US election 2020 result LIVE updates: US networks declare Biden President after projecting Pennsylvania victory

Top Republican Senator Romney congratulates 'President-elect' Biden

See Pics: Joe Biden becomes President-elect; America celebrates

Former US president Barack Obama hailed fellow Democrat Joe Biden's "historic and decisive victory" Saturday in the US election, and appealed to Americans to overcome bitter divides and "find some common ground."

"Once every vote is counted, President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect (Kamala) Harris will have won a historic and decisive victory," Obama, Donald Trump's White House predecessor, said in a statement.

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday congratulated Joe Biden on winning the White House, shortly after US media called the race for the Democrat over Donald Trump.

"I look forward to working with President-elect Biden, Vice President-elect (Kamala) Harris, their administration, and the United States Congress as we tackle the world's greatest challenges together," Trudeau said in a statement.

Germany hails 'new start' in transatlantic ties after Biden win

Trump's campaign team said federal civil rights case will be filed in either Philadelphia or Pittsburgh.

"There are plans to file a similar case in Atlanta," Rudi Guiliani said.

US TV networks called the race on Saturday for Democrat Joe Biden despite the Republican unabashedly seizing on the power of incumbency.

Read full Story: 'Networks don't decide elections, courts do': Trump's team refuses to concede

Biden, 77, will be the oldest candidate to be ever elected to the White House. Trump, 74, has made as yet unsubstantiated claims of massive voter fraud, and his campaign has launched legal challenges in several states.

Read full story: US networks project Biden victory in Pennsylvania, declare him President

Biden changes his Twitter bio to "President-elect"

 

CNN, NBC News and CBS News called the race in his favor, after projecting he had won the decisive state of Pennsylvania.

Biden, 77, is the oldest candidate ever elected to the White House. Trump, 74, has made as yet unsubstantiated claims of massive voter fraud, and his campaign has launched legal challenges in several states.

 

Trump left the presidential residence for the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia.

Trump has claimed: "I won this election, by a lot!" - a claim that was flagged by Twitter.

As vote count continues, Trump leaves White House and arrives at golf club.

As President Donald Trump fumes over the unfolding US presidential election results, some of his fellow Republicans in Congress have hinted that he ought to tone down his rhetoric.

Trump on Thursday said in a White House statement: "If you count the legal votes I easily win." Without presenting evidence, he accused Democrats of "trying to steal an election."

Some senior Republicans voiced support for the president's claims. House of Representatives Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Fox News: "President Trump won this election. So everyone who's listening, do not be quiet."

 

Trump set to for "big" press conference

Vote count continues in Philadelphia

The US Postal Service (USPS) delivered about 40,000 ballots on Thursday as it continues to conduct court-ordered twice-daily sweeps before various state deadlines to receive ballots.

In court, a Justice Department lawyer said it appears 668 of the 1,076 ballots in Philadephia were discovered on Wednesday and not Thursday.

Ballots must be received by Friday evening in Pennsylvania in order to be counted. The vote for the US president remains extremely close and Pennsylvania is one of the states that remains undecided.

There are about 15 states that have ballot receipt deadlines next week.

Watch: News anchor Anderson Cooper compares Donald Trump to 'obese turtle'

As the tense voting continues in the US, Philadelphia police said  they were investigating an alleged plot to attack the city's Pennsylvania Convention Center, where votes from the hotly contested presidential election were being counted.

Americans have been waiting longer than any presidential election year since 2000 to learn the winner, with vote counting slowed by a record number of mail-in ballots. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted many to avoid voting in person on Tuesday's Election Day.

Former Vice President Biden, 77, has the math largely on his side with a 253-to-214 lead in the state-by-state Electoral College vote that determines the winner, according to Edison Research. 

Watch: Explained - Delay in US election results

Biden is also ahead in Arizona and Georgia -- two states that have not voted for Democrats in the 21st century -- as well as Nevada, while Trump held a slim lead in North Carolina.

Georgia said it was ordering a recount due to the narrow margin and the southern state will also have runoff races in January for both its Senate seats, which will likely determine if Democrats wrest control of the upper chamber and give Biden a wider path to legislative victories.

The US Office of Special Counsel has opened an investigation into allegations that the Trump campaign's use of the White House as an Election Day command center violated federal law, Democratic Representative Bill Pascrell said.

The White House denied any violation of the federal law. "Both the official activity of Administration officials, as well as any political activity undertaken by members of the Administration, are conducted in compliance with the Hatch Act," said spokesman Judd Deere.

