Here's an article that explains why Biden won
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/
Behind Biden’s 2020 Victory
2021-06-30
Reem Nadeem; Ruth Igielnik; Scott Keeter; Hannah Hartig
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	<h2>An examination of the 2020 electorate, based on validated voters</h2>
<p>By <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/ruth-igielnik/">Ruth Igielnik</a>, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/scott-keeter/">Scott Keeter</a> and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/hannah-hartig/">Hannah Hartig</a></p>
<figure><figcaption>Steph Smith drops off her ballot for the 2020 presidential election on Nov. 3 in Rollinsville, Colorado. (Jason Connolly/AFP via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure>
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<p>Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand how Americans voted in 2020 and how their turnout and vote choices differed from 2016 and 2018. For this analysis, we surveyed U.S. adults online and verified their turnout in the three general elections using commercial voter files that aggregate official state turnout records. Panelists for whom a record of voting was located are considered validated voters; all others are presumed not to have voted.</p>
<p>We surveyed 11,818 U.S. adults online in November 2020, 10,640 adults in November 2018 and 4,183 adults in November and December 2016. The surveys were supplemented with measures taken from annual recruitment and profile surveys conducted in 2018 and 2020. Everyone who took part is a member of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel recruited through national, random sampling of telephone numbers or, since 2018, residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The surveys are weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education, turnout and vote choice in the three elections, and many other characteristics. Read more about the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/our-methods/u-s-surveys/the-american-trends-panel/">ATP’s methodology</a>. </p>
<p>Here are the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2021/06/PP-2021.06.30_validated-voters_TOPLINE.pdf">questions used</a> for this report and its <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/validated-voters-methodology/">methodology</a>.</p>
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<p>The 2020 presidential election was historic in many ways. Amid a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/topics/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19/">global pandemic</a>, with unprecedented <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/elections/early-voting-numbers-so-far/">changes in how Americans voted,</a> voter turnout rose 7 percentage points over 2016, resulting in a total of <a href="http://www.electproject.org/2020g">66% of U.S. adult citizens</a> casting a ballot in the 2020 election. Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump 306-232 in the Electoral College and had a 4-point margin in the popular vote. While Biden’s popular vote differential was an improvement over Hillary Clinton’s 2016 2-point advantage, it was not as resounding as congressional Democrats’ 9-point advantage over Republicans in votes cast in the 2018 elections for the U.S. House of Representatives.</p>
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<h4>Validated voters, defined</h4>
<p>Members of Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel were matched to public voting records from three national commercial voter files in an attempt to find a record for voting in the 2020 election. <strong>Validated voters</strong> are citizens who told us in a post-election survey that they voted in the 2020 general election <em>and</em> have a record for voting in a commercial voter file. Nonvoters are citizens who were not found to have a record of voting in any of the voter files or told us they did not vote.</p>
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<p>A new analysis of validated 2020 voters from Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel examines change and continuity in the electorate, both of which contributed to Biden’s victory. It looks at how new voters and voters who turned out in one or both previous elections voted in the 2020 presidential election and offers a detailed portrait of the demographic composition and vote choices of the 2020 electorate. It also provides a comparison with findings from our previous studies of the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/08/09/an-examination-of-the-2016-electorate-based-on-validated-voters/">2016</a> and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/2020/09/08/democrats-made-gains-from-multiple-sources-in-2018-midterm-victories/">2018 electorates</a>.</p>
<p>A number of factors determined the composition of the 2020 electorate and explain how it delivered Biden a victory. Among those who voted for Clinton and Trump in 2016, similar shares of each – about nine-in-ten – also turned out in 2020, and the vast majority remained loyal to the same party in the 2020 presidential contest. These voters formed substantial bases of support for both Biden and Trump. Overall, there were shifts in presidential candidate support among some key groups between 2016 and 2020, notably suburban voters and independents. On balance, these shifts helped Biden a little more than Trump.</p>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078000"></a></figure>
<p>Overall, one-in-four 2020 voters (25%) had not voted in 2016. About a quarter of these (6% of all 2020 voters) showed up two years later – in 2018 – to cast ballots in the <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/04/behind-2018-united-states-midterm-election-turnout.html">highest-turnout midterm election in decades</a>. Those who voted in 2018 but not in 2016 backed Biden over Trump in the 2020 election by about two-to-one (62% to 36%).</p>
<p>Both Trump and Biden were able to bring new voters into the political process in 2020. The 19% of 2020 voters who did not vote in 2016 or 2018 split roughly evenly between the two candidates (49% Biden vs. 47% Trump). However, as with voters overall, there was a substantial age divide within this group. Among those under age 30 who voted in 2020 but not in either of the two previous elections, Biden led 59% to 33%, while Trump won among new or irregular voters ages 30 and older by 55% to 42%. Younger voters also made up an outsize share of these voters: Those under age 30 made up 38% of new or irregular 2020 voters, though they represented just 15% of <em>all</em> 2020 voters.</p>
<p>One somewhat unusual aspect of the 2016 election was the relatively high share of voters (nearly 6%) who voted for one of the third-party candidates (mostly the Libertarian and Green Party nominees), a fact many observers attributed to the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/07/07/2016-campaign-strong-interest-widespread-dissatisfaction/">relative unpopularity</a> of both major party candidates. By comparison, just 2% of voters chose a third-party candidate in 2020. Overall, third-party 2016 voters who turned out in 2020 voted 53%-36% for Biden over Trump, with 10% opting for a third-party candidate. Among the 5% of Republicans who voted third-party in 2016 and voted in 2020, a majority (70%) supported Trump in 2020, but 18% backed Biden. Among the 5% of Democrats who voted third-party in 2016 and voted in 2020, just 8% supported Trump in 2020 while 85% voted for Biden.</p>
<p>Here are some of the other key findings from the analysis:</p>
<ul><li><strong>Biden made gains with suburban voters.</strong> In 2020, Biden improved upon Clinton’s vote share with suburban voters: 45% supported Clinton in 2016 vs. 54% for Biden in 2020. This shift was also seen among White voters: Trump narrowly won White suburban voters by 4 points in 2020 (51%-47%); he carried this group by 16 points in 2016 (54%-38%). At the same time, Trump grew his vote share among rural voters. In 2016, Trump won 59% of rural voters, a number that rose to 65% in 2020.</li><li><strong>Trump made gains among Hispanic voters.</strong> Even as Biden held on to a majority of Hispanic voters in 2020, Trump made gains among this group overall. There was a wide educational divide among Hispanic voters: Trump did substantially better with those without a college degree than college-educated Hispanic voters (41% vs. 30%).</li><li><strong>Apart from the small shift among Hispanic voters, Joe Biden’s electoral coalition looked much like Hillary Clinton’s, with Black, Hispanic and Asian voters and those of other races casting about four-in-ten of his votes. </strong>Black voters remained overwhelmingly loyal to the Democratic Party, voting 92%-8% for Biden.</li><li><strong>Biden made gains with men, while Trump improved among women, narrowing the gender gap.</strong> The gender gap in the 2020 election was narrower than it had been in 2016, both because of gains that Biden made among men and because of gains Trump made among women. In 2020, men were almost evenly divided between Trump and Biden, unlike in 2016 when Trump won men by 11 points. Trump won a slightly larger share of women’s votes in 2020 than in 2016 (44% vs. 39%), while Biden’s share among women was nearly identical to Clinton’s (55% vs. 54%).</li><li><strong>Biden improved over Clinton among White non-college voters. </strong>White voters without a college degree were critical to Trump’s victory in 2016, when he won the group by 64% to 28%. In 2018, Democrats were able to gain some ground with these voters, earning 36% of the White, non-college vote to Republicans’ 61%. In 2020, Biden roughly maintained Democrats’ 2018 share among the group, improving upon Clinton’s 2016 performance by receiving the votes of 33%. But Trump’s share of the vote among this group – who represented 42% of the total electorate this year – was nearly identical to his vote share in 2016 (65%).</li><li><strong>Biden grew his support with some religious groups while Trump held his ground.</strong> Both Trump and Biden held onto or gained with large groups within their respective religious coalitions. Trump’s strong support among White evangelical Protestants ticked up (77% in 2016, 84% in 2020) while Biden got more support among atheists and agnostics than did Clinton in 2016.</li><li><strong>After decades of constituting the majority of voters, Baby Boomers and members of the Silent Generation made up less than half of the electorate in 2020 (44%), falling below the 52% they constituted in both 2016 and 2018. </strong>Gen Z and Millennial voters favored Biden over Trump by margins of about 20 points, while Gen Xers and Boomers were more evenly split in their preferences. Gen Z voters, those ages 23 and younger, constituted 8% of the electorate, while Millennials and Gen Xers made up 47% of 2020 voters.<sup><a href="#fn-20077983-1">1</a></sup></li><li><strong>A record number of voters reported casting ballots by mail in 2020 – including many voters who said it was their first time doing so. </strong>Nearly half of 2020 voters (46%) said they had voted by mail or absentee, and among that group, about four-in-ten said it was their first time casting a ballot this way. Hispanic and White voters were more likely than Black voters to have cast absentee or mail ballots, while Black voters were more likely than White or Hispanic voters to have voted early in person. Urban and suburban voters were also more likely than rural voters to have voted absentee or by mail ballot.</li></ul>
<p>This analysis is based on a survey of 11,818 members of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel conducted Nov. 12-17, 2020, shortly after the general election. It also draws on surveys conducted among 10,640 panelists from Nov. 7-16, 2018, after the midterm election that year and 4,183 panelists from Nov. 29 to Dec. 12, 2016, after the general election. Researchers attempted to match the panelists to three different <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/2018/02/15/commercial-voter-files-and-the-study-of-u-s-politics/">commercial voter files </a>that contain official records of voter registration and turnout for 2016, 2018 and 2020. (For more details, see <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/validated-voters-methodology/">Methodology</a>.)</p>
<p>This study marries official turnout records with a post-election survey among a large, ongoing survey panel, with the goal of improving the accuracy of the results compared with relying on self-reported turnout alone. The survey panel also makes it possible to examine change in turnout and vote preference over time among many of the same individuals. This analysis joins a growing body of research seeking to achieve a more accurate assessment of the 2020 election, each based on somewhat different sources of data.<sup><a href="#fn-20077983-2">2</a></sup> Different methods and data sources have unique strengths and weaknesses, meaning that specific estimates are likely to vary among the studies and no single resource can be considered definitive.</p>
<h3>Voting patterns in the 2020 election</h3>
<p>The 2020 election featured continuity in the voting patterns of major demographic and political groups in the population, but there were a few important shifts. The gender gap in the 2020 election was narrower than it had been in 2016 as Democrats made gains among men and Republicans made gains among women. In the 2016 election, Donald Trump won men by 11 percentage points (52% to 41%) while Hillary Clinton won women by 15 points (54% to 39%). In the 2018 election, Democrats substantially narrowed the gap with men (50% of men voted for Democratic candidates, 48% for Republican candidates) while maintaining an 18-point lead among women. In the 2020 election, men again divided nearly evenly (50% Trump, 48% Biden), while Biden’s advantage narrowed to 11 points among women (55% to 44%).</p>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078001"></a></figure>
<p>Similarly, as Biden increased his level of support among White men in the 2020 election relative to Clinton’s in 2016, Trump gained among White women, which had the effect of further narrowing the gender gap among White voters. In 2016, Trump won White men by 30 points (62% to 32%). That gap narrowed to a 17-point margin for Trump in 2020 (57% to 40%). White women, a group sometimes categorized as swing voters and who broke nearly evenly in 2016 (47% for Trump to 45% for Clinton), favored him in 2020 (53% to 46%).</p>
<p>Biden received the support of 92% of Black voters, nearly the same as Clinton received in 2016 and Democratic candidates for the U.S. House received in 2018.</p>
<p>While Biden took a 59% majority of the Hispanic vote, Trump (with 38%) gained significantly over the level of support Republican candidates for the House received in 2018 (25%). To be sure, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/topic/race-ethnicity/racial-ethnic-groups/hispanics-latinos/hispanic-latino-voters/">Hispanic voters</a> are not a monolith; there is <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/02/most-cuban-american-voters-identify-as-republican-in-2020/">substantial diversity</a> within the Hispanic electorate.</p>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078002"></a></figure>
<p>One noteworthy feature of the 2020 election was the wide education gap among Hispanic voters. In 2020, Biden won college-educated Hispanic voters 69% to 30%. At the same time, Biden’s advantage over Trump among Hispanic voters who did not have a college degree was far narrower (55% to 41%).</p>
<p>One of the most pivotal groups in the 2016 election was White voters without a four-year college degree, who were critical to Trump’s electoral college victory that year (nationally, he won them by a wide 36-point margin in 2016, 64% to 28%). Prior to 2016, differences in candidate preferences by education were typically <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/15/educational-divide-in-vote-preferences-on-track-to-be-wider-than-in-recent-elections/">much smaller</a> than they were that year. In 2020, Trump won 65% of White non-college voters – nearly identical to his 2016 share – even as Biden outperformed Clinton among this group (33% of White non-college voters backed Biden, up from the 28% of this group Clinton won in 2016). At the same time, White voters with a college degree or higher supported Biden by roughly the same margin they had backed Clinton in 2016.</p>
