Butler County supporters of Democrat Joe Biden were elated with news Saturday that he was projected to become the next president of the United States.

The Associated Press made the call after the former vice president captured the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

President Donald Trump has refused to concede the race and his campaign has filed lawsuits in multiple states contesting the legitimacy of certain ballots.

Jim Smith (no relation to one of the reporters of this story) and his family played celebration music on their Brown Avenue porch in Butler.

The large home sports a 3.5-foot by 4-foot “Biden/Harris” sign on the second floor on both the front and back as well as lights on the first floor windows that are meant to replicate a waving United States flag.

“We were excited,” Smith said. “We were just waiting for this to happen.”

Smith texted all his friends and relatives who were at work Saturday to tell them Biden had won.

“I can’t wait,” he said of Biden assuming the office of president. “Come January, that will be the next celebration day.”

There’s also a Biden/Harris 2020 in the yard of Sharon Slagel’s home in Jefferson Township.

“This race has been hard on all of us,” Slagel said, who was thrilled to hear Biden is the president-elect.

“I feel good about it,” Slagel said. “I think we’ll be in good hands.”

Bill Cashmere of Clearfield Township seemed to be at least as happy with the prospect of Trump leaving the White House as with Biden taking up residency there.

“I’m glad (Biden) is going to be the next president,” he said. “All Trump does is lie.”

He said he believed Biden would end the U.S. war in Iraq. He also was hopeful that health care would be expanded under a Biden administration.

“Joe Biden will get us our heath care,” Cashmere said. “He’s for health care for all. He’s also going to protect Social Security so it doesn’t go bankrupt.”

Rick and Carolyn Graff of Jefferson Township are big Biden backers.

“I am overjoyed,” said Carolyn Graff. Husband Rick added, “We’ve had enough chaos,” he said. “We want our country back to normal.”

Carolyn anticipates Biden’s plan for ridding the country of the coronavirus pandemic.

“He will put in place a national pandemic program,” she said. “I hope people will accept that.”

The crisis over COVID-19 was also a top priority for Roger Roth of Prospect. He said he believed Biden would provide the leadership to put forth a nationwide COVID-19 policy.

“Like most people,” he said, “I want to see something substantive to stop the spread of the coronavirus,” he said. “We won’t have a vibrant economy with a sick population.”

He also was hopeful that Biden would be a uniter of Americans of all political stripes.

“We’re severely divided,” he said. “We need somebody in there to help us come together. I think Joe Biden is going to do his utmost to try to bring people together.”

Trump supporters like Warren Pickett of Oakland Township, not surprisingly, were anything but optimistic over the prospect of a Biden administration.

“They’re going to erase everything that Trump did,” Pickett said, “and then they’re going to start throwing their weight around.”

Specifically, he said, he feared a Biden White House would “do away with our guns and pack the (U.S.) Supreme Court.”

Pat Casey of Butler, another staunch Trump backer, was worried over a what a Biden foreign policy would look like, particularly in the Middle East.

“I am concerned the gains that happened since the last presidential election, specifically in forming strategic alliances between (Persian) Gulf states and Israel, will be undone very quickly and that a Biden administration would go back to a policy of appeasement with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

While Trump and his Republican allies have criticized media outlets for declaring Biden the winner of the election, noting that the president’s campaign is challenging the vote counts, Casey said it was not unexpected.

“I was not surprised given that the great majority of the media seemed to be campaigning for Joe Biden,” he said, “more so than the candidate and his running mate did this summer.”