 

Watch: US Supreme Court says no to immediate halt of Pennsylvania count

Biden's lead has grown inexorably in Pennsylvania, which would hand him the keys to the White House if he secures its 20 votes in the Electoral College that determines presidential races.

The Trump campaign has seized on the delay to demand a halt to counting in states where it is behind, notably Pennsylvania whose Republican Party approached the US Supreme Court.

Republicans had been fighting for months against allowing Pennsylvania to count ballots postmarked by Election Day if they arrive by Friday.

In Wisconsin, where Biden eked out a narrow victory in results made known by early Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that only votes received by Election Day would count.

Most states allow rival parties to observe counting but challenges on the rules have taken time, with Trump's supporters taking particular issue with Philadelphia's rule that watchers stay at least 15 feet (4.5 meters) away due to Covid risks.

In Pennsylvania, the Republican-led legislature rejected an effort to let authorities count ahead of Election Day, contributing to the scenario in which its biggest city Philadelphia -- a Democratic stronghold -- reported returns last.

Some places have unique factors delaying vote-counting such as Chatham County in tightly fought Georgia, where an election division and a registration board separately look at ballots.
 

Nevada, which also has a tight race, will count ballots postmarked by Election Day so long as they arrive by November 10.

Also causing delays are provisional ballots, which are issued to voters if there is confusion about their registration and need verification.

With concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, states accustomed to limited numbers of absentee votes have been deluged with ballots mailed by citizens who do not want to risk voting in person.

Some 65.2 million of the record 160 million Americans who voted this year did so by mail, according to an estimate of the US Elections Project.

North Carolina has held off on counting at least 171,000 ballots -- which could make the difference -- as by law it accepts votes that arrive by mail through November 12 so long as they were postmarked by Election Day.

Watch:

US Supreme Court justice has denied a request by Pennsylvania's Republicans to immediately halt the counting of ballots arriving after Election Day.

 

ICYMI | Biden urged patience in his national address

Biden expressed confidence that he would defeat President Donald Trump as vote counting dragged on from Tuesday's election but stopped short of declaring himself the winner. He pledged to unite a bitterly divided nation, as he closed in on winning the US presidency.

READ FULL STORY

Suspended animation -- by far the best moniker given to the current political situation in the US

News agency AP says, "Four days after the election, the U.S. presidential race hovered in suspended animation Saturday as the long, exacting work of counting votes brought Democrat Joe Biden ever closer to a victory over President Donald Trump."

New results out of Georgia

Biden has a small but significant lead. 

The state is anyway heading for a recount.
 

Two White House officials ousted, few in line

Trump has demoted the nation's top federal energy regulator. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission announced Thursday evening that Trump had replaced Neil Chatterjee, the agency's chairman.

Chatterjee has recently backed policies that support electric vehicles, rooftop solar and other clean energy solutions. Trump, on the other hand, has fiercely backed coal -- a fuel source that is rapidly losing ground to solar and wind.

The other demotion is of Bonnie Glick, the second highest-ranking official at the US Agency for International Development. She was ousted Friday.

The biggest name, however, to appear in this list is of Defense Secretary Mark Esper's.

He has reportedly prepared his resignation letter in anticipation that Trump will fire him if he wins reelection. 

A report, published in October, had suggested that Esper along with FBI Director Christopher Wray and CIA Director Gina Haspel were all on Trump's chopping block if he claims victory in the 2020 presidential race.

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Here's where the race to 270 stands

According to CNN, Biden currently holds 253 electoral votes, while Trump has 213. If Biden wins Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes, he will reach the 270 needed to win the presidency.

News agency AP pits a total of 264 electoral votes for Joe Biden -- as it has called Arizona for the Democratic nominee. So has Fox News.
 

No big vote tally updates incoming

It's night time in the US. Philadelphia isn’t expected to release any data, and vote counters in Pittsburgh have wrapped up as well. We’re unlikely to see a winner projected in Pennsylvania until those population centers process ballots.

More updates from Nevada are expected in a few hours from now.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows tests positive for coronavirus

Meadows told a handful of people who are his close advisors moments after the US election 2020.

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What we know so far: Biden has a lead

As per the latest projections by AP, Biden has 264 electoral college votes and Trump trails behind with 213.

Biden is leading in four of the five key battleground states where counting of ballots is still going on. Trump is trailing behind Biden in Arizona (by 38,455 votes), Georgia (4,224), Nevada (22,657) and Pennsylvania (19,500) but leading in North Carolina with 76,587 votes.