<p>Trump’s stronghold among White men without a four-year college degree loosened somewhat in 2020. While he still won this group by a little more than two-to one (66% to Biden’s 31%), that 35 percentage point gap is notably smaller than the 50-point gap in the 2016 election, when 73% of White men without a college degree supported Trump, compared with 23% who supported Clinton. Meanwhile, White men with a four-year college degree have become increasingly supportive of Democratic candidates, breaking close to evenly in 2016 (47% for Clinton, 44% for Trump) but supporting Biden by a 10-point margin in 2020.</p>
<p>At the same time, Trump’s vote share among White women without a college degree grew slightly between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. In 2016, White, non-college women supported Trump by a margin of 56% to 33%. By 2020, Trump’s vote share rose to 64% among this group compared with 35% supporting Biden. Among white women with a college degree, support for Biden was on par with support for Clinton in 2016 (59%-40% in 2020).</p>
<h4>Party and ideology</h4>
<p>Biden and Trump benefited from similar levels of party loyalty in 2020, with Trump receiving 92% support among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and Biden getting 94% among Democrats and Democratic leaners. Comparable levels of support for each candidate were seen among Democrats (95% for Biden) and Republicans (94% for Trump), not including leaners. Among independents and those who affiliated with other parties, Biden led Trump by 52%-43%.</p>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078003"></a></figure>
<p>Ideological divisions within the parties were also apparent in the vote, with both Trump and Biden doing better among the ideological core of their parties. Trump received the votes of 97% of conservative Republicans and leaners but a smaller majority (79%) of Republicans who describe themselves as moderate or liberal. Biden took 98% of the vote among liberal Democrats and leaners and 91% among those who are moderate or conservative.</p>
<h4>Age and generation</h4>
<p>A yawning age gap in voter support – a pattern that <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2012/11/26/young-voters-supported-obama-less-but-may-have-mattered-more/">emerged in the 2004 presidential election</a> for the first time since 1972 – continues to be evident, with voters under 30 favoring Joe Biden by 24 percentage points (Biden 59%, Trump 35%).</p>
<p>Perhaps reflecting the enduring impact of this long-term age gap, voters ages 30 to 49 were also solidly in the Democratic candidate’s camp in 2020, favoring Biden by 12 points (55%-43%), similar to Clinton’s share among this age group. By contrast, older age groups divided fairly evenly between Biden and Trump, a result not too different from 2016.</p>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078004"></a></figure>
<p>These patterns also are apparent when the lens is shifted to birth cohorts, or <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/">generations</a> – groups of voters who share birth years and perhaps formative political experiences in common, such as the popularity of the president at the time they were first eligible to vote. Voters in the youngest adult generations today – Generation Z (those ages 18 to 23 in 2020) and the Millennial generation (ages 24 to 39 in 2020) – favored Biden over Trump by a margin of 20 percentage points, though Trump gained 8 points among Millennials compared with his 2016 performance. Generation Xers, those ages 40 to 55 in 2020, divided relatively evenly (51% to 48%), as did Baby Boomers. Only among members of the Silent Generation, ages 75 to 92 in 2020, was Trump clearly favored (by 58%-42%). Notably, Boomers and Silents (and the very small number of voters from the Greatest Generation) made up less than half of the electorate in 2020 (44%), compared with just over half in both 2016 and 2018.</p>
<h4>Geography</h4>
<p>The political split between America’s rural areas and its suburban and urban locales remained substantial in 2020. Biden did considerably better among suburban voters in 2020 than Clinton did in 2016 (54% for Biden, 45% for Clinton). By contrast, Trump garnered the support of 65% of rural voters, including 71% of White rural voters; the latter represented an increase over the 62% he received among this group in 2016. Biden received a solid majority of votes among urban residents (66% overall), but Trump gained among urbanites relative to his performance in 2016 (33% in 2020, 24% in 2016).</p>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078005"></a></figure>
<h4>Religion</h4>
<p>Voters in 2020 sorted along religious lines in ways consistent with recent elections. Protestants constituted nearly half of all voters (46%), as they did in 2016. Within the Protestant tradition, White evangelicals accounted for 19% of all voters, but a much higher share of Trump’s voters (34%). Without such broad support for Trump among White evangelicals, Biden would have beaten him by more than 20 points.</p>
<p>White non-evangelical Protestants voted for Trump over Biden by a 14-point margin (57%-43%), while Black Protestants were an overwhelmingly Democratic group (91% voted for Biden).</p>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078006"></a></figure>
<p>Biden, by contrast, drew strong support from religiously unaffiliated voters – atheists, agnostics, and those who say their religion is “nothing in particular.” Together, these voters made up 25% of voters, which is a slightly larger share of the total electorate than White evangelicals (19%). But support for Biden among the unaffiliated was not quite as lopsided as Trump’s support among White evangelicals (a 45-point margin for Biden among the unaffiliated vs. a 69-point margin for Trump among White evangelicals). Without the religiously unaffiliated, Trump would have had a 9-point popular vote margin over Biden.</p>
<p>White non-Hispanic Catholics were more supportive of Biden (at 42%) than they had been of Clinton in 2016 (31%), but Trump still captured a solid majority of their votes (57%). White Catholics made up 14% of all voters.</p>
<h3>Demographic profiles of Trump and Biden voters</h3>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078007"></a></figure>
<p>As was the case in the 2016 and 2018 elections, the Democratic voting coalition in 2020 looked quite different from the Republican coalition in several respects. Overall, Biden voters were younger, more racially and ethnically diverse, and less likely to live in rural areas than Trump voters.</p>
<p>In 2020, 85% of voters who cast a ballot for Trump were White non-Hispanic; this compares with just 61% of Biden voters. These differences are roughly consistent with the share of White voters in each party’s coalition in 2016.</p>
<p>Nearly two-in-ten voters who cast a ballot for Biden in the 2020 election (19%) were Black, identical to the share of Clinton voters in 2016 who were Black. That is significantly higher than the share of Trump voters who were Black (2%).</p>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078008"></a></figure>
<p>The community profiles of Trump and Biden voters are similar in some fundamental ways to the previous two elections – but more voters who cast ballots for Biden in 2020 say they live in a suburban area compared with Clinton’s 2016 voters.</p>
<p>Overall, urban voters continue to constitute a larger share of the Democratic coalition compared with the Republican coalition. And rural voters remain a significantly larger portion of the Republican electorate.</p>
<p>However, when comparing Clinton’s voters with Biden’s, there are some significant shifts. In 2016, about half of Clinton’s voters described their communities as suburban (48%), while 32% said they were from an urban area and 19% were from a rural area.</p>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078009"></a></figure>
<p>In 2020, suburban voters made up a majority of Biden’s coalition (55%); 28% of his voters said they lived in urban areas and 17% were from rural areas.</p>
<p>In 2020, 31% of Trump voters had at least a four-year college degree – similar to the share of Trump voters who had a college degree in 2016. Far more Trump voters (roughly 70% in each presidential election) did not have a four-year college degree.</p>
<p>The Democratic electorate is more evenly divided when it comes to education. In 2020, 46% of Biden voters had at least a college degree; 53% did not have a degree.</p>
<p>As was the case in 2016, White voters without a four-year college degree made up a considerably larger share of GOP voters (58%) than Democratic voters (27%). At the same time, White voters with a college degree made up a larger share of Biden voters (34%) than Trump voters (27%).</p>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078010"></a></figure>
<p>In 2020, the age profiles of Democratic and Republican voters looked largely similar to 2016. Younger adults continue to make up a larger share of Democratic voters compared with Republican voters. For example, in 2020, nearly half of Biden voters (49%) were younger than 50; that compares with 39% of Trump voters in 2020.</p>
<p>Protestants made up a majority of those voting Republican in 2020, just as they did in 2016. Overall, 58% of Trump voters were Protestant, compared with just 35% of Biden voters. White evangelical Protestants, in particular, remained a critical part of the Republican voting coalition, making up 34% of Trump’s voters but just 6% of Biden’s.</p>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078011"></a></figure>
<p>Catholics made up similar shares of Biden and Trump voters (19% and 22%, respectively); in 2016, Catholics made up a slightly higher share of Trump voters compared with Clinton voters (23% vs. 18%). Voters who were unaffiliated with any religious tradition (atheists, agnostics and those who describe themselves as “nothing in particular”) made up 35% of Biden voters but just 14% of Trump voters in 2020.</p>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078012"></a></figure>
<h3>Voting methods in the 2020 presidential election</h3>
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<p>The 2020 election brought a huge change in howAmericans cast their ballots. As some states looked to adapt to challenges in administering elections amid the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/topic/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/">COVID-19 pandemic</a>, large numbers of voters <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/24/as-states-move-to-expand-the-practice-relatively-few-americans-have-voted-by-mail/">were offered expanded access</a> to absentee and vote-by-mail options in the 2020 election. As a result, a record number of voters said they cast their ballots this way (46%). And smaller shares of voters said they either voted in person on Election Day (27%) or in person <em>before</em> Election Day (27%).</p>
<p>A majority of absentee voters said they had previously voted this way before the 2020 election (56%). Still, a sizable share (43%) said the November election was the first time they had cast an absentee or mail ballot.</p>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078014"></a></figure>
<p>Sizable shares of voters across racial and ethnic subgroups cast absentee or mail-in ballots in the 2020 election – though there are some differences in voting methods when comparing across groups. White voters were most likely to say they voted in person on Election Day (30%). Comparably smaller shares of Black (20%) and Hispanic voters (18%) said the same.</p>
<p>Black voters were more likely than White or Hispanic voters to say they cast their ballot in person <em>before </em>Election Day (42% of Black voters, vs. 27% of Hispanic voters and 25% of White voters).</p>
<p>Voters ages 65 and older stand out in their voting behavior: 55% say they voted absentee or by mail in the 2020 election – 13 percentage points higher than the share of adults under 65 who cast a ballot by mail.</p>
<p>Urban and suburban voters were considerably more likely than rural voters to say they cast their ballot by mail (50% of urban and suburban vs. 35% of rural voters). In contrast, rural voters were more likely to report voting in person on Election Day.</p>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078015"></a></figure>
<p>A majority of Biden voters said they voted absentee or by mail in the 2020 election (58%). By contrast, about a third of Trump voters (32%) voted by mail. Roughly two-thirds of Trump voters (68%) said they voted in person, either on (38%) or before (30%) Election Day.  Reflecting these differences, Trump performed much better among voters who cast their ballots in person on Election Day (65% for Trump vs. 33% for Biden). These shares were reversed among absentee and mail-in voters: 65% of absentee voters said they voted for Biden, compared with 33% who voted for Trump.</p>
<p>Preferences were more evenly divided among those who cast their ballots in person ahead of Election Day: 52% voted for Trump while 47% voted for Biden.</p>
<h3>Voters and nonvoters</h3>
<p>The 2020 general election featured the <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/04/record-high-turnout-in-2020-general-election.html">highest rate of voter turnout</a> in more than a century, with 66% of eligible adults casting a ballot for president.</p>
<p>All members of the American Trends Panel who took the 2020 post-election survey – whether they voted or not – were asked which candidate they preferred in the race for president. Nonvoters – citizens for whom no record of turnout could be located or who told us they did not vote – preferred Joe Biden over Donald Trump by 15 percentage points, 50% to 35%, compared with Biden’s 4-point overall advantage among voters.</p>
<p>Voters were nearly evenly divided on party affiliation, with 50% identifying or leaning Democratic and 48% identifying or leaning Republican, similar to the 51%-48% split in 2016. Nonvoters in 2020 were more closely divided on partisanship than they were in 2016. Among nonvoters in 2020, 46% were Democrats or leaned Democratic, while 41% were Republicans or leaned Republican. A majority of nonvoters in 2016 (55%) were Democrats or Democratic leaners, compared with about four-in-ten (41%) who were Republicans or leaned toward the Republican Party.</p>
<p>Despite notable changes in the demographics of the two candidates’ coalitions, the demographic composition of the electorate as a whole in 2020 did not differ much from that of 2016.</p>
<p>Although turnout was strong, stark demographic differences between voters and nonvoters similar to those seen in past U.S. elections were present in 2020, a pattern familiar to political observers.</p>
<p>Voters as a group were considerably older than nonvoters. Adults younger than 50 made up 45% of all voters but 68% of nonvoters – nearly identical to the pattern seen in 2016.</p>
<p>But generational change in the electorate was quite apparent. Very few members of Gen Z (born 1997 and later) were eligible to vote in the 2016 electorate, and they made up just 1% of all voters that year. In 2020, they were 8% of the total, though their lower rate of turnout compared with older age cohorts is reflected in the fact that they were 15% of eligible nonvoters. At the other end of the generational spectrum, members of the Silent and Greatest generations (born 1945 and earlier) fell from 16% of all voters in 2016 to just 8% in 2020, but their turnout rates remained among the highest of all generations. </p>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078016"></a></figure>
<figure><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?attachment_id=20078017"></a></figure>
<p>Turnout differences by race and ethnicity persisted as well. White non-Hispanic adults were 72% of voters in 2020 but just 55% of nonvoting citizens. Black Americans made up 11% of voters, but a slightly larger share (14%) of nonvoting citizens, and Hispanic adults were 10% of voters but 20% of nonvoting citizens. Asian Americans (a relatively small but <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/09/asian-americans-are-the-fastest-growing-racial-or-ethnic-group-in-the-u-s/">fast-growing</a> group in the U.S.) made up 4% of voters and an identical share of nonvoting citizens (<em>note: nonvoters in this analysis do not include noncitizens)</em>.</p>
<p>Some of the largest differences between voters and nonvoters are seen on education and income. College graduates made up 39% of all voters in 2020 (about the same as in 2016) but only 17% of nonvoters. Adults with a high school education or less were 29% of all voters but half of nonvoters.</p>
	</div>
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 Report June 30, 2021

