Election 2020 updates: Biden warns of 'dark winter,' pushes masks in pandemic plan
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.
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Final results in North Carolina not expected until next week
Final results from North Carolina are not expected to come in until next week, ABC News correspondent Janai Norman reported. Currently, Donald Trump is leading in the state with about 76,000 more votes than Biden with 117,000 absentee ballots outstanding.
"If you're Joe Biden that's not a whole lot to be excited about," Norman said. "He did what he was expected to do in those heavily urban areas -- Raleigh, Durham, here in Charlotte -- but he wasn't able to really run up this or the suburbs."
"This isn't even a case of seeing a slow trickle, and those numbers fluctuating, going up in the next few days," she added. "They'll remain pretty steady until the 12th [of November] at the earliest, 13th at the latest."
Michigan secretary of state rebuffs Trump claims of not enough transparency
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said that the Trump campaign's claim there is not enough transparency in the ballot counting process "doesn't really line up with the facts."
"In our experience here in the state where we actually have bipartisan poll watchers, a number of other people, a lot of people with eyes on the process," she said.
"We always knew we'd be here from when the polls closed as we went through that tabulation, there would be a lot of efforts to undermine people's perceptions about the integrity of our process," Benson added. "But we've always had a lot of faith in the truth underneath our work."
Biden closing in on Trump in Pennsylvania
The percentage of expected vote in Pennsylvania has ticked up from 84% to 88%, the percent of mail-in ballots counted has increased from nearly 59% to nearly 71%, and Joe Biden has decreased his deficit with Donald Trump from 320,000 votes to 186,755.
There are roughly 850,000 total outstanding ballots. Of those, 763,311 are mail-in ballots and registered Democrats returned mail-in-ballots by a 3-to-1 margin compared to registered Republicans. Additionally, several of the most-Democratic counties in the state continue to be where the largest number of outstanding votes are located, including Philadelphia and Allegheny counties -- home to the state's two largest cities -- both pivotal to Biden's catch-up effort.
-ABC News' Adam Kelsey
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar says counting 'ahead of schedule'
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos they are "ahead of schedule" and the state has under 1 million ballots left to count.
"We're actually ahead of schedule of where I thought we'd be," she said. "So I've been saying that I thought the overwhelming majority of ballots would be counted by Friday. I now believe that the overwhelming majority of ballots will be counted by tomorrow."
Boockvar also said that she thought legal action from Trump would not make a difference in the election results.
"What we care about here is making sure that every qualified voter -- that their vote counts, that their voices get heard and we want to make sure no voter is disenfranchised when they're a qualified voter," she said. "So we're going to count every vote and, hey, that's what makes our democracy great."