Biden vows action on 'day one' to halt spiraling Covid crisis

Biden said he would waste no time in addressing the Covid pandemic upon taking office.

"I want everyone, everyone to know on day one we're going to put our plan to control this virus into action," Biden said in a late night address from his hometown Wilmington, in Delaware.

READ STORY 

Biden expressed confidence that he would defeat President Donald Trump as vote counting dragged on from Tuesday's election but stopped short of declaring himself the winner.

He pledged to unite a bitterly divided nation.

"It's time for us to come together as a nation to heal," Biden said.

Biden echoes the message of calm and unity

“We may be opponents, but we’re not enemies. We’re Americans," he says

This is what Biden exactly said

"We don't have a final declaration of victory yet, but the numbers tell us it's clear," Biden said from Wilmington, Delaware, tonight. "We are going to win this race. Just look at what has happened since yesterday. Twenty four hours we were behind in Georgia, now we're ahead, and we are going to win that state. Twenty four hours ago we were behind in Pennsylvania, and we are going to win Pennsylvania. And now we are ahead, but we are winning in Arizona, we're winning in Nevada, and in fact our lead just doubled in Nevada. We're on track for over 300 electoral votes, electoral college votes. And look at the national numbers. We're going to win this race with a clear majority, with the nation behind us."

This can be numbing to watch, Biden says

“One of the things I’m especially proud of is how well we’ve done across America,” Biden continues, citing his lead in red states Arizona and Georgia.

“I know watching these vote tallies can be very slow. It can be numbing to watch. But those numbers represent voters and their voice should be heard," he says.

Biden notes he is now leading Trump in Pennsylvania.

Biden addresses the United States

"We don’t have clear results yet, but we’re going to win this race,” Biden says.

“We’re on track to over 300 electoral votes.”

Biden will shortly address the nation

He tweeted to inform.

Biden to speak soon

Biden supporters have gathered outside the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, where he will speak soon.

US Postal Service delivered 40,000 votes nationwide Thursday

The US Postal Service (USPS) delivered about 40,000 ballots on Thursday as it continues to conduct court-ordered twice-daily sweeps before various state deadlines to receive ballots, a lawyer said Friday.

In a court filing early Friday, USPS said 1,076 ballots, had been found at the USPS Philadelphia Processing and Distribution Center. About 300 were found at the Pittsburgh processing center, 266 at a Lehigh Valley facility and others found at other Pennsylvania processing centers.

In court, a Justice Department lawyer said it appears 668 of the 1,076 ballots in Philadephia were discovered on Wednesday and not Thursday.

Supreme Court denies immediate halt of Pennsylvania count

A US Supreme Court justice on Friday denied a request by Pennsylvania's Republicans to immediately halt the counting of ballots arriving after Election Day -- referring the challenge to the full court for a ruling on Saturday.

Samuel Alito ordered Pennsylvania in the meantime to continue keeping the late-arriving ballots separate, affirming a decision already made by the state's top elections official.

The last-ditch petition for an emergency injunction -- filed as Democrat Joe Biden solidified his lead and was poised to defeat President Donald Trump -- targeted thousands of ballots.

Will he? Won't he?

It's still unclear if Biden would address the nation.

Meanwhile, Trump has no public events scheduled this weekend.

The White House public schedule for the weekend shows no public events for the President. 

It's a long wait ahead!

There are 124,500 outstanding ballots still to be counted in Nevada

Biden’s lead in Pennsylvania continues to grow

He’s now up by 21,705 votes - leaving the candidates one-third of a point apart.

Biden's lead in Arizona shrinks

Biden’s lead has narrowed to 29,861. The two candidates are now less than .3 points apart.
 

Biden still likely to speak tonight regardless of whether race has been called

It's now being said that Biden may speak in some times regardless of whether the race has been called.

The campaign earlier in the day said Biden was planning to speak in prime-time.

There have since been no tweets from Biden or his running mate Kamala Harris.

 

Why ballot-counting in Nevada is dragging on

The pace of vote-counting in Nevada is being criticised for taking too long and it's even become fodder for online jokes. 

More than 1.2 million ballots had been counted by Friday afternoon, with Joe Biden holding a 20,137-vote lead over President Donald Trump.

The vast majority of those untallied ballots are in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas and its populous surrounding suburbs.

Most of the still-to-be counted ballots arrived by mail, and are first processed through a machine that verifies signatures. Election staff manually examines signatures not verified by the machine. Later, a review is done to make sure the total number of ballots processed matches the number of ballots received. Once verified, those ballots are counted.

