for a normal inauguration," he said.
Blunt said it's easier to scale up than scale down. Spring Binsted, a spokeswoman for the committee, said a lot will depend on how bad COVID gets in January.
Plans and construction efforts are already underway for an event that usually attracts hundreds of thousands of people to Washington. Booking sites show plane ticket prices and hotel room rates are already rising, even in the midst of the pandemic.
Construction of the swearing in platform at the Capitol started on Sept. 29, according to Binsted. A spokesman for the National Park Service said work started a couple of weeks ago on the parade reviewing stand in front of the White House. "We just couldn't wait," said Mike Litterst or the Park Service.
Litterst said it's too early to know if thousands of people will be allowed to crowd together on the National Mall.
The Biden Campaign has yet to name a Chair for the Presidential Inaugural Committee.
GOP Sen. Blunt declined to say who he thought would take the oath. "I expect to see both Vice President Biden and President Trump on the stage on Inauguration Day," he said. But it will be a powerful message (about democracy) no matter which one is sworn in that day," he said.
The size of his crowd on Inauguration Day was a sore point for weeks for President Trump.
The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies said the theme for the 59th Inaugural Ceremonies is “Our Determined Democracy: Forging a More Perfect Union.”
All indications show that JCCIC will set up for Inauguration Day and look to scale back if need be, based on COVID precautions.
Sections of Lafayette Park and outside of the White House have already been blocked off to the public as part of the National Park Service and the U.S. Secret Service preparing for inauguration day.
Construction crews are also in the midst of constructions for both the inauguration platform and stands at the U.S. Capitol.
Tickets for the ceremonies are usually requested through your state's U.S. Senator or Congressional member.
The number of tickets given out is limited, and some offices have instituted “lottery” systems as a means of assigning tickets.
Check back with this story and we'll update details as we learn more.
In the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, Americans turned out in record numbers to cast their votes, and although results won’t be certified for a few more weeks, Joe Biden is projected by the AP and CBS News to be the next president of the United States. With a projected win in Pennsylvania, Biden would secure the 270 electoral votes necessary to defeat incumbent President Donald Trump.
Biden victories around the Great Lakes, a region that helped Trump win the presidency in 2016, became a turning point in the 2020 election as Biden pulled ahead in the electoral vote count.