 Behind Biden’s 2020 Victory

 An examination of the 2020 electorate, based on validated voters

 An examination of the 2020 electorate, based on validated voters

 By Ruth Igielnik, Scott Keeter and Hannah Hartig

 Steph Smith drops off her ballot for the 2020 presidential election on Nov. 3 in Rollinsville, Colorado. (Jason Connolly/AFP via Getty Images)

 How we did this

 Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand how Americans voted in 2020 and how their turnout and vote choices differed from 2016 and 2018. For this analysis, we surveyed U.S. adults online and verified their turnout in the three general elections using commercial voter files that aggregate official state turnout records. Panelists for whom a record of voting was located are considered validated voters; all others are presumed not to have voted.

 We surveyed 11,818 U.S. adults online in November 2020, 10,640 adults in November 2018 and 4,183 adults in November and December 2016. The surveys were supplemented with measures taken from annual recruitment and profile surveys conducted in 2018 and 2020. Everyone who took part is a member of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel recruited through national, random sampling of telephone numbers or, since 2018, residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The surveys are weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education, turnout and vote choice in the three elections, and many other characteristics. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.

 Here are the questions used for this report and its methodology.

 The 2020 presidential election was historic in many ways. Amid a global pandemic, with unprecedented changes in how Americans voted, voter turnout rose 7 percentage points over 2016, resulting in a total of 66% of U.S. adult citizens casting a ballot in the 2020 election. Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump 306-232 in the Electoral College and had a 4-point margin in the popular vote. While Biden’s popular vote differential was an improvement over Hillary Clinton’s 2016 2-point advantage, it was not as resounding as congressional Democrats’ 9-point advantage over Republicans in votes cast in the 2018 elections for the U.S. House of Representatives.

 Validated voters, defined

 Members of Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel were matched to public voting records from three national commercial voter files in an attempt to find a record for voting in the 2020 election. Validated voters are citizens who told us in a post-election survey that they voted in the 2020 general election and have a record for voting in a commercial voter file. Nonvoters are citizens who were not found to have a record of voting in any of the voter files or told us they did not vote.

 A new analysis of validated 2020 voters from Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel examines change and continuity in the electorate, both of which contributed to Biden’s victory. It looks at how new voters and voters who turned out in one or both previous elections voted in the 2020 presidential election and offers a detailed portrait of the demographic composition and vote choices of the 2020 electorate. It also provides a comparison with findings from our previous studies of the 2016 and 2018 electorates.

 A number of factors determined the composition of the 2020 electorate and explain how it delivered Biden a victory. Among those who voted for Clinton and Trump in 2016, similar shares of each – about nine-in-ten – also turned out in 2020, and the vast majority remained loyal to the same party in the 2020 presidential contest. These voters formed substantial bases of support for both Biden and Trump. Overall, there were shifts in presidential candidate support among some key groups between 2016 and 2020, notably suburban voters and independents. On balance, these shifts helped Biden a little more than Trump.

 Overall, one-in-four 2020 voters (25%) had not voted in 2016. About a quarter of these (6% of all 2020 voters) showed up two years later – in 2018 – to cast ballots in the highest-turnout midterm election in decades. Those who voted in 2018 but not in 2016 backed Biden over Trump in the 2020 election by about two-to-one (62% to 36%).

 Both Trump and Biden were able to bring new voters into the political process in 2020. The 19% of 2020 voters who did not vote in 2016 or 2018 split roughly evenly between the two candidates (49% Biden vs. 47% Trump). However, as with voters overall, there was a substantial age divide within this group. Among those under age 30 who voted in 2020 but not in either of the two previous elections, Biden led 59% to 33%, while Trump won among new or irregular voters ages 30 and older by 55% to 42%. Younger voters also made up an outsize share of these voters: Those under age 30 made up 38% of new or irregular 2020 voters, though they represented just 15% of all 2020 voters.

 One somewhat unusual aspect of the 2016 election was the relatively high share of voters (nearly 6%) who voted for one of the third-party candidates (mostly the Libertarian and Green Party nominees), a fact many observers attributed to the relative unpopularity of both major party candidates. By comparison, just 2% of voters chose a third-party candidate in 2020. Overall, third-party 2016 voters who turned out in 2020 voted 53%-36% for Biden over Trump, with 10% opting for a third-party candidate. Among the 5% of Republicans who voted third-party in 2016 and voted in 2020, a majority (70%) supported Trump in 2020, but 18% backed Biden. Among the 5% of Democrats who voted third-party in 2016 and voted in 2020, just 8% supported Trump in 2020 while 85% voted for Biden.

