2020 United States presidential election

2020 United States presidential election

← 2016 November 3, 2020[a] 2024 →
538 members of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout	66.2% (preliminary)[4]
Nominee Joe Biden Donald Trump Party Democratic Republican Home state Delaware Florida[b] Running mate Kamala Harris Mike Pence Electoral vote 306 232 States carried 25 + DC + NE-02 25 + ME-02 Popular vote 81,268,867 74,216,747 Percentage 51.3% 46.9%
The 2020 electoral map results: Blue shows states won by Biden/Harris. Red shows states won by Trump/Pence.
President before election Donald Trump Republican Elected President Joe Biden Democratic

Find more about 2020 U.S. presidential election at Wikipedia's sister projects
	Media from Commons
	News stories from Wikinews
	Data from Wikidata

The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th presidential election and was held on November 3, 2020. Former vice president Joe Biden and U.S. senator Kamala Harris defeated incumbent Republican President Donald Trump and incumbent Vice President Mike Pence, on the Democratic Party ticket.

Voters selected presidential electors who then voted on December 14, 2020^[6] to either elect a new president and vice president or re-elect the incumbents. On November 7, Biden won the election and became the president-elect of the United States.

Donald Trump, the 45th president, started a campaign to be president for four more years in the Republican primaries. Several state Republican Party organizations cancelled their primaries in a show of support for his candidacy.^[7] He became the presumptive nominee in March 2020.

Twenty-seven major candidates started campaigns for the Democratic nomination. This was the largest number of candidates for any political party in modern-day American politics. In April 2020, former Vice President Joe Biden became the presumptive nominee after beating Senator Bernie Sanders. In August 2020, Biden picked U.S. Senator and former 2020 candidate Kamala Harris as his running mate.^[8]

Some issues of the election included the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which killed over 220,000 Americans at the time of the election, protests in reaction to the murder of George Floyd and other black Americans, the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, and the Affordable Care Act, with Biden wanting to protect and expand it and Trump pushing for ending it.^[9]

After the election, Donald Trump refused to accept that he lost and filed over 40 lawsuits against states and politicians trying to change the election results. The lawsuits said that the election was not fair. Almost all of the lawsuits failed in court because Trump could not prove what he said.^[10][11] In some states, the votes were counted again, which still showed that Biden won.^[12] After the electors voted for Biden on December 14, Trump tried other ways to overturn the election results.^[13] When the electoral votes were counted in Congress on January 6-7, some Republicans voted not to count votes from certain states.^[14]

Biden was inaugurated on January 20, 2021, at midday when he took the oath of office.

1. ↑ Knight, Stef W.; Ahmed, Naema (August 13, 2020). "When and how to vote in all 50 states". Axios.
2. ↑ McDonald, Michael (November 6, 2020). "2020 General Election Early Vote Statistics". U.S. Elections Project.
3. ↑ When Will Mail-In Ballots Be Counted? See States' Processing Timelines NPR
4. ↑ 2020 November General Election Turnout Rates, United States Election Project. This turnout figure is the estimated number of ballots counted (including ballots without a valid vote for president) divided by the estimated number of eligible voters (U.S. residents, excluding those ineligible to vote due to lack of U.S. citizenship or to a criminal conviction, and U.S. citizens residing in other countries, at or over age 18). This figure is preliminary and unofficial, and not comparable to figures for previous years calculated by the Federal Election Commission, which uses only valid votes for president divided by the U.S. population at or over age 18 (including those ineligible to vote, and not including U.S. citizens residing in other countries).
5. ↑ Choi, Matthew (October 31, 2019). "Trump, a symbol of New York, is officially a Floridian now". Politico. Retrieved October 31, 2019.
6. ↑ "3 U.S.C. § 7 - U.S. Code - Unannotated Title 3. The President § 7. Meeting and vote of electors", FindLaw.com.
7. ↑ "Republicans in three states cancel presidential nominating contests for 2020". www.cbsnews.com. September 9, 2019. Retrieved September 25, 2019.
8. ↑ "Joe Biden picks Kamala Harris as his running mate". CNN. August 11, 2020.
9. ↑
   • Edsall, Thomas B. (June 3, 2020). "Opinion | The George Floyd Election". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 13, 2020.
   • Baker, Peter (September 22, 2020). "With Nothing Else Working, Trump Races to Make a New Supreme Court Justice the Issue". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 14, 2020.
   • Staff (September 26, 2020). "How Amy Coney Barrett Would Reshape the Court — And the Country". Politico. Retrieved October 13, 2020.
   • Armour, Stephanie (September 24, 2020). "Supreme Court Vacancy Makes Health Care Leading Issue in 2020 Elections". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved October 15, 2020.
10. ↑ "By the numbers: President Donald Trump's failed efforts to overturn the election". www.usatoday.com. January 6, 2021. Retrieved January 10, 2021.
11. ↑ Sheth, Jacob Shamsian, Sonam. "Trump and Republican officials have won zero out of at least 42 lawsuits they've filed since Election Day". Business Insider. Retrieved January 10, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
12. ↑ Sanger, David E. (November 20, 2020). "Trump's Attempts to Overturn the Election Are Unparalleled in U.S. History". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 10, 2021.
13. ↑ Olson, Tyler (January 4, 2021). "Battle lines drawn in GOP over planned Electoral College challenges, certification set for Wednesday". Fox News. Retrieved January 10, 2021.
14. ↑ Breuninger, Dan Mangan,Jacob Pramuk,Kevin (January 7, 2021). "Congress confirms Biden election as president, morning after Trump-fueled mob invades Capitol". CNBC. Retrieved January 10, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)