Special Report: Joe Biden projected to win the presidency
Special Report: Joe Biden projected to win th…
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In 2008, Barack Obama earned 69,498,516 votes in the presidential election, the most ever. Now, Mr. Obama’s former vice president, Democratic nominee Joe Biden, has surpassed that tally, with a record 77,926,591 votes (50.8% of the total), and counting, in the 2020 election.
On Saturday morning, November 7, CBS News projected Biden will be the 46th president after winning the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
With voter turnout in record territory, President Donald Trump has now also exceeded Mr. Obama’s record, with 72,612,622 votes (47.4 %), as of Friday, November 13.
Biden is currently leading the popular vote nationwide by more than 5.3 million votes. Winning the popular vote, however, does not secure the election — in 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes but still lost the election to Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump won several large battleground states, including Ohio, Florida and Texas, which Democrats had hoped could flip blue this year. But Biden prevailed in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, three key states Mr. Trump turned red in 2016.
Speaking at the White House in the early hours after election night, President Trump falsely claimed he had won the election and vowed to challenge the continued counting of legal ballots all the way to the Supreme Court. Biden’s campaign called the remarks a “naked effort to take away the democratic rights of American citizens.”
Find full results for all races in the CBS News Election Center.