 Here are some of the other key findings from the analysis:

 * Biden made gains with suburban voters. In 2020, Biden improved upon Clinton’s vote share with suburban voters: 45% supported Clinton in 2016 vs. 54% for Biden in 2020. This shift was also seen among White voters: Trump narrowly won White suburban voters by 4 points in 2020 (51%-47%); he carried this group by 16 points in 2016 (54%-38%). At the same time, Trump grew his vote share among rural voters. In 2016, Trump won 59% of rural voters, a number that rose to 65% in 2020.
 * Trump made gains among Hispanic voters. Even as Biden held on to a majority of Hispanic voters in 2020, Trump made gains among this group overall. There was a wide educational divide among Hispanic voters: Trump did substantially better with those without a college degree than college-educated Hispanic voters (41% vs. 30%).
 * Apart from the small shift among Hispanic voters, Joe Biden’s electoral coalition looked much like Hillary Clinton’s, with Black, Hispanic and Asian voters and those of other races casting about four-in-ten of his votes. Black voters remained overwhelmingly loyal to the Democratic Party, voting 92%-8% for Biden.
 * Biden made gains with men, while Trump improved among women, narrowing the gender gap. The gender gap in the 2020 election was narrower than it had been in 2016, both because of gains that Biden made among men and because of gains Trump made among women. In 2020, men were almost evenly divided between Trump and Biden, unlike in 2016 when Trump won men by 11 points. Trump won a slightly larger share of women’s votes in 2020 than in 2016 (44% vs. 39%), while Biden’s share among women was nearly identical to Clinton’s (55% vs. 54%).
 * Biden improved over Clinton among White non-college voters. White voters without a college degree were critical to Trump’s victory in 2016, when he won the group by 64% to 28%. In 2018, Democrats were able to gain some ground with these voters, earning 36% of the White, non-college vote to Republicans’ 61%. In 2020, Biden roughly maintained Democrats’ 2018 share among the group, improving upon Clinton’s 2016 performance by receiving the votes of 33%. But Trump’s share of the vote among this group – who represented 42% of the total electorate this year – was nearly identical to his vote share in 2016 (65%).
 * Biden grew his support with some religious groups while Trump held his ground. Both Trump and Biden held onto or gained with large groups within their respective religious coalitions. Trump’s strong support among White evangelical Protestants ticked up (77% in 2016, 84% in 2020) while Biden got more support among atheists and agnostics than did Clinton in 2016.
 * After decades of constituting the majority of voters, Baby Boomers and members of the Silent Generation made up less than half of the electorate in 2020 (44%), falling below the 52% they constituted in both 2016 and 2018. Gen Z and Millennial voters favored Biden over Trump by margins of about 20 points, while Gen Xers and Boomers were more evenly split in their preferences. Gen Z voters, those ages 23 and younger, constituted 8% of the electorate, while Millennials and Gen Xers made up 47% of 2020 voters.1
 * A record number of voters reported casting ballots by mail in 2020 – including many voters who said it was their first time doing so. Nearly half of 2020 voters (46%) said they had voted by mail or absentee, and among that group, about four-in-ten said it was their first time casting a ballot this way. Hispanic and White voters were more likely than Black voters to have cast absentee or mail ballots, while Black voters were more likely than White or Hispanic voters to have voted early in person. Urban and suburban voters were also more likely than rural voters to have voted absentee or by mail ballot.

 This analysis is based on a survey of 11,818 members of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel conducted Nov. 12-17, 2020, shortly after the general election. It also draws on surveys conducted among 10,640 panelists from Nov. 7-16, 2018, after the midterm election that year and 4,183 panelists from Nov. 29 to Dec. 12, 2016, after the general election. Researchers attempted to match the panelists to three different commercial voter files that contain official records of voter registration and turnout for 2016, 2018 and 2020. (For more details, see Methodology.)

 This study marries official turnout records with a post-election survey among a large, ongoing survey panel, with the goal of improving the accuracy of the results compared with relying on self-reported turnout alone. The survey panel also makes it possible to examine change in turnout and vote preference over time among many of the same individuals. This analysis joins a growing body of research seeking to achieve a more accurate assessment of the 2020 election, each based on somewhat different sources of data.2 Different methods and data sources have unique strengths and weaknesses, meaning that specific estimates are likely to vary among the studies and no single resource can be considered definitive.

 Voting patterns in the 2020 election

 The 2020 election featured continuity in the voting patterns of major demographic and political groups in the population, but there were a few important shifts. The gender gap in the 2020 election was narrower than it had been in 2016 as Democrats made gains among men and Republicans made gains among women. In the 2016 election, Donald Trump won men by 11 percentage points (52% to 41%) while Hillary Clinton won women by 15 points (54% to 39%). In the 2018 election, Democrats substantially narrowed the gap with men (50% of men voted for Democratic candidates, 48% for Republican candidates) while maintaining an 18-point lead among women. In the 2020 election, men again divided nearly evenly (50% Trump, 48% Biden), while Biden’s advantage narrowed to 11 points among women (55% to 44%).

 Similarly, as Biden increased his level of support among White men in the 2020 election relative to Clinton’s in 2016, Trump gained among White women, which had the effect of further narrowing the gender gap among White voters. In 2016, Trump won White men by 30 points (62% to 32%). That gap narrowed to a 17-point margin for Trump in 2020 (57% to 40%). White women, a group sometimes categorized as swing voters and who broke nearly evenly in 2016 (47% for Trump to 45% for Clinton), favored him in 2020 (53% to 46%).

 Biden received the support of 92% of Black voters, nearly the same as Clinton received in 2016 and Democratic candidates for the U.S. House received in 2018.

 While Biden took a 59% majority of the Hispanic vote, Trump (with 38%) gained significantly over the level of support Republican candidates for the House received in 2018 (25%). To be sure, Hispanic voters are not a monolith; there is substantial diversity within the Hispanic electorate.

 One noteworthy feature of the 2020 election was the wide education gap among Hispanic voters. In 2020, Biden won college-educated Hispanic voters 69% to 30%. At the same time, Biden’s advantage over Trump among Hispanic voters who did not have a college degree was far narrower (55% to 41%).

 One of the most pivotal groups in the 2016 election was White voters without a four-year college degree, who were critical to Trump’s electoral college victory that year (nationally, he won them by a wide 36-point margin in 2016, 64% to 28%). Prior to 2016, differences in candidate preferences by education were typically much smaller than they were that year. In 2020, Trump won 65% of White non-college voters – nearly identical to his 2016 share – even as Biden outperformed Clinton among this group (33% of White non-college voters backed Biden, up from the 28% of this group Clinton won in 2016). At the same time, White voters with a college degree or higher supported Biden by roughly the same margin they had backed Clinton in 2016.

 Trump’s stronghold among White men without a four-year college degree loosened somewhat in 2020. While he still won this group by a little more than two-to one (66% to Biden’s 31%), that 35 percentage point gap is notably smaller than the 50-point gap in the 2016 election, when 73% of White men without a college degree supported Trump, compared with 23% who supported Clinton. Meanwhile, White men with a four-year college degree have become increasingly supportive of Democratic candidates, breaking close to evenly in 2016 (47% for Clinton, 44% for Trump) but supporting Biden by a 10-point margin in 2020.

 At the same time, Trump’s vote share among White women without a college degree grew slightly between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. In 2016, White, non-college women supported Trump by a margin of 56% to 33%. By 2020, Trump’s vote share rose to 64% among this group compared with 35% supporting Biden. Among white women with a college degree, support for Biden was on par with support for Clinton in 2016 (59%-40% in 2020).

 Party and ideology

 Biden and Trump benefited from similar levels of party loyalty in 2020, with Trump receiving 92% support among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and Biden getting 94% among Democrats and Democratic leaners. Comparable levels of support for each candidate were seen among Democrats (95% for Biden) and Republicans (94% for Trump), not including leaners. Among independents and those who affiliated with other parties, Biden led Trump by 52%-43%.

 Ideological divisions within the parties were also apparent in the vote, with both Trump and Biden doing better among the ideological core of their parties. Trump received the votes of 97% of conservative Republicans and leaners but a smaller majority (79%) of Republicans who describe themselves as moderate or liberal. Biden took 98% of the vote among liberal Democrats and leaners and 91% among those who are moderate or conservative.

 Age and generation

 A yawning age gap in voter support – a pattern that emerged in the 2004 presidential election for the first time since 1972 – continues to be evident, with voters under 30 favoring Joe Biden by 24 percentage points (Biden 59%, Trump 35%).

 Perhaps reflecting the enduring impact of this long-term age gap, voters ages 30 to 49 were also solidly in the Democratic candidate’s camp in 2020, favoring Biden by 12 points (55%-43%), similar to Clinton’s share among this age group. By contrast, older age groups divided fairly evenly between Biden and Trump, a result not too different from 2016.

 These patterns also are apparent when the lens is shifted to birth cohorts, or generations – groups of voters who share birth years and perhaps formative political experiences in common, such as the popularity of the president at the time they were first eligible to vote. Voters in the youngest adult generations today – Generation Z (those ages 18 to 23 in 2020) and the Millennial generation (ages 24 to 39 in 2020) – favored Biden over Trump by a margin of 20 percentage points, though Trump gained 8 points among Millennials compared with his 2016 performance. Generation Xers, those ages 40 to 55 in 2020, divided relatively evenly (51% to 48%), as did Baby Boomers. Only among members of the Silent Generation, ages 75 to 92 in 2020, was Trump clearly favored (by 58%-42%). Notably, Boomers and Silents (and the very small number of voters from the Greatest Generation) made up less than half of the electorate in 2020 (44%), compared with just over half in both 2016 and 2018.

 Geography

 The political split between America’s rural areas and its suburban and urban locales remained substantial in 2020. Biden did considerably better among suburban voters in 2020 than Clinton did in 2016 (54% for Biden, 45% for Clinton). By contrast, Trump garnered the support of 65% of rural voters, including 71% of White rural voters; the latter represented an increase over the 62% he received among this group in 2016. Biden received a solid majority of votes among urban residents (66% overall), but Trump gained among urbanites relative to his performance in 2016 (33% in 2020, 24% in 2016).

 Religion

 Voters in 2020 sorted along religious lines in ways consistent with recent elections. Protestants constituted nearly half of all voters (46%), as they did in 2016. Within the Protestant tradition, White evangelicals accounted for 19% of all voters, but a much higher share of Trump’s voters (34%). Without such broad support for Trump among White evangelicals, Biden would have beaten him by more than 20 points.

 White non-evangelical Protestants voted for Trump over Biden by a 14-point margin (57%-43%), while Black Protestants were an overwhelmingly Democratic group (91% voted for Biden).

 Biden, by contrast, drew strong support from religiously unaffiliated voters – atheists, agnostics, and those who say their religion is “nothing in particular.” Together, these voters made up 25% of voters, which is a slightly larger share of the total electorate than White evangelicals (19%). But support for Biden among the unaffiliated was not quite as lopsided as Trump’s support among White evangelicals (a 45-point margin for Biden among the unaffiliated vs. a 69-point margin for Trump among White evangelicals). Without the religiously unaffiliated, Trump would have had a 9-point popular vote margin over Biden.

 White non-Hispanic Catholics were more supportive of Biden (at 42%) than they had been of Clinton in 2016 (31%), but Trump still captured a solid majority of their votes (57%). White Catholics made up 14% of all voters.

 Demographic profiles of Trump and Biden voters

 As was the case in the 2016 and 2018 elections, the Democratic voting coalition in 2020 looked quite different from the Republican coalition in several respects. Overall, Biden voters were younger, more racially and ethnically diverse, and less likely to live in rural areas than Trump voters.

 In 2020, 85% of voters who cast a ballot for Trump were White non-Hispanic; this compares with just 61% of Biden voters. These differences are roughly consistent with the share of White voters in each party’s coalition in 2016.

 Nearly two-in-ten voters who cast a ballot for Biden in the 2020 election (19%) were Black, identical to the share of Clinton voters in 2016 who were Black. That is significantly higher than the share of Trump voters who were Black (2%).

