In one of the hardest-fought elections in modern American history, former Vice President Joe Biden has won the presidency after amassing a majority of votes in the Electoral College, according to multiple news organizations.
The New York Times, Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, and most other mainstream media outlets on Saturday projected Biden the winner after he clinched a victory in Pennsylvania, one of the battleground states that have still been counting votes, many of them mail-in ballots, in the days since Election Day. Television networks and newspapers had waited for almost all the Pennsylvania votes to be counted before declaring Biden the winner.
The victory in Pennsylvania, along with a win in Nevada later on Saturday, gives Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, 279 electoral votes in 23 states* plus the District of Columbia so far, the news organizations said. That’s more than the 270 electoral votes needed to secure victory, with a few states still too close to call. President Trump and his running mate, Vice President Mike Pence, have so far won in 23 states** with 214 electoral votes.
Biden is set to become the nation’s 46th president after he takes the oath of office on January 20. Trump is the first president to lose his bid for re-election since George H.W. Bush in 1992, and only the 10th in American history.
“For all those of you who voted for President Trump, I understand the disappointment tonight,” Biden said in a speech Saturday night. “I’ve lost a couple times myself. But now, let’s give each other a chance. It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again, listen to each other again.”
He added, “This is the time to heal in America.”
Harris will become America’s first female vice president and the first Black American and first Asian American to hold that office. She told supporters on Saturday that she hoped to inspire girls in America to realize that there were no limits to their dreams.
“While I may be the first woman in this office,” Harris told the cheering crowd, “I won’t be the last.”
But President Trump has not conceded the election. Minutes after all the major TV networks, including CNN and Fox News, had declared Biden the winner, Trump released a statement saying that the “election is far from over.”
His campaign has filed nearly a dozen lawsuits, most seeking to stop the counting of mail-in ballots, in Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. The Trump campaign also said it would ask for a recount of the vote in Wisconsin, where state law permits a candidate to request one if the margin between the winner and loser is less than 1 percent. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Friday that there would be a recount in Georgia because of the incredibly close margin between Trump and Biden.
Most legal experts have said, however, that the Trump campaign’s election challenges are unlikely to alter the result. Still, without a concession from the president, many top Republicans in Congress have refrained from publicly congratulating Biden. A few prominent Republicans did reach out to him or discuss what a Biden presidency might look like.
Former President George W. Bush, a Republican, said Sunday that he’d called Biden to offer his best wishes.
“The American people can have confidence that this election was fundamentally fair,” Bush said in a statement. “Its integrity will be upheld, and its outcome is clear.”
“Though we have political differences, I know Joe Biden to be a good man, who has won his opportunity to lead and unify our country,” Bush added.