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.
Protesters have gathered in cities across the country including New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., Wednesday night to call for counting all of the votes cast in this election.
A spokesperson for the Nevada secretary of state told ABC News that there are no new results expected to be released for the state Wednesday night.
Results expected Thursday morning will likely paint a more complete picture of the standings in the Silver State, which has Biden up by about 8,000 votes with 86% of the expected count in.
Nevada’s largest county does not expect to have information on how many mail-in ballots have yet to be counted there, Clark County Registrar Joe Gloria said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon, but the sought-after tally will likely bring good news for Biden where in-person turnout in was strong among Republicans and mail-in vote counts have been stronger for Democrats.
-ABC News' Cheyenne Haslett and Meg Cunningham
After the Trump campaign filed a petition with the Supreme Court to halt the counting of ballots in Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf held a news conference to respond, saying they will continue to count ballots in the state.
"This afternoon, the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit to stop the counting of ballots in Pennsylvania. That is simply wrong," Wolf said. "These attempts to subvert the democratic process are simply disgraceful."
Wolf, a Democrat who has faced heavy criticism from Trump, went on to say, "I'm going to fight like hell to protect the vote of every Pennsylvanian."
While the Trump campaign argues in the Supreme Court filing it wasn't given "meaningful access … to observe the opening of ballots and the counting process," Wolf argued the state election process has "never been more transparent than it is right now."
A commonwealth court scheduled an initial hearing for the filing for 7 p.m.
ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl said Trump's strategy "seems to be to basically create doubt about the integrity of the election itself, which seems to be reflection that he believes that if all the counting goes on to conclusion, he will not emerge in the lead."
While the Biden campaign has been careful not to officially declare victory, it is projecting confidence and moving ahead with transition plans, launching buildbackbetter.com -- the official Biden transition website.
"The American people will determine who will serve as the next President of the United States," the site says. "Votes are still being counted in several states around the country. The crises facing the country are severe -- from a pandemic to an economic recession, climate change to racial injustice -- and the transition team will continue preparing at full speed so that the Biden‑Harris Administration can hit the ground running on Day One."
The statement is all that currently exists on the website but illustrates how the campaign has been quietly working on transition plans behind the scenes, even as the race remains undecided.
-ABC News' Molly Nagle