 The community profiles of Trump and Biden voters are similar in some fundamental ways to the previous two elections – but more voters who cast ballots for Biden in 2020 say they live in a suburban area compared with Clinton’s 2016 voters.

 Overall, urban voters continue to constitute a larger share of the Democratic coalition compared with the Republican coalition. And rural voters remain a significantly larger portion of the Republican electorate.

 However, when comparing Clinton’s voters with Biden’s, there are some significant shifts. In 2016, about half of Clinton’s voters described their communities as suburban (48%), while 32% said they were from an urban area and 19% were from a rural area.

 In 2020, suburban voters made up a majority of Biden’s coalition (55%); 28% of his voters said they lived in urban areas and 17% were from rural areas.

 In 2020, 31% of Trump voters had at least a four-year college degree – similar to the share of Trump voters who had a college degree in 2016. Far more Trump voters (roughly 70% in each presidential election) did not have a four-year college degree.

 The Democratic electorate is more evenly divided when it comes to education. In 2020, 46% of Biden voters had at least a college degree; 53% did not have a degree.

 As was the case in 2016, White voters without a four-year college degree made up a considerably larger share of GOP voters (58%) than Democratic voters (27%). At the same time, White voters with a college degree made up a larger share of Biden voters (34%) than Trump voters (27%).

 In 2020, the age profiles of Democratic and Republican voters looked largely similar to 2016. Younger adults continue to make up a larger share of Democratic voters compared with Republican voters. For example, in 2020, nearly half of Biden voters (49%) were younger than 50; that compares with 39% of Trump voters in 2020.

 Protestants made up a majority of those voting Republican in 2020, just as they did in 2016. Overall, 58% of Trump voters were Protestant, compared with just 35% of Biden voters. White evangelical Protestants, in particular, remained a critical part of the Republican voting coalition, making up 34% of Trump’s voters but just 6% of Biden’s.

 Catholics made up similar shares of Biden and Trump voters (19% and 22%, respectively); in 2016, Catholics made up a slightly higher share of Trump voters compared with Clinton voters (23% vs. 18%). Voters who were unaffiliated with any religious tradition (atheists, agnostics and those who describe themselves as “nothing in particular”) made up 35% of Biden voters but just 14% of Trump voters in 2020.

 Voting methods in the 2020 presidential election

 The 2020 election brought a huge change in howAmericans cast their ballots. As some states looked to adapt to challenges in administering elections amid the COVID-19 pandemic, large numbers of voters were offered expanded access to absentee and vote-by-mail options in the 2020 election. As a result, a record number of voters said they cast their ballots this way (46%). And smaller shares of voters said they either voted in person on Election Day (27%) or in person before Election Day (27%).

 A majority of absentee voters said they had previously voted this way before the 2020 election (56%). Still, a sizable share (43%) said the November election was the first time they had cast an absentee or mail ballot.

 Sizable shares of voters across racial and ethnic subgroups cast absentee or mail-in ballots in the 2020 election – though there are some differences in voting methods when comparing across groups. White voters were most likely to say they voted in person on Election Day (30%). Comparably smaller shares of Black (20%) and Hispanic voters (18%) said the same.

 Black voters were more likely than White or Hispanic voters to say they cast their ballot in person before Election Day (42% of Black voters, vs. 27% of Hispanic voters and 25% of White voters).

 Voters ages 65 and older stand out in their voting behavior: 55% say they voted absentee or by mail in the 2020 election – 13 percentage points higher than the share of adults under 65 who cast a ballot by mail.

 Urban and suburban voters were considerably more likely than rural voters to say they cast their ballot by mail (50% of urban and suburban vs. 35% of rural voters). In contrast, rural voters were more likely to report voting in person on Election Day.

 A majority of Biden voters said they voted absentee or by mail in the 2020 election (58%). By contrast, about a third of Trump voters (32%) voted by mail. Roughly two-thirds of Trump voters (68%) said they voted in person, either on (38%) or before (30%) Election Day. Reflecting these differences, Trump performed much better among voters who cast their ballots in person on Election Day (65% for Trump vs. 33% for Biden). These shares were reversed among absentee and mail-in voters: 65% of absentee voters said they voted for Biden, compared with 33% who voted for Trump.

 Preferences were more evenly divided among those who cast their ballots in person ahead of Election Day: 52% voted for Trump while 47% voted for Biden.

 Voters and nonvoters

 The 2020 general election featured the highest rate of voter turnout in more than a century, with 66% of eligible adults casting a ballot for president.

 All members of the American Trends Panel who took the 2020 post-election survey – whether they voted or not – were asked which candidate they preferred in the race for president. Nonvoters – citizens for whom no record of turnout could be located or who told us they did not vote – preferred Joe Biden over Donald Trump by 15 percentage points, 50% to 35%, compared with Biden’s 4-point overall advantage among voters.

 Voters were nearly evenly divided on party affiliation, with 50% identifying or leaning Democratic and 48% identifying or leaning Republican, similar to the 51%-48% split in 2016. Nonvoters in 2020 were more closely divided on partisanship than they were in 2016. Among nonvoters in 2020, 46% were Democrats or leaned Democratic, while 41% were Republicans or leaned Republican. A majority of nonvoters in 2016 (55%) were Democrats or Democratic leaners, compared with about four-in-ten (41%) who were Republicans or leaned toward the Republican Party.

 Despite notable changes in the demographics of the two candidates’ coalitions, the demographic composition of the electorate as a whole in 2020 did not differ much from that of 2016.

 Although turnout was strong, stark demographic differences between voters and nonvoters similar to those seen in past U.S. elections were present in 2020, a pattern familiar to political observers.

 Voters as a group were considerably older than nonvoters. Adults younger than 50 made up 45% of all voters but 68% of nonvoters – nearly identical to the pattern seen in 2016.

 But generational change in the electorate was quite apparent. Very few members of Gen Z (born 1997 and later) were eligible to vote in the 2016 electorate, and they made up just 1% of all voters that year. In 2020, they were 8% of the total, though their lower rate of turnout compared with older age cohorts is reflected in the fact that they were 15% of eligible nonvoters. At the other end of the generational spectrum, members of the Silent and Greatest generations (born 1945 and earlier) fell from 16% of all voters in 2016 to just 8% in 2020, but their turnout rates remained among the highest of all generations.

 Turnout differences by race and ethnicity persisted as well. White non-Hispanic adults were 72% of voters in 2020 but just 55% of nonvoting citizens. Black Americans made up 11% of voters, but a slightly larger share (14%) of nonvoting citizens, and Hispanic adults were 10% of voters but 20% of nonvoting citizens. Asian Americans (a relatively small but fast-growing group in the U.S.) made up 4% of voters and an identical share of nonvoting citizens (note: nonvoters in this analysis do not include noncitizens).

 Some of the largest differences between voters and nonvoters are seen on education and income. College graduates made up 39% of all voters in 2020 (about the same as in 2016) but only 17% of nonvoters. Adults with a high school education or less were 29% of all voters but half of nonvoters.

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 1. Gen Z is defined here as voters born between 1997 and 2002, Millennials were born between 1981 and 1996, Gen Xers were born between 1965 and 1980, Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964, and members of the Silent Generation were born between 1928 and 1945. See here for more on how Pew Research Center defines generations. ↩
 2. The list is fairly long and growing: Voter surveys conducted for major news organizations, including the exit polls by Edison Research for the National Election Pool and AP VoteCast by NORC at the University of Chicago for the Associated Press and Fox News; the Current Population Survey Voting and Registration Supplement, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau; the American National Election Study, conducted by Stanford University and the University of Michigan; and an analysis based on surveys and modeling of a national voter database by Catalist. ↩

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 Report Materials

 Complete Report PDF Topline Questionnaire 2016-2020 Validated Voter Detailed Tables American Trends Panel Wave 78 Dataset

 Table of Contents

 Behind Biden’s 2020 Victory
 Voting patterns in the 2020 electionDemographic profiles of Trump and Biden votersVoting methods in the 2020 presidential electionVoters and nonvoters
 Acknowledgments Methodology

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 A voter data resource: Detailed demographic tables about verified voters in 2016, 2018

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 What the 2020 electorate looks like by party, race and ethnicity, age, education and religion

 feature | Sep 23, 2020

 Interactive map: The changing racial and ethnic makeup of the U.S. electorate

 report | Jun 2, 2020

 In Changing U.S. Electorate, Race and Education Remain Stark Dividing Lines

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An examination of the 2020 electorate, based on validated voters
By Ruth Igielnik, Scott Keeter and Hannah Hartig 
 Steph Smith drops off her ballot for the 2020 presidential election on Nov. 3 in Rollinsville, Colorado. (Jason Connolly/AFP via Getty Images) 
Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand how Americans voted in 2020 and how their turnout and vote choices differed from 2016 and 2018. For this analysis, we surveyed U.S. adults online and verified their turnout in the three general elections using commercial voter files that aggregate official state turnout records. Panelists for whom a record of voting was located are considered validated voters; all others are presumed not to have voted.
We surveyed 11,818 U.S. adults online in November 2020, 10,640 adults in November 2018 and 4,183 adults in November and December 2016. The surveys were supplemented with measures taken from annual recruitment and profile surveys conducted in 2018 and 2020. Everyone who took part is a member of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel recruited through national, random sampling of telephone numbers or, since 2018, residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The surveys are weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education, turnout and vote choice in the three elections, and many other characteristics. Read more about the ATP’s methodology. 
Here are the questions used for this report and its methodology.
The 2020 presidential election was historic in many ways. Amid a global pandemic, with unprecedented changes in how Americans voted, voter turnout rose 7 percentage points over 2016, resulting in a total of 66% of U.S. adult citizens casting a ballot in the 2020 election. Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump 306-232 in the Electoral College and had a 4-point margin in the popular vote. While Biden’s popular vote differential was an improvement over Hillary Clinton’s 2016 2-point advantage, it was not as resounding as congressional Democrats’ 9-point advantage over Republicans in votes cast in the 2018 elections for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Validated voters, defined
Members of Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel were matched to public voting records from three national commercial voter files in an attempt to find a record for voting in the 2020 election. Validated voters are citizens who told us in a post-election survey that they voted in the 2020 general election and have a record for voting in a commercial voter file. Nonvoters are citizens who were not found to have a record of voting in any of the voter files or told us they did not vote.
A new analysis of validated 2020 voters from Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel examines change and continuity in the electorate, both of which contributed to Biden’s victory. It looks at how new voters and voters who turned out in one or both previous elections voted in the 2020 presidential election and offers a detailed portrait of the demographic composition and vote choices of the 2020 electorate. It also provides a comparison with findings from our previous studies of the 2016 and 2018 electorates.
A number of factors determined the composition of the 2020 electorate and explain how it delivered Biden a victory. Among those who voted for Clinton and Trump in 2016, similar shares of each – about nine-in-ten – also turned out in 2020, and the vast majority remained loyal to the same party in the 2020 presidential contest. These voters formed substantial bases of support for both Biden and Trump. Overall, there were shifts in presidential candidate support among some key groups between 2016 and 2020, notably suburban voters and independents. On balance, these shifts helped Biden a little more than Trump.
   
