Millions of people were counting down for weeks, and on November 3rd, the American nation started a race that lasted for over four days. On Tuesday, votes poured in, eventually ending with The Democratic ticket of former Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Senator Kamala Harris defeating the Republican ticket of incumbent President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. The 2020 United States presidential election, marked the highest voter turnout in US history, was the 59th quadrennial presidential election. The race for the presidency is usually decided in a small number of key battleground states that switch party allegiance between elections, and this year was no exception.

Compared to the 2016 presidential election, where Trump and Pence won the electoral college but lost the popular vote, several key states in the Mid-West turned the tide of the election into Biden’s favor. According to a pre-election 2016 analysis, the thirteen most competitive states were Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Arizona, Georgia, Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina, and Maine. In 2016, Trump had the states of Wyoming, Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. Trump emerged victorious on the 2016 election night, flipping several battleground states to the Republicans. However, this year, these five states were all blue. The five states that voted for the Democratic party this year were essential to Biden and Harris’ victory.

The past half-decade has been, to put it mildly, interesting for the 45th president of the United States and the nation. Ever since his famous (or, arguably, infamous) rise to power, Trump’s misdeeds and every action has been under scrutiny, even referring to events before his victory in 2016. From his public insults to former president Barack Obama, to his many controversial statements against women, to the multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and/or harassment. More recently, this year, the pressure on the president increased, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had more than 55.6 million cases and reported 1.34 million deaths worldwide. With the winter coming, more cases are to be expected. 

In both the 2016 and 2020 elections, Trump lost the popular vote. Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic candidate, won nearly 3 million more votes than he did, and Biden had won more votes than any presidential candidate in US history.