Joe Biden wins the presidency

GALLUP

Former Vice President Joe Biden has won the race for the presidency, defeating President Donald Trump in an extremely competitive and controversial race.

Biden will become the 46th president of the United States.

The call of the state of Pennsylvania by the Associated Press for Joe Biden at about 9:30 a.m. on Saturday (MST) added 20 electoral votes to Biden’s total, now at 284. Either candidate needed at least 270 to win.

Biden also leads with a wide margin in the popular vote, with 74,847,834 votes (50.6%) over Trump with 70,591,531 at (47.7%).

After a long and contentious week, where thousands of local election officials and volunteers across the country raced to count all of the early, absentee and in-person votes in the swing states of Arizona, George, Pennsylvania, and Nevada, that kept many U.S. citizens on the edge of their seats, the Democratic process of the highly competitive election has prevailed.

This, even in the midst of the worsening coronavirus pandemic.

States will be certifiying the election results in the coming weeks.

Biden still holds a lead in the number of votes in the states of Georgia and Nevada and Arizona, where votes are still being counted.

President Donald Trump, who is likely to capture state of North Carolina, has 214 electoral votes.

Trump, after claiming voter fraud and improprieties in the vote count at several moments during this week, has said that he is going to contest the result of the election and has already launched several lawsuits.