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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Biden, Harris meet with COVID-19 advisory board
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris met with their newly-announced COVID-19 advisory board via Zoom Monday morning at the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware, for a briefing on the coronavirus pandemic -- a signal of Biden’s primary focus as he prepares to take office in 72 days.
"Dealing with the coronavirus pandemic is one of the most important battles our administration will face, and I will be informed by science and by experts," Biden said in the release announcing the board which he says will guide his approach to managing spikes, distributing safe vaccines and protecting at-risk populations.
As previously reported, the team will be led by 3 co-chairs: former Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, and former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Dr. David Kessler, along with Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, a professor of medicine at Yale University.
In total, 13 co-chairs and members comprise the board, including former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), Dr. Rick Bright, who made headlines earlier this year when he resigned from his role at the National Institute of Health and filed a whistleblower complaint over "an abuse of authority or gross mismanagement" at the Department of Health and Human Services on the COVID-19 response.
Aside from their victory speeches Saturday night, this is the first public event for the Biden and Harris since being projected as the winners of the 2020 election.
-ABC News’ Molly Nagle
Biden won -- pretty convincingly in the end: ANALYSIS
Even if you knew in advance about the "blue shift" that would occur in states like Pennsylvania -- and FiveThirtyEight did know in advance about it! -- it’s been hard to make enough of a mental adjustment for it this week.
Numbers flashing across a TV ticker have a certain magnetic power and certitude to them. It was easy to forget that Joe Biden would gain ground once mail votes were added to the tallies because such votes were overwhelmingly Democratic this year in Pennsylvania and most other states.
But just because of that blue shift -- and the red shift that occurred in states where mail votes were counted first -- that doesn’t mean the presidential race was all that close in the end. Joe Biden’s win was on the tighter side of the likely range of outcomes suggested by the polls, but it was a thoroughly convincing one judged on its own merits.
-FiveThirtyEight editor in chief Nate Silver
Trump surrogates continue to allege fraud in Nevada
Two Donald Trump associates held a news conference in Las Vegas alleging voter fraud in the state, but they provided little proof and didn't announce any legal actions.
Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt and American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp spoke outside the Clark County Election Department, providing a number of anecdotal stories of voter fraud.
Among the unverified allegations were repeated complaints about the machine used to verify voter signatures and charges that Republicans were denied the right to vote.
The pair also claimed that hundreds of dead people voted in Clark County.
Laxalt and Schlapp said they had no legal action to announce at the briefing.
Two days ago, a Clark County judge denied a request by the GOP to halt the use of the signature verification machines, saying the devices were lawful and that observers were watching the count. The judge also criticized GOP representatives for not providing any evidence of wrongdoing.
-ABC News' Michelle Mendez, Matthew Fuhrman and Cheyenne Haslett
Vote count continues in several states
The election count is continuing in several states. Here is a breakdown, including the percentage of expected vote that has been counted in each state.
Georgia (99% EV in)
Biden: 2,465,781 (49.5%)
Trump: 2,455,428 (49.3%)
Biden's edge: +10,353 votes
Based on ABC News' reporting, there are approximately 14,200 ballots still to be counted, including overseas/military and provisional ballots plus any other outstanding absentee ballots that were cured by the deadline.
Arizona (97% EV in)
Biden: 1,633,181 (49.5%)
Trump: 1,613,833 (48.9%)
Biden's edge: +19,348
There are about 99,399 ballots left to tabulate, 44,668 of which are provisional ballots.
North Carolina (98% EV in)
Biden 2,658,274 (48.6%)
Trump: 2,733,681 (50.0%)
Trump's edge: +75,407
Approximately 95,000 voters who requested an absentee ballot have not yet returned theirs before the state's Nov. 12 deadline. This number does not yet account for voters who requested an absentee ballot but voted in person on Election Day instead.