As of Thursday, an additional 44,000 ballots required ID verification, and 2,100 others had signature-match problems. The registrar's office reaches out to voters in both groups to verify their eligibility to vote, which again takes time.

The majority of the remaining ballots are expected to be counted by Sunday. The Legislature gave election officials until November 12 to finish counting votes.

Supreme Court judge orders Pennsylvania to comply with secretary of state's guidance

It has been ordered that all county boards in Pennsylvania need to segregate ballots received after Election Day and said that if the ballots are counted, they be counted separately -- in line with the guidance that secretary of state of Pennsylvania had already issued.
 

Twitter flags 'president-elect Biden' posts as premature

Twitter on Friday flagged as premature posts referring to Biden as "president-elect," as the vote count continued in the knife-edge US election with the Democrat leading Trump in several key states.

Tweets referring to the former vice president with the victor's title and his running mate Kamala Harris as "vice president-elect" were tagged with messages saying counts were not yet final.

"Official sources may not have called the race when this was tweeted," read a Twitter message below a post from Democratic Coalition co-founder and podcaster Scott Dworkin using the two titles for Biden and Harris.

The notice came with a link to information about the status of the election.

Unfounded claims by Trump regarding the voting process as well as premature claims of victory about either candidate in the race have been flagged or masked, with links provided to reliable sources of information.

It's a nail-biter, cliffhanger, knife-edge contest!!!

On the fourth day of vote counting, Biden had a 253 to 214 lead in the state-by-state Electoral College vote that determines the winner, according to Edison Research.

Securing Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes would put Biden over the 270 he needs to win the presidency after a political career stretching back nearly five decades.

Biden would also win if he prevails in two of the three other key states where he was narrowly ahead on Friday: Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. Like Pennsylvania, all three were still processing ballots on Friday.

Nationwide, Biden led Trump by 4.1 million votes out of a record 147 million cast.
However, his lead was much smaller in those four contested states: just 84,670 votes out of more than 16 million cast. In Georgia, he led by a mere 3,974 votes.

Far from over

Amid growing concerns about the potential for unrest if Trump refuses to concede, attention was focussed on the reaction of his Republican Party.

Pennsylvania Republicans asked the US Supreme Court Friday to halt the counting of late-arriving ballots in the state.

The last-ditch appeal for an emergency injunction asked the court to freeze the processing of thousands of mailed ballots -- most believed to be favouring Biden -- that arrived after Election Day, which Republicans say should make them disqualified.

Several prominent Republicans meanwhile rallied behind Trump.

"Far from over," tweeted Representative Kevin McCarthy, the leader of the Republican minority in the House. "Republicans will not back down from this battle."

Securing Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes would put Biden over the 270 he needs to win the presidency after a political career stretching back nearly five decades.

Biden would also win if he prevails in two of the three other key states where he was narrowly ahead on Friday: Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. Like Pennsylvania, all three were still processing ballots on Friday.

As Biden's lead grew in Pennsylvania, hundreds of Democrats gathered outside Philadelphia's downtown vote-counting site, wearing yellow shirts reading "Count Every Vote." In Detroit, a crowd of Trump supporters, some armed, protested outside a counting location, waving flags and chanting, "Fight!"
 

Some dance, others wield guns

Biden supporters danced in the streets outside a ballot-counting center in Philadelphia as the steadily growing vote tallies showed the Democratic former vice president could soon be declared winner of the US presidential election.

In Detroit, several hundred supporters of President Donald Trump, some carrying their guns, raised premature chants of "We won!" outside a counting center, despite it looking increasingly unlikely, though not impossible, that this would prove true.

Philadelphia appeared to relish its turn as the center of the nation's attention, even if it was earned only by the relative slowness of its vote counting as the biggest city in the closely fought state of Pennsylvania.

Biden has a 253 to 214 lead in the state-by-state Electoral College vote that determines the winner, according to Edison Research. Winning Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes would give Biden the 270 he needs to secure the presidency. He has already won the popular vote by some 4 million votes.

A few, however, have taken to the streets, with Biden supporters cheering for poll workers to "count every vote," at times breaking into dance whenever someone turned up a Beyoncé or Missy Elliott song on loudspeakers.

Some Trump supporters, taking a cue from the president himself, insisted there must be something wrong with any count that showed Biden winning, and brought their rifles and handguns with them to rallies outside counting centers in Detroit and Phoenix, Arizona.

Dressed in the Trump-supporter uniform of "Make America Great Again" red baseball hats, some fell to their knees in public prayer.

