Biden wins presidency

Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden is projected to have won the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

With Pennsylvania called for Biden, he had 273 votes in the Electoral College, with 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the race.

With the count by The Associated Press count so far, Republican President Donald Trump has 214 Electoral College votes.

The Associated Press called Arizona for Biden early, with most media outlets still waiting to call that race.

After Nevada was called for Biden, The New York Times count gave him 279 electoral votes, while AP listed Biden with 290.

Most of the major press had called the election for Biden before 10 a.m. The New York Times reports CNN was the first network to call the race for Biden.

Pennsylvania was called about about 9:30 this morning with 99 percent of precincts reporting, with Biden's 3,345,906 votes to Trump’s 3,311,48, or 49.7 percent to 49.2 percent.

The projected win in Pennsylvania gave Biden 20 more electoral votes, enough to put him over the 270 needed.

By 10:25 a.m., Nevada also was called for Biden, who had a more-than 25,000 vote lead at 88 percent reporting, with 49.9 percent of the vote to Trump's 47.9 percent. That would give Biden 290 electoral votes to Trump's 214 by The Associated Press count.

By 10:45 a.m., AP had called all races but North Carolina, Georgia and Alaska.

With 99 percent counted Biden led in Georgia by more than 7,000 votes, 49.5 percent to Trump’s 49.3 percent.

With 99 percent counted, Trump lead in North Carolina by more than 76,000 votes, 50.1 percent to 48.7 percent, and lead in Alaska by nearly 55,000 votes, 62.1 percent to 33.5 percent with 50 percent of precincts reporting.

Even if Trump were to pull wins in all of those states, Biden still would have enough Electoral College votes to win the presidency.

Trump's campaign has multiple lawsuits on the election pending in court, although some already have been thrown out the courts. He won a small victory in Pennsylvania with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito ruled that ballots postmarked by but received after Election Day must be kept separate, but Alito did not prevent the counting of those ballots.

And with the highest-voter-turnout in any election in U.S. history, both candidates broke the record for the most popular votes taken, set by Democrat Barack Obama in 2008.

In that election, Obama took 69,456,897 votes to the 59,934,814 votes earned by Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz.

With the votes counted so far for this election, Trump has taken 70,598,535 to Biden’s 74,857,880, giving Biden a more-than 4 million vote lead.

In 2016, Trump took 62,980,160 to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 65,845,063, but Trump won the electoral college, 304-227.

If the leads in states remaining to be called stay, the candidates this year appear to have evenly split the states, 25 each, with Biden winning The District of Columbia for a 26-25 final count favoring Biden.

Trump held most of the south and Plains states, including Montana and Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota and Idaho and Utah, along with Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Alabama, along with South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana.

Trump held onto major electoral prizes that Democrats had had some hope of flipping such as Florida and Texas.

Biden took Democratic strongholds including the electoral powerhouse California with 55 Electoral College votes, as well as Oregon, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Illinois, New York, Virginia and much of the East Coast and New England states.

With states called so far, most are a mirror image of the 2016 election, with three major exceptions. Biden flipped Pennsylvania and Michigan, which has 16 electoral votes, and Wisconsin and its 10 electoral votes. The Associate Press has called Arizona for Biden, which also would be a flip. Some other media outlets have not called Arizona, which still had 10 percent to count at 10 a.m.