Overall, one-in-four 2020 voters (25%) had not voted in 2016. About a quarter of these (6% of all 2020 voters) showed up two years later – in 2018 – to cast ballots in the highest-turnout midterm election in decades. Those who voted in 2018 but not in 2016 backed Biden over Trump in the 2020 election by about two-to-one (62% to 36%).
Both Trump and Biden were able to bring new voters into the political process in 2020. The 19% of 2020 voters who did not vote in 2016 or 2018 split roughly evenly between the two candidates (49% Biden vs. 47% Trump). However, as with voters overall, there was a substantial age divide within this group. Among those under age 30 who voted in 2020 but not in either of the two previous elections, Biden led 59% to 33%, while Trump won among new or irregular voters ages 30 and older by 55% to 42%. Younger voters also made up an outsize share of these voters: Those under age 30 made up 38% of new or irregular 2020 voters, though they represented just 15% of all 2020 voters.
One somewhat unusual aspect of the 2016 election was the relatively high share of voters (nearly 6%) who voted for one of the third-party candidates (mostly the Libertarian and Green Party nominees), a fact many observers attributed to the relative unpopularity of both major party candidates. By comparison, just 2% of voters chose a third-party candidate in 2020. Overall, third-party 2016 voters who turned out in 2020 voted 53%-36% for Biden over Trump, with 10% opting for a third-party candidate. Among the 5% of Republicans who voted third-party in 2016 and voted in 2020, a majority (70%) supported Trump in 2020, but 18% backed Biden. Among the 5% of Democrats who voted third-party in 2016 and voted in 2020, just 8% supported Trump in 2020 while 85% voted for Biden.
Here are some of the other key findings from the analysis:
  Biden made gains with suburban voters. In 2020, Biden improved upon Clinton’s vote share with suburban voters: 45% supported Clinton in 2016 vs. 54% for Biden in 2020. This shift was also seen among White voters: Trump narrowly won White suburban voters by 4 points in 2020 (51%-47%); he carried this group by 16 points in 2016 (54%-38%). At the same time, Trump grew his vote share among rural voters. In 2016, Trump won 59% of rural voters, a number that rose to 65% in 2020.  Trump made gains among Hispanic voters. Even as Biden held on to a majority of Hispanic voters in 2020, Trump made gains among this group overall. There was a wide educational divide among Hispanic voters: Trump did substantially better with those without a college degree than college-educated Hispanic voters (41% vs. 30%).  Apart from the small shift among Hispanic voters, Joe Biden’s electoral coalition looked much like Hillary Clinton’s, with Black, Hispanic and Asian voters and those of other races casting about four-in-ten of his votes. Black voters remained overwhelmingly loyal to the Democratic Party, voting 92%-8% for Biden.  Biden made gains with men, while Trump improved among women, narrowing the gender gap. The gender gap in the 2020 election was narrower than it had been in 2016, both because of gains that Biden made among men and because of gains Trump made among women. In 2020, men were almost evenly divided between Trump and Biden, unlike in 2016 when Trump won men by 11 points. Trump won a slightly larger share of women’s votes in 2020 than in 2016 (44% vs. 39%), while Biden’s share among women was nearly identical to Clinton’s (55% vs. 54%).  Biden improved over Clinton among White non-college voters. White voters without a college degree were critical to Trump’s victory in 2016, when he won the group by 64% to 28%. In 2018, Democrats were able to gain some ground with these voters, earning 36% of the White, non-college vote to Republicans’ 61%. In 2020, Biden roughly maintained Democrats’ 2018 share among the group, improving upon Clinton’s 2016 performance by receiving the votes of 33%. But Trump’s share of the vote among this group – who represented 42% of the total electorate this year – was nearly identical to his vote share in 2016 (65%).  Biden grew his support with some religious groups while Trump held his ground. Both Trump and Biden held onto or gained with large groups within their respective religious coalitions. Trump’s strong support among White evangelical Protestants ticked up (77% in 2016, 84% in 2020) while Biden got more support among atheists and agnostics than did Clinton in 2016.  After decades of constituting the majority of voters, Baby Boomers and members of the Silent Generation made up less than half of the electorate in 2020 (44%), falling below the 52% they constituted in both 2016 and 2018. Gen Z and Millennial voters favored Biden over Trump by margins of about 20 points, while Gen Xers and Boomers were more evenly split in their preferences. Gen Z voters, those ages 23 and younger, constituted 8% of the electorate, while Millennials and Gen Xers made up 47% of 2020 voters. 1    A record number of voters reported casting ballots by mail in 2020 – including many voters who said it was their first time doing so. Nearly half of 2020 voters (46%) said they had voted by mail or absentee, and among that group, about four-in-ten said it was their first time casting a ballot this way. Hispanic and White voters were more likely than Black voters to have cast absentee or mail ballots, while Black voters were more likely than White or Hispanic voters to have voted early in person. Urban and suburban voters were also more likely than rural voters to have voted absentee or by mail ballot. 
This analysis is based on a survey of 11,818 members of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel conducted Nov. 12-17, 2020, shortly after the general election. It also draws on surveys conducted among 10,640 panelists from Nov. 7-16, 2018, after the midterm election that year and 4,183 panelists from Nov. 29 to Dec. 12, 2016, after the general election. Researchers attempted to match the panelists to three different commercial voter files that contain official records of voter registration and turnout for 2016, 2018 and 2020. (For more details, see Methodology.)
This study marries official turnout records with a post-election survey among a large, ongoing survey panel, with the goal of improving the accuracy of the results compared with relying on self-reported turnout alone. The survey panel also makes it possible to examine change in turnout and vote preference over time among many of the same individuals. This analysis joins a growing body of research seeking to achieve a more accurate assessment of the 2020 election, each based on somewhat different sources of data. 2  Different methods and data sources have unique strengths and weaknesses, meaning that specific estimates are likely to vary among the studies and no single resource can be considered definitive.
Voting patterns in the 2020 election
The 2020 election featured continuity in the voting patterns of major demographic and political groups in the population, but there were a few important shifts. The gender gap in the 2020 election was narrower than it had been in 2016 as Democrats made gains among men and Republicans made gains among women. In the 2016 election, Donald Trump won men by 11 percentage points (52% to 41%) while Hillary Clinton won women by 15 points (54% to 39%). In the 2018 election, Democrats substantially narrowed the gap with men (50% of men voted for Democratic candidates, 48% for Republican candidates) while maintaining an 18-point lead among women. In the 2020 election, men again divided nearly evenly (50% Trump, 48% Biden), while Biden’s advantage narrowed to 11 points among women (55% to 44%).
   
Similarly, as Biden increased his level of support among White men in the 2020 election relative to Clinton’s in 2016, Trump gained among White women, which had the effect of further narrowing the gender gap among White voters. In 2016, Trump won White men by 30 points (62% to 32%). That gap narrowed to a 17-point margin for Trump in 2020 (57% to 40%). White women, a group sometimes categorized as swing voters and who broke nearly evenly in 2016 (47% for Trump to 45% for Clinton), favored him in 2020 (53% to 46%).
Biden received the support of 92% of Black voters, nearly the same as Clinton received in 2016 and Democratic candidates for the U.S. House received in 2018.
While Biden took a 59% majority of the Hispanic vote, Trump (with 38%) gained significantly over the level of support Republican candidates for the House received in 2018 (25%). To be sure, Hispanic voters are not a monolith; there is substantial diversity within the Hispanic electorate.
   
One noteworthy feature of the 2020 election was the wide education gap among Hispanic voters. In 2020, Biden won college-educated Hispanic voters 69% to 30%. At the same time, Biden’s advantage over Trump among Hispanic voters who did not have a college degree was far narrower (55% to 41%).
One of the most pivotal groups in the 2016 election was White voters without a four-year college degree, who were critical to Trump’s electoral college victory that year (nationally, he won them by a wide 36-point margin in 2016, 64% to 28%). Prior to 2016, differences in candidate preferences by education were typically much smaller than they were that year. In 2020, Trump won 65% of White non-college voters – nearly identical to his 2016 share – even as Biden outperformed Clinton among this group (33% of White non-college voters backed Biden, up from the 28% of this group Clinton won in 2016). At the same time, White voters with a college degree or higher supported Biden by roughly the same margin they had backed Clinton in 2016.
Trump’s stronghold among White men without a four-year college degree loosened somewhat in 2020. While he still won this group by a little more than two-to one (66% to Biden’s 31%), that 35 percentage point gap is notably smaller than the 50-point gap in the 2016 election, when 73% of White men without a college degree supported Trump, compared with 23% who supported Clinton. Meanwhile, White men with a four-year college degree have become increasingly supportive of Democratic candidates, breaking close to evenly in 2016 (47% for Clinton, 44% for Trump) but supporting Biden by a 10-point margin in 2020.
At the same time, Trump’s vote share among White women without a college degree grew slightly between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. In 2016, White, non-college women supported Trump by a margin of 56% to 33%. By 2020, Trump’s vote share rose to 64% among this group compared with 35% supporting Biden. Among white women with a college degree, support for Biden was on par with support for Clinton in 2016 (59%-40% in 2020).
Party and ideology
Biden and Trump benefited from similar levels of party loyalty in 2020, with Trump receiving 92% support among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and Biden getting 94% among Democrats and Democratic leaners. Comparable levels of support for each candidate were seen among Democrats (95% for Biden) and Republicans (94% for Trump), not including leaners. Among independents and those who affiliated with other parties, Biden led Trump by 52%-43%.
   
Ideological divisions within the parties were also apparent in the vote, with both Trump and Biden doing better among the ideological core of their parties. Trump received the votes of 97% of conservative Republicans and leaners but a smaller majority (79%) of Republicans who describe themselves as moderate or liberal. Biden took 98% of the vote among liberal Democrats and leaners and 91% among those who are moderate or conservative.
Age and generation
A yawning age gap in voter support – a pattern that emerged in the 2004 presidential election for the first time since 1972 – continues to be evident, with voters under 30 favoring Joe Biden by 24 percentage points (Biden 59%, Trump 35%).
Perhaps reflecting the enduring impact of this long-term age gap, voters ages 30 to 49 were also solidly in the Democratic candidate’s camp in 2020, favoring Biden by 12 points (55%-43%), similar to Clinton’s share among this age group. By contrast, older age groups divided fairly evenly between Biden and Trump, a result not too different from 2016.
   
