The Note: Biden on the precipice, amid harsh realities

The TAKE with Rick Klein

A win isn't the same as a mandate. Waiting for a win is messier -- especially in volatile times.

As the day after the day after Election Day dawns, the math and the map clearly favor former Vice President Joe Biden, though he's not there yet.

Having apparently clinched Wisconsin and Michigan, Biden is just a state or two away from 270. Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina are still in play, with Arizona and Nevada a potential combo that would put him over the top.

But even as the map waits for final shadings that will define the race for history, President Donald Trump's campaign's haphazard legal strategies serve as a reminder of the environment. Partisan legal haymakers -- plus misleading and irresponsible presidential claims -- cloud any moment Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris might enjoy.

Also tempering Democratic optimism: The presidency perhaps aside, Tuesday was a very good night for Republicans. Trump may wind up defeated, but Trumpism was not demolished. Democrats are no closer to settling their own squabbles, either.

Biden might seem right for the moment. His call for the nation to "lower the temperature" could be welcome, and he's been nothing if not consistent in his view of what the country wants.

What the country is, though, is tense and divided. An election that held out hope of clarity and unity might not wind up being particularly close, but it will be remembered as more complicated than it might have been.

The RUNDOWN with Kendall Karson

There might still be millions of votes outstanding, but for Biden, he did what he came to do.

The former vice president's disciplined focus on the upper Midwest delivered by Wednesday afternoon, with Biden apparently reclaiming both Michigan and Wisconsin for Democrats -- in part restoring the fragile "blue wall" that came crumbling down in 2016.

Four years later, Biden's success in Michigan came from over-performing in key Democratic strongholds where Hillary Clinton fell short -- like Wayne County, which is home to Detroit. With votes still outstanding, those cast so far have climbed to 839,404, which is 50,945 more votes cast than 2016's 788,459 and just 33,779 less than the 873,183 votes cast in 2008 when former President Barack Obama won the state.

In Oakland County, one of the key suburban areas outside of Detroit, Biden clinched 56% of the vote, compared to Clinton's 51% in 2016 -- a difference of more than 109,000 votes, with 99% expected vote reporting. While Oakland has become bluer, Macomb County, which covers other parts of the Detroit suburbs that are more white and less educated, Trump's advantage didn't offset Biden's gains nearby.

In Kent, which covers Grand Rapids, Trump is trailing Biden by a six-point margin in a county he won four years ago with almost all of the vote in. Biden has garnered more than 186,000 votes, nearly 50,000 more votes than Clinton in 2016.

Biden also reclaimed Saginaw, one of Michigan's 12 pivot counties, for Democrats by 284 votes, with 99% expected vote in.

In 2016, Trump only won Michigan by 10,704 votes. Biden is currently up over the president by more than 12 times that margin -- nearly 135,000 votes. And now he is even closer to victory.

The TIP with Benjamin Siegel

Democrats began the week with 235 House seats and hopes of expanding their ranks into GOP-held districts and into the Senate majority. After all the votes are counted in the election, they could wind up with the slimmest House majority in 20 years and another two years in the Senate minority.

Republicans have picked off a handful of Democrats since Tuesday night, with many races still too close for ABC News to call. GOP and Democratic operatives both believed Democrats would see a net gain in seats, with Republicans bracing for a dozen losses.

Instead, thanks to turnout driven by Trump's re-election bid, not a single incumbent Republican had lost a reelection race as of Wednesday night, and Democrats' only pickups have been in North Carolina, where two districts became more favorable to the party via redistricting.

While there are still a couple of races Democrats can pick up -- around Atlanta and Phoenix -- and some of the outstanding races could break their way as absentee ballots continue to flow in, it's the Republican Party celebrating in the House this week. Instead of facing the expected reckoning over their losses in the suburbs, Republicans will likely bolster their overwhelmingly male ranks in January with a new crop of female lawmakers.

In the Senate, Democrats were favored to retake the chamber, even by a slim margin. But their candidates have come up short in every toss-up race, even as nearly every challenger set new fundraising records and held a commanding lead in the polls before Tuesday. Even if Biden unseats Trump, Democrats are expected to do some soul-searching on Capitol Hill about why the results of the election fell far short of their expectations -- and could begin that process on their caucus call on Thursday afternoon, along with the upcoming House leadership elections.

THE PLAYLIST

ABC News' "Start Here" podcast. Thursday morning's episode features ABC News Chief National Affairs correspondent Tom Llamas, who updates us where we stand in the race for the presidency. FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver explains why some polling was off the mark. Then, ABC News Supreme Court contributor Kate Shaw breaks down the Trump campaign's various legal challenges in Michigan and Pennsylvania. http://apple.co/2HPocUL

FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. After our colleagues at ABC News projected Joe Biden as the winner in Michigan, the former vice president's path to victory is looking clearer. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew discusses the results so far, what's left to come in and some of the trends in the data. They also begin to answer questions about polling errors in the 2020 election. https://53eig.ht/3mVWEx4

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

• Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar will appear on ABC's "Good Morning America."

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The Note is a daily ABC News feature that highlights the day's top stories in politics. Please check back tomorrow for the latest.