2020 United States presidential election
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538 members of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 66.6% ( 6.5 pp)[b] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Biden/Harris and red denotes those won by Trump/Pence. Numbers indicate electoral votes cast by each state and the District of Columbia. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 3, 2020.[a] The Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and California junior senator Kamala Harris defeated the incumbent Republican president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence.[9] The election saw the highest voter turnout by percentage since 1900. Biden received more than 81 million votes,[10] the most votes ever cast for a presidential candidate in U.S. history.[11]
In a competitive primary that featured the most candidates for any political party in the modern era of American politics, Biden secured the Democratic presidential nomination. Biden's running mate, Harris, became the first African American, first Asian American, and third female[d] vice presidential nominee on a major party ticket. Trump easily secured re-nomination with only minor opposition in the Republican primaries. Jo Jorgensen secured the Libertarian presidential nomination with Spike Cohen as her running mate, and Howie Hawkins secured the Green presidential nomination with Angela Nicole Walker as his running mate.
The central issues of the election included the public health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; civil unrest in reaction to the police murder of George Floyd, the Supreme Court following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, and the future of the Affordable Care Act.[12] Due to the ongoing pandemic, a record number of ballots were cast early and by mail.[13] Thirty-eight states had over half of all votes cast using these methods, and only three states had fewer than 25%.[14] As a result of a large number of mail-in ballots, some swing states saw delays in vote counting and reporting; this led to major news outlets delaying their projection of Biden and Harris as the president-elect and vice president-elect until the morning of November 7, 2020.[15]
Biden achieved victory in the Electoral College, winning 306 electoral votes, while Trump received 232. Trump was the first president to lose re-election since George H. W. Bush in 1992. Key to Biden's victory were his wins in the Democratic-leaning Rust Belt states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which Trump narrowly carried in 2016 and whose combined 46 electoral votes were enough to swing the election to either candidate.
Trump refused to accept the results; he and his allies made disproven claims of fraud, pressured elections officials, filed several unsuccessful lawsuits,[16][17][18] and directly attempted to overturn the results at the county, state, and federal level. This culminated in the attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, for which Trump was impeached a second time. The day after the attack, Trump stated that a "new administration" would be succeeding his, without mentioning president-elect Biden by name, in a video posted on Twitter.[19][20][21]
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).
- ^ a b c d e Cite error: The named reference
FECwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Federal Elections 2016" (PDF). Federal Election Commission. December 2017. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 2, 2019. Retrieved November 25, 2020.
- ^ Table A-1. Reported Voting and Registration by Race, Hispanic Origin, Sex and Age Groups: November 1964 to 2020 Archived August 28, 2022, at the Wayback Machine, U.S. Census Bureau.
- ^ "2020 November General Election Turnout Rates". electproject.org. Archived from the original on April 30, 2021. Retrieved November 14, 2022.
- ^ "2016 November General Election Turnout Rates". electproject.org.
- ^ Choi, Matthew (October 31, 2019). "Trump, a symbol of New York, is officially a Floridian now". Politico. Archived from the original on January 6, 2020. Retrieved October 31, 2019.
- ^ Knight, Stef W.; Ahmed, Naema (August 13, 2020). "When and how to vote in all 50 states". Axios. Archived from the original on January 12, 2021. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ McDonald, Michael (November 6, 2020). "2020 General Election Early Vote Statistics". U.S. Elections Project. Archived from the original on January 17, 2021. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ "Biden officially secures enough electors to become president". Associated Press News. December 5, 2020. Archived from the original on December 8, 2020. Retrieved December 6, 2020.
- ^ "Joe Biden Crosses 80 million votes". Newsweek. Archived from the original on November 24, 2020. Retrieved November 24, 2020.
- ^ Lewis, Sophie (November 7, 2020). "Joe Biden breaks Obama's record for most votes ever cast for a U.S presidential candidate". CBS News. Archived from the original on December 29, 2020. Retrieved November 8, 2020.
- ^ *Edsall, Thomas B. (June 3, 2020). "Opinion: The George Floyd Election". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on October 12, 2020. Retrieved October 13, 2020.
- Baker, Peter (September 22, 2020). "With Nothing Else Working, Trump Races to Make a New Supreme Court Justice the Issue". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on September 23, 2020. Retrieved October 14, 2020.
- "How Amy Coney Barrett Would Reshape the Court – And the Country". Politico. September 26, 2020. Archived from the original on September 26, 2020. Retrieved October 13, 2020.
- ^ Saul, Stephanie; Hakim, Danny (November 3, 2020). "As Counting Begins, a Flood of Mail Ballots Complicates Vote Tallies". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on November 3, 2020. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
- ^ Yoder, Kyle; Tan, April; Martinez-Ruiz, Stefan (March 1, 2024). "The Expansion of Voting Before Election Day, 2000-2024" (PDF). Center for Election Innovation & Research. Retrieved September 10, 2024.
- ^ Wolf, Zachary (October 17, 2020). "It's not magic, it's math. Here's how CNN makes election projections". CNN. Archived from the original on November 26, 2020. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
- ^ "By the numbers: President Donald Trump's failed efforts to overturn the election". www.usatoday.com. January 6, 2021. Retrieved July 6, 2021.
- ^ Schwartz, Matthew S. (December 5, 2020). "Trump's Legal Losses Come Fast And Furious". NPR.org. Retrieved July 6, 2021.
- ^ "Trump And His Allies Have Lost Nearly 60 Election Fights In Court (And Counting)". BuzzFeed News. December 14, 2020. Retrieved July 6, 2021.
- ^ Trump, Donald (January 7, 2021). "Video: 'My campaign vigorously pursued every legal avenue to contest the election results...Congress has certified the results. A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20th. My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly, and seamless transition of power...Serving as your president has been the honor of my lifetime.'". Archived from the original on January 8, 2021. Retrieved January 7, 2021 – via Twitter.
- ^ Baker, Peter; Haberman, Maggie (January 8, 2021). "Capitol Attack Leads Democrats to Demand That Trump Leave Office". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 8, 2021.
- ^ Liptak, Kevin; Stracqualursi, Veronica; Malloy, Allie (January 8, 2021). "Trump publicly acknowledges he won't serve a second term a day after inciting mob". CNN. Archived from the original on January 7, 2021. Retrieved January 8, 2021.