Most demonstrations have been peaceful and relatively small, though tensions have sometimes flared. Overnight in New York City, police pushed and shoved protesters, reporters and at least one elected official as they made arrests and tried to move anti-Trump demonstrations out of roadways.

In Detroit, a few anti-racism protesters rallying behind the Black Lives Matter slogan entered an area cordoned off by police for Trump supporters on Friday. Standing defiantly with fists in the air, Trump supporters, including armed members of militia groups, moved closer, jeering, before police intervened, leading the anti-racism protesters elsewhere.

Some pro-Biden observers gathered outside the police cordon. One waved a sign that read: "Earth to losers, go home!"

In Arizona, another closely contested state, a growing crowd of several hundred Trump supporters returned to the counting center in Phoenix from surrounding Maricopa County where some 142,000 ballots from early voting remained to be counted as of Friday morning.
 

Protesters crying foul over vote counts stir safety concerns

Pro-Trump protesters rallied outside vote-tabulation centres in a few cities around the country Friday night, responding to groundless accusations that the Democrats were trying to steal the White House.

Elections officials in several states where Biden was ahead said the anger outside their doors made them fear for the safety of their employees.

Roughly 100 Trump supporters gathered for a third straight day in front of the elections centre in Phoenix, where hundreds of workers were processing and counting ballots.

Meanwhile, more votes are being tabulated

In Arizona, Trump is trailing by 39,070 votes.

In Nevada, Biden is leading by 22,657.

In Pennsylvania, Biden is leading by 14,923 votes.

In Georgia, Biden’s lead is wavering by a few votes up and down as officials process more ballots. Right now, he’s ahead by 4,175.

Trump says Biden 'should not wrongfully claim' presidency

Trump has Biden not to "wrongfully claim" the White House as incomplete returns from the presidential election showed the Democrat close to an insurmountable lead.
"Joe Biden should not wrongfully claim the office of the President. I could make that claim also. Legal proceedings are just now beginning!" Trump tweeted.

Trump himself has repeatedly claimed that he won Tuesday's election, despite vote counts pointing strongly to him being made a one-term president.

Biden may or may not address the nation

Biden’s campaign continues to watch results, including in Pennsylvania with no clear indication if it's going to arrange for a national address.

Biden last spoke to the American people more than 26 hours ago as he urged calm and patience as the vote count continues.

The campaign earlier in the day (US time) said Biden was planning to speak on prime time, but there have been no tweets from Biden or his running mate Kamala Harris.

Why is US vote count taking so long?

Three days after polls closed, the United States and the world still do not have final results from the presidential election, although Democrat Joe Biden was on the brink of unseating Donald Trump.

And mainly because of these reasons --

- Competitive states take longer -
California, the nation's most populous state, was quickly called for Biden after polls closed Tuesday. But such calls are in fact projections by news outlets rather than official results, meaning that it takes longer to get an accurate picture in narrowly divided states.

States also have diverse deadlines on receiving absentee ballots, especially those coming from the military or other citizens living overseas.

North Carolina has held off on counting at least 171,000 ballots -- which could make the difference -- as by law it accepts votes that arrive by mail through November 12 so long as they were postmarked by Election Day.

Similarly, Nevada, which also has a tight race, will count ballots postmarked by Election Day so long as they arrive by November 10.

Also causing delays are provisional ballots, which are issued to voters if there is confusion about their registration and need verification.

- Deluge of mail-in ballots -
With concerns about the Covid-19 pandemic, states accustomed to limited numbers of absentee votes have been deluged with ballots mailed by citizens who do not want to risk voting in person.

Some 65.2 million of the record 160 million Americans who voted this year did so by mail, according to an estimate of the US Elections Project.

In Pennsylvania, the Republican-led legislature rejected an effort to let authorities count ahead of Election Day, contributing to the scenario in which its biggest city Philadelphia -- a Democratic stronghold -- reported returns last.

Some places have unique factors delaying vote-counting such as Chatham County in tightly fought Georgia, where an election division and a registration board separately look at ballots.

- Legal challenges -
The Trump campaign has seized on the delay to demand a halt to counting in states where it is behind, notably Pennsylvania whose Republican Party approached the US Supreme Court.

Republicans had been fighting for months against allowing Pennsylvania to count ballots postmarked by Election Day if they arrive by Friday.

In Wisconsin, where Biden eked out a narrow victory in results made known by early Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that only votes received by Election Day would count.

Most states allow rival parties to observe counting but challenges on the rules have taken time, with Trump's supporters taking particular issue with Philadelphia's rule that watchers stay at least 15 feet (4.5 meters) away due to Covid risks.