These patterns also are apparent when the lens is shifted to birth cohorts, or generations – groups of voters who share birth years and perhaps formative political experiences in common, such as the popularity of the president at the time they were first eligible to vote. Voters in the youngest adult generations today – Generation Z (those ages 18 to 23 in 2020) and the Millennial generation (ages 24 to 39 in 2020) – favored Biden over Trump by a margin of 20 percentage points, though Trump gained 8 points among Millennials compared with his 2016 performance. Generation Xers, those ages 40 to 55 in 2020, divided relatively evenly (51% to 48%), as did Baby Boomers. Only among members of the Silent Generation, ages 75 to 92 in 2020, was Trump clearly favored (by 58%-42%). Notably, Boomers and Silents (and the very small number of voters from the Greatest Generation) made up less than half of the electorate in 2020 (44%), compared with just over half in both 2016 and 2018.
Geography
The political split between America’s rural areas and its suburban and urban locales remained substantial in 2020. Biden did considerably better among suburban voters in 2020 than Clinton did in 2016 (54% for Biden, 45% for Clinton). By contrast, Trump garnered the support of 65% of rural voters, including 71% of White rural voters; the latter represented an increase over the 62% he received among this group in 2016. Biden received a solid majority of votes among urban residents (66% overall), but Trump gained among urbanites relative to his performance in 2016 (33% in 2020, 24% in 2016).
   
Religion
Voters in 2020 sorted along religious lines in ways consistent with recent elections. Protestants constituted nearly half of all voters (46%), as they did in 2016. Within the Protestant tradition, White evangelicals accounted for 19% of all voters, but a much higher share of Trump’s voters (34%). Without such broad support for Trump among White evangelicals, Biden would have beaten him by more than 20 points.
White non-evangelical Protestants voted for Trump over Biden by a 14-point margin (57%-43%), while Black Protestants were an overwhelmingly Democratic group (91% voted for Biden).
   
Biden, by contrast, drew strong support from religiously unaffiliated voters – atheists, agnostics, and those who say their religion is “nothing in particular.” Together, these voters made up 25% of voters, which is a slightly larger share of the total electorate than White evangelicals (19%). But support for Biden among the unaffiliated was not quite as lopsided as Trump’s support among White evangelicals (a 45-point margin for Biden among the unaffiliated vs. a 69-point margin for Trump among White evangelicals). Without the religiously unaffiliated, Trump would have had a 9-point popular vote margin over Biden.
White non-Hispanic Catholics were more supportive of Biden (at 42%) than they had been of Clinton in 2016 (31%), but Trump still captured a solid majority of their votes (57%). White Catholics made up 14% of all voters.
Demographic profiles of Trump and Biden voters
   
As was the case in the 2016 and 2018 elections, the Democratic voting coalition in 2020 looked quite different from the Republican coalition in several respects. Overall, Biden voters were younger, more racially and ethnically diverse, and less likely to live in rural areas than Trump voters.
In 2020, 85% of voters who cast a ballot for Trump were White non-Hispanic; this compares with just 61% of Biden voters. These differences are roughly consistent with the share of White voters in each party’s coalition in 2016.
Nearly two-in-ten voters who cast a ballot for Biden in the 2020 election (19%) were Black, identical to the share of Clinton voters in 2016 who were Black. That is significantly higher than the share of Trump voters who were Black (2%).
   
The community profiles of Trump and Biden voters are similar in some fundamental ways to the previous two elections – but more voters who cast ballots for Biden in 2020 say they live in a suburban area compared with Clinton’s 2016 voters.
Overall, urban voters continue to constitute a larger share of the Democratic coalition compared with the Republican coalition. And rural voters remain a significantly larger portion of the Republican electorate.
However, when comparing Clinton’s voters with Biden’s, there are some significant shifts. In 2016, about half of Clinton’s voters described their communities as suburban (48%), while 32% said they were from an urban area and 19% were from a rural area.
   
In 2020, suburban voters made up a majority of Biden’s coalition (55%); 28% of his voters said they lived in urban areas and 17% were from rural areas.
In 2020, 31% of Trump voters had at least a four-year college degree – similar to the share of Trump voters who had a college degree in 2016. Far more Trump voters (roughly 70% in each presidential election) did not have a four-year college degree.
The Democratic electorate is more evenly divided when it comes to education. In 2020, 46% of Biden voters had at least a college degree; 53% did not have a degree.
As was the case in 2016, White voters without a four-year college degree made up a considerably larger share of GOP voters (58%) than Democratic voters (27%). At the same time, White voters with a college degree made up a larger share of Biden voters (34%) than Trump voters (27%).
   
In 2020, the age profiles of Democratic and Republican voters looked largely similar to 2016. Younger adults continue to make up a larger share of Democratic voters compared with Republican voters. For example, in 2020, nearly half of Biden voters (49%) were younger than 50; that compares with 39% of Trump voters in 2020.
Protestants made up a majority of those voting Republican in 2020, just as they did in 2016. Overall, 58% of Trump voters were Protestant, compared with just 35% of Biden voters. White evangelical Protestants, in particular, remained a critical part of the Republican voting coalition, making up 34% of Trump’s voters but just 6% of Biden’s.
   
Catholics made up similar shares of Biden and Trump voters (19% and 22%, respectively); in 2016, Catholics made up a slightly higher share of Trump voters compared with Clinton voters (23% vs. 18%). Voters who were unaffiliated with any religious tradition (atheists, agnostics and those who describe themselves as “nothing in particular”) made up 35% of Biden voters but just 14% of Trump voters in 2020.
   
Voting methods in the 2020 presidential election
   
The 2020 election brought a huge change in howAmericans cast their ballots. As some states looked to adapt to challenges in administering elections amid the COVID-19 pandemic, large numbers of voters were offered expanded access to absentee and vote-by-mail options in the 2020 election. As a result, a record number of voters said they cast their ballots this way (46%). And smaller shares of voters said they either voted in person on Election Day (27%) or in person before Election Day (27%).
A majority of absentee voters said they had previously voted this way before the 2020 election (56%). Still, a sizable share (43%) said the November election was the first time they had cast an absentee or mail ballot.
   
Sizable shares of voters across racial and ethnic subgroups cast absentee or mail-in ballots in the 2020 election – though there are some differences in voting methods when comparing across groups. White voters were most likely to say they voted in person on Election Day (30%). Comparably smaller shares of Black (20%) and Hispanic voters (18%) said the same.
Black voters were more likely than White or Hispanic voters to say they cast their ballot in person before Election Day (42% of Black voters, vs. 27% of Hispanic voters and 25% of White voters).
Voters ages 65 and older stand out in their voting behavior: 55% say they voted absentee or by mail in the 2020 election – 13 percentage points higher than the share of adults under 65 who cast a ballot by mail.
Urban and suburban voters were considerably more likely than rural voters to say they cast their ballot by mail (50% of urban and suburban vs. 35% of rural voters). In contrast, rural voters were more likely to report voting in person on Election Day.
   
A majority of Biden voters said they voted absentee or by mail in the 2020 election (58%). By contrast, about a third of Trump voters (32%) voted by mail. Roughly two-thirds of Trump voters (68%) said they voted in person, either on (38%) or before (30%) Election Day.  Reflecting these differences, Trump performed much better among voters who cast their ballots in person on Election Day (65% for Trump vs. 33% for Biden). These shares were reversed among absentee and mail-in voters: 65% of absentee voters said they voted for Biden, compared with 33% who voted for Trump.
Preferences were more evenly divided among those who cast their ballots in person ahead of Election Day: 52% voted for Trump while 47% voted for Biden.
Voters and nonvoters
The 2020 general election featured the highest rate of voter turnout in more than a century, with 66% of eligible adults casting a ballot for president.
All members of the American Trends Panel who took the 2020 post-election survey – whether they voted or not – were asked which candidate they preferred in the race for president. Nonvoters – citizens for whom no record of turnout could be located or who told us they did not vote – preferred Joe Biden over Donald Trump by 15 percentage points, 50% to 35%, compared with Biden’s 4-point overall advantage among voters.
Voters were nearly evenly divided on party affiliation, with 50% identifying or leaning Democratic and 48% identifying or leaning Republican, similar to the 51%-48% split in 2016. Nonvoters in 2020 were more closely divided on partisanship than they were in 2016. Among nonvoters in 2020, 46% were Democrats or leaned Democratic, while 41% were Republicans or leaned Republican. A majority of nonvoters in 2016 (55%) were Democrats or Democratic leaners, compared with about four-in-ten (41%) who were Republicans or leaned toward the Republican Party.
Despite notable changes in the demographics of the two candidates’ coalitions, the demographic composition of the electorate as a whole in 2020 did not differ much from that of 2016.
Although turnout was strong, stark demographic differences between voters and nonvoters similar to those seen in past U.S. elections were present in 2020, a pattern familiar to political observers.
Voters as a group were considerably older than nonvoters. Adults younger than 50 made up 45% of all voters but 68% of nonvoters – nearly identical to the pattern seen in 2016.
But generational change in the electorate was quite apparent. Very few members of Gen Z (born 1997 and later) were eligible to vote in the 2016 electorate, and they made up just 1% of all voters that year. In 2020, they were 8% of the total, though their lower rate of turnout compared with older age cohorts is reflected in the fact that they were 15% of eligible nonvoters. At the other end of the generational spectrum, members of the Silent and Greatest generations (born 1945 and earlier) fell from 16% of all voters in 2016 to just 8% in 2020, but their turnout rates remained among the highest of all generations. 
   
   
Turnout differences by race and ethnicity persisted as well. White non-Hispanic adults were 72% of voters in 2020 but just 55% of nonvoting citizens. Black Americans made up 11% of voters, but a slightly larger share (14%) of nonvoting citizens, and Hispanic adults were 10% of voters but 20% of nonvoting citizens. Asian Americans (a relatively small but fast-growing group in the U.S.) made up 4% of voters and an identical share of nonvoting citizens (note: nonvoters in this analysis do not include noncitizens).
Some of the largest differences between voters and nonvoters are seen on education and income. College graduates made up 39% of all voters in 2020 (about the same as in 2016) but only 17% of nonvoters. Adults with a high school education or less were 29% of all voters but half of nonvoters.
Behind Biden’s 2020 Victory
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/02/940689086/narrow-wins-in-these-key-states-powered-biden-to-the-presidency
Narrow Wins In These Key States Powered Biden To The Presidency
2020-12-02
Benjamin Swasey; Connie Hanzhang Jin
<div><div>
 <p>In a contest with <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/11/25/937248659/president-elect-biden-hits-80-million-votes-in-year-of-record-turnout">historic turnout</a>, President-elect Joe Biden topped President Trump by <a href="https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/">nearly 7 million votes</a>, and <a href="https://apps.npr.org/elections20-interactive/#/president">74 votes</a> in the Electoral College, but his victory really was stitched together with narrow margins in a handful of states.</p> <p>Trump's legal team has mounted dubious and so-far-unsuccessful efforts to overturn the results in six key states Biden won. <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/biden-transition-updates/2020/11/30/940184307/arizona-certifies-election-results-affirming-bidens-victory-in-the-state">All six</a> of <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/biden-transition-updates/2020/11/24/938442673/pennsylvania-makes-it-official-biden-won">those states</a> have now <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/biden-transition-updates/2020/11/23/938015808/michigan-a-state-where-biden-leads-to-certify-election-results">certified</a> their <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/biden-transition-updates/2020/11/20/937050597/georgia-election-results-certified-election-official-says-the-numbers-dont-lie">results</a>, providing an opportunity to look back at the final tallies. </p> <p>The graphic below shows the results in those six swing states, illustrating the especially close margins in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin. </p> 
 
 <p>The tight races in the trio of states had a big electoral impact. As NPR's Domenico Montanaro <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/11/25/937248659/president-elect-biden-hits-80-million-votes-in-year-of-record-turnout">has put it</a>, "just 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin separated Biden and Trump from a tie in the Electoral College."</p> <p>Of course, Trump is no stranger to narrow victories. He won the 2016 election thanks to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/donald-trump-will-be-president-thanks-to-80000-people-in-three-states/">just under 80,000 combined votes</a> in three of those six key states.</p> 
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 Biden Won By Narrow Margins In Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin Joe Biden topped President Trump by nearly 7 million votes, and 74 votes in the Electoral College, but his victory really was stitched together with narrow margins in key states.

