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.
With 88% of Nevada's expected vote in, Biden's lead over Trump has tightened to over 11,000 votes.
In Clark County, home to Las Vegas, Biden is ahead 53.1%-45.2%, with 85% of the expected vote in.
-ABC News' Kendall Karson
A Pennsylvania judge has granted the Trump campaign’s request to observe -- up-close -- Philadelphia poll workers as they process the remaining mail-in ballots, overturning earlier rules that kept them farther back out of concern about the coronavirus.
The city of Philadelphia has filed an appeal to the Pennsylvania state Supreme Court. The court has not yet acted.
-ABC News' Alex Hosenball, Ben Siegel and Matt Mosk
A judge in Chatham County, Georgia, home to the Democrat-leaning city of Savannah, dismissed the Trump campaign's lawsuit during a Thursday morning hearing, according an official in the judge's office.
The suit alleged that the county may be mishandling ballots and therefore inadvertently mixing up ballots that arrived on time with ones that arrived late. The suit was based on one allegation from an out-of-state Republican poll observer and involved less than 60 ballots.
The suit, filed alongside the Georgia Republican Party, sought to order the county to compile, store and account for all ballots received after 7 p.m. on Election Day (the receipt deadline).
-ABC News' Olivia Rubin
The percentage of expected vote reporting in Pennsylvania has ticked up from 89% to 92%, as Biden continues to narrow his defecit with Trump from 164,414 votes to 121,857.
Trump now leads in the Keystone State with 3,226,685 votes -- 50.3% -- while Biden has 3,104,828 -- 48.4%.
There are roughly 560,000 outstanding votes that have yet to be counted statewide, including 581,167 mail-in ballots, according to the latest data from the Pennsylvania Department of State.
Biden would need about 60.8% of the remaining ballots to eclipse Trump's 3,226,685 tally in order to win the state.
-ABC News' Adam Kelsey
