The president-elect emphasized how he would handle the pandemic response.
Joe Biden is set to become the 46th president of the United States, capping a tumultuous and tension-filled campaign during a historic pandemic against President Donald Trump. ABC News characterized Joe Biden as the apparent winner of his home state of Pennsylvania, putting him over the 270 vote threshold needed to capture the presidency.
The hard-fought battle against the president was set against the backdrop of racial unrest and the coronavirus pandemic and bitter divisions among the electorate.
Trump had falsely declared on election night, when he held a lead in several key states, that he won the contest and alleged without evidence, after the count started to swing the other way, that the election was being stolen from him and that fraud had been committed.
Painting the election as a "battle for the soul of the nation," Biden won on a message of unity over division, compassion over anger, and reality over what he called Trump's "wishful thinking" as the coronavirus pandemic cast a heavy shadow over the campaign.
The 2020 election has shattered voting records with votes totaling 147 million and counting, surpassing the 138 million who voted in 2016.
Trump will win the Dakotas and Alabama -- raising his Electoral College standing to 63 votes -- ABC News projects, and Biden will win Colorado -- raising his Electoral College standing to 89 votes, with 30% of the expected vote in nationwide.
As vote totals in Miami-Dade, Florida's most populous county, show Biden underperforming compared to the 2016 election totals, political analysts there saw signs of a new phenomenon -- the migration of some segments of the Hispanic community further away from Democrats.
Home to the largest concentration of Cubans outside the island nation, Biden is carrying about 54% of the vote. Four years earlier, Hillary Clinton won the county with 63% of the vote.
"Biden is indeed underperforming here and the most logical explanation is the movement on the part of Latinos, especially Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans but also other South Americans who were very susceptible to the Republican message about socialism," said Eduardo Gamarra, a professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University in Miami. "Let's wait to see what the final numbers are in this county but at least for the moment, the big news is the Latino defection of the Democratic Party."
Experts told ABC News that Republican advertising during the closing weeks of the campaign targeted the Cuban community. Some of it pushed misleading messages about Biden, they said.
Alex Penelas, former mayor of Miami-Dade County and a Republican strategist, said "painting all Democrats as radical socialists definitely had an effect."
In Florida, more than half of Cuban voters backed Trump in 2016, according to Pew Research. And according to Florida International University's 2018 Cuba Poll, 54% of Cubans in South Florida were registered as Republicans in 2018.
Yamil Velez, an assistant professor of Political Science at Columbia University said he did believe Democrats did not sufficiently counter misinformation targeting the Cuban communities.
-ABC News' Laura Romero
More than 9.5 million people in Texas have cast their ballot early in Texas, ABC News correspondent Marcus Moore said. The number of people who have voted early in the state surpasses the number of people who voted in 2016.
"When we talk about the voter turnout, it has been massive here in Texas," Moore said. "And it is the reason why Democrats feel like they can turn this historically red state blue and of course time will tell if that happens."
Voting has gone smoothly in Texas, Moore said, with only a few polling stations open late because of technical difficulties. Both Democrats and Republicans are encouraged by good weather in the state.
Biden will win New York’s 29 electoral votes and seven from Connecticut, ABC News projects, while Trump will win six from Arkansas.
With 27% of the the expected vote in nationwide, Trump is projected to have 48 Electoral College votes to Biden’s 80.
Republicans in the Senate are faring well so far in the South with projected wins for Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
