After days of counting ballots and waiting for results, former Vice President Joe Biden has been elected as the 46th President of the United States, defeating incumbent President Donald Trump in his run for a second term in office.

As of the publication of this article, now President-elect Biden has won 279 electoral college votes while President Trump has 214 electoral votes. In the popular vote, Biden leads President Trump by nearly four million votes, a margin of about 2.7%. His vote total of 74.5 million votes now holds the record for the most votes any candidate has received in American history, breaking Barack Obama’s 2008 record of 69.5 million votes. President Trump has garnered around 70.3 million votes, putting him in second place for most votes ever received.

President-elect Biden flipped three states that President Trump carried in 2016: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Each of these states were won by less than one percent in 2016, and were critical in his victory. Flipping these three states was the main goal of Biden’s campaign and was ultimately successful in doing so. Biden won Wisconsin by .6%, Pennsylvania by .5% and Michigan by 2.6%. 

Biden also won an electoral vote from Nebraska, as the state splits their electoral college votes by congressional district. He won the vote from Nebraska’s 2nd District, consisting of the city of Omaha and its surrounding suburbs.

Meanwhile, President Trump held on to the key battleground state of Florida, now his home state. He won it by 3.5%, an increase from his 1% margin of victory in 2016. He also won the competitive states of Iowa, Ohio and Texas. Though he won Ohio by about the same margin as he did in 2016, his margins in Iowa and Texas decreased.

Four states have yet to be called: Alaska, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. Alaska has yet to count any mail-in ballots and North Carolina is still accepting mail-in ballots postmarked by November 3rd till the 12th. Arizona and Georgia are close to being done counting all ballots, with only a few thousand votes left in each state.

In these uncalled states, President Trump currently leads by double digits in Alaska and by 1.4% in North Carolina, one of the biggest swing states in the 2020 election. President-elect Biden meanwhile has a slim .56% lead in Arizona. While Arizona has been called by The Associated Press and Fox News for Biden, no other news networks have projected the race.

Georgia is currently the closest race in the country, with President-elect Biden leading by 10,196 votes, .21% of the total votes cast in the state. While only a small number of votes remain, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has stated that a recount will be conducted due to the closeness of the race.

If Biden’s leads hold in Arizona and Georgia, then he will be the first Democrat to carry them in an election since the 1990s. Georgia last voted Democrat in 1992 and Arizona last went Democrat in 1996. Both of these states were carried by Bill Clinton.

The 2020 election is historic in a few ways. President Trump has become the first incumbent president to lose reelection since George H.W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton in 1992. This ends the streak of the United States’ previous three presidents all winning reelection and serving two full terms.

When inaugurated in January, President-elect Biden will become the oldest first term president in United States history, taking office at the age of 78 years old. This will break the record set by President Trump, who took office at age 70 in 2017.

The biggest history made this election is the election of Kamala Harris as Vice President of the United States. She will become the first female vice president in American history, as well as the first African-American and Asian-American vice president.

Though Biden has the 270 electoral votes needed to become president, President Trump maintains the assertion that voter fraud occurred and is threatening lawsuits in states Biden won, though he has not indicated which states or how many he would sue. It’s important to note that there hasn’t been any substantial evidence of voter fraud this election, so any lawsuits may have a hard time going in favor of the president.

Biden is set to be inaugurated on January 21, 2021, where he will take office as President of the United States, marking the pinnacle of his 48 year political career.