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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Trump breaks silence on Twitter
Trump has tweeted his first reaction to Biden's apparent win to be the next president of the United States, falsely claiming in an all-caps tweet that he won the election.
He also pushed the unfounded claim that observers weren't allowed in to watch ballots be counted, which is not true.
Biden leads Georgia by 7,547 votes
Biden is leading Georgia by 7,547 votes, which is is well within the margin needed for a candidate to request a recount. The margin must be less than 0.5% of total votes cast in the race, and with the vote that has been reported, the margin would need to be fewer than 24,895 votes.
There are no automatic/mandatory recounts in Georgia.
A recount cannot be officially requested until the results are certified. The deadline for the state to certify the election is Nov. 20.
-ABC News' Quinn Scanlan
Trump supporters gather at state capitols in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania
Marjorie Taylor Green, who won Georgia's conservative 14th Congressional District this week after publicly supporting the fringe conspiracy theory known as QAnon, was joined by dozens of Trump supporters at the Georgia State Capitol Saturday.
She baselessly claimed the election was stolen as she addressed the crowd, saying, “what we are seeing now is an election being stolen, and I’m not going to stand for it.”
In Arizona, several hundred Trump supporters, many of whom were armed, gathered outside the state capitol in Phoenix, where they waved Trump flags and shouted "USA," and "four more years!"
Outside the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg, police kept Trump and Biden supporters, who were yelling at each other, separate.
-ABC News' Elwyn Lopez and Zohreen Shah
Republicans voice support, opposition for Biden
Republicans who have been critical of Trump wished Biden well on Saturday.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan tweeted, "Congratulations to President-elect Biden. Everyone should want our president to succeed because we need our country to succeed. We have great challenges ahead of us as a country. Now more than ever, we need to come together as Americans."
Sen. Mitt Romney tweeted, "Ann and I extend our congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. We know both of them as people of good will and admirable character. We pray that God may bless them in the days and years ahead."
But Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton said Saturday, "For the sake of our country, I wish Biden well, but I will continue to consider myself, until January 20 and then after January 20, part of America's loyal opposition."
"Any other president's national security policy would be more coherent, consistent and sustained than Donald Trump's. The risk with Joe Biden is not that his policy will be chaotic like Trump's but that it will be badly misguided, as Obama's was," Bolton said.
"Biden has pledged to extend the New START treaty with Russia, resuscitate the Iran nuclear deal, and return to the Obama approach to Cuba, all egregious mistakes, among others," he continued. "Biden's real views on dealing with China are obscure."