 Elections

 Narrow Wins In These Key States Powered Biden To The Presidency

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 December 2, 2020 5:00 AM ET

 Benjamin Swasey

 Twitter

 Connie Hanzhang Jin

 Twitter

 In a contest with historic turnout, President-elect Joe Biden topped President Trump by nearly 7 million votes, and 74 votes in the Electoral College, but his victory really was stitched together with narrow margins in a handful of states.

 Trump's legal team has mounted dubious and so-far-unsuccessful efforts to overturn the results in six key states Biden won. All six of those states have now certified their results, providing an opportunity to look back at the final tallies.

 The graphic below shows the results in those six swing states, illustrating the especially close margins in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin.

 Politics

 President-Elect Joe Biden Hits 80 Million Votes In Year Of Record Turnout

 The tight races in the trio of states had a big electoral impact. As NPR's Domenico Montanaro has put it, "just 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin separated Biden and Trump from a tie in the Electoral College."

 Of course, Trump is no stranger to narrow victories. He won the 2016 election thanks to just under 80,000 combined votes in three of those six key states.

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In a contest with historic turnout, President-elect Joe Biden topped President Trump by nearly 7 million votes, and 74 votes in the Electoral College, but his victory really was stitched together with narrow margins in a handful of states. Trump's legal team has mounted dubious and so-far-unsuccessful efforts to overturn the results in six key states Biden won. All six of those states have now certified their results, providing an opportunity to look back at the final tallies.  The graphic below shows the results in those six swing states, illustrating the especially close margins in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin.  
 
 The tight races in the trio of states had a big electoral impact. As NPR's Domenico Montanaro has put it, "just 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin separated Biden and Trump from a tie in the Electoral College." Of course, Trump is no stranger to narrow victories. He won the 2016 election thanks to just under 80,000 combined votes in three of those six key states. 
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Narrow Wins In These Key States Powered Biden To The Presidency
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/02/940689086/narrow-wins-in-these-key-states-powered-biden-to-the-presidency
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/did-biden-win-little-or-lot-answer-yes-n1251845
Did Biden win by a little or a lot? The answer is ... yes.
2020-12-20
Dante Chinni
<div><div><p>WASHINGTON — With the Electoral College tallies last week, the 2020 presidential race is finally over, but Democrats and Republicans continue to argue about the results. And one debate in particular lingers: Did President-elect Joe Biden win by a little or by a lot?</p><p>The answer is ... yes, depending on how you measure the votes. And closer looks at this year's election and past races show why the Electoral College/popular vote divide is increasingly worrying in a sharply divided nation.</p><p>Let's start with 2020. Looking at the popular vote, Biden won by a sizable margin.</p><figure></figure><p>Biden's 4.5-point victory margin is the second largest since 2000. Only Barack Obama's 7-point win in 2008 was bigger. The same is true of Biden's margin of 7 million popular votes. Obama won by 10 million in 2008. And, of course, the 81 million votes Biden won is by far the most any presidential candidate has ever received.</p><p>But if you look just at the states that put Biden over the top in the Electoral College, he won by fewer votes than Trump did in 2016.</p><figure></figure><p>Throughout Trump's time in the White House, much has been made of how he won the presidency by under 78,000 votes in three states. And that point was true. Trump won because of narrow margins in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.</p><p>But the margins this year were even tighter in the three states that put Biden over the top in the Electoral College. He won Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin by a total of less than 45,000 votes.</p><p>The difference between the popular and Electoral College votes has gotten a lot of attention lately. Democrats are usually more than happy to point out that Republican candidates have won the popular vote exactly once since 1992, when George W. Bush won it in 2004. But the bigger concern is that the popular/electoral divide is growing.</p><p>Consider the 2000 election. That race that is well-remembered for coming down to a recount in Florida, but even outside Florida, the election was extremely close. The overall national difference in popular votes was 547,000, or just half a percentage point. And there were eight states where the winning candidate's margin was less than 3.5 percentage points.</p><figure></figure><p>Now compare that to this year. Biden won the popular vote by 7 million votes and more than 4 percentage points, but there were still eight states where the winning candidate's margin was within 3.5 points.</p><p>In other words, a swing of a few thousand votes in a few states this year and the country could have been looking at a second term for Trump, even though Biden would have won the national popular vote by 7 million votes. In a country where political divisions have grown more intense, that kind of divide between the popular and the institutional winners would be deeply problematic.</p><p>Does that mean the Electoral College may be on the way out? Don't bet on it.</p><p>Remember that point about the Republican presidential candidate's winning the popular vote only once since 1992. And then add this data point about 2020: Biden's national popular vote margin, that 7 million-vote edge, comes from just two states: California and New York. That's not a political reality Republicans are eager to inhabit.</p><figure></figure><p>So for now, the popular/electoral gap seems set to grow, driven in part by an urban/rural split among voters. It means that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are likely to capture a mandate that would allow them to do what they want in a country that says it is hungry for change.</p><p>With a new year and a new president arriving soon, that seems to leave Washington with one meaningful, worthwhile resolution for next year: a more bipartisan 2021.</p><p>Easy? No. But the holidays are a time to dream.</p></div><div><p>Dante Chinni</p><p>Dante Chinni is a contributor to NBC News specializing in data analysis around campaigns, politics and culture.</p></div>||||I|||| IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.
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 Meet the Press

 Did Biden win by a little or a lot? The answer is ... yes.

 A closer look at the 2020 election and past races shows why the Electoral College/popular vote divide is increasingly worrying.

 The size of Joe Biden's win depends on how you count

 02:13
 Link copied
 Dec. 20, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC
 By Dante Chinni

 WASHINGTON — With the Electoral College tallies last week, the 2020 presidential race is finally over, but Democrats and Republicans continue to argue about the results. And one debate in particular lingers: Did President-elect Joe Biden win by a little or by a lot?

 The answer is ... yes, depending on how you measure the votes. And closer looks at this year's election and past races show why the Electoral College/popular vote divide is increasingly worrying in a sharply divided nation.

 Let's start with 2020. Looking at the popular vote, Biden won by a sizable margin.

 Biden's 4.5-point victory margin is the second largest since 2000. Only Barack Obama's 7-point win in 2008 was bigger. The same is true of Biden's margin of 7 million popular votes. Obama won by 10 million in 2008. And, of course, the 81 million votes Biden won is by far the most any presidential candidate has ever received.

 But if you look just at the states that put Biden over the top in the Electoral College, he won by fewer votes than Trump did in 2016.

 Throughout Trump's time in the White House, much has been made of how he won the presidency by under 78,000 votes in three states. And that point was true. Trump won because of narrow margins in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

 But the margins this year were even tighter in the three states that put Biden over the top in the Electoral College. He won Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin by a total of less than 45,000 votes.

 The difference between the popular and Electoral College votes has gotten a lot of attention lately. Democrats are usually more than happy to point out that Republican candidates have won the popular vote exactly once since 1992, when George W. Bush won it in 2004. But the bigger concern is that the popular/electoral divide is growing.

 Consider the 2000 election. That race that is well-remembered for coming down to a recount in Florida, but even outside Florida, the election was extremely close. The overall national difference in popular votes was 547,000, or just half a percentage point. And there were eight states where the winning candidate's margin was less than 3.5 percentage points.

 Now compare that to this year. Biden won the popular vote by 7 million votes and more than 4 percentage points, but there were still eight states where the winning candidate's margin was within 3.5 points.

 In other words, a swing of a few thousand votes in a few states this year and the country could have been looking at a second term for Trump, even though Biden would have won the national popular vote by 7 million votes. In a country where political divisions have grown more intense, that kind of divide between the popular and the institutional winners would be deeply problematic.

 Does that mean the Electoral College may be on the way out? Don't bet on it.

 Remember that point about the Republican presidential candidate's winning the popular vote only once since 1992. And then add this data point about 2020: Biden's national popular vote margin, that 7 million-vote edge, comes from just two states: California and New York. That's not a political reality Republicans are eager to inhabit.

 So for now, the popular/electoral gap seems set to grow, driven in part by an urban/rural split among voters. It means that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are likely to capture a mandate that would allow them to do what they want in a country that says it is hungry for change.

 With a new year and a new president arriving soon, that seems to leave Washington with one meaningful, worthwhile resolution for next year: a more bipartisan 2021.

 Easy? No. But the holidays are a time to dream.

 Dante Chinni

 Dante Chinni is a contributor to NBC News specializing in data analysis around campaigns, politics and culture.

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WASHINGTON — With the Electoral College tallies last week, the 2020 presidential race is finally over, but Democrats and Republicans continue to argue about the results. And one debate in particular lingers: Did President-elect Joe Biden win by a little or by a lot? The answer is ... yes, depending on how you measure the votes. And closer looks at this year's election and past races show why the Electoral College/popular vote divide is increasingly worrying in a sharply divided nation. Let's start with 2020. Looking at the popular vote, Biden won by a sizable margin.   Biden's 4.5-point victory margin is the second largest since 2000. Only Barack Obama's 7-point win in 2008 was bigger. The same is true of Biden's margin of 7 million popular votes. Obama won by 10 million in 2008. And, of course, the 81 million votes Biden won is by far the most any presidential candidate has ever received. But if you look just at the states that put Biden over the top in the Electoral College, he won by fewer votes than Trump did in 2016.   Throughout Trump's time in the White House, much has been made of how he won the presidency by under 78,000 votes in three states. And that point was true. Trump won because of narrow margins in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But the margins this year were even tighter in the three states that put Biden over the top in the Electoral College. He won Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin by a total of less than 45,000 votes. The difference between the popular and Electoral College votes has gotten a lot of attention lately. Democrats are usually more than happy to point out that Republican candidates have won the popular vote exactly once since 1992, when George W. Bush won it in 2004. But the bigger concern is that the popular/electoral divide is growing. Consider the 2000 election. That race that is well-remembered for coming down to a recount in Florida, but even outside Florida, the election was extremely close. The overall national difference in popular votes was 547,000, or just half a percentage point. And there were eight states where the winning candidate's margin was less than 3.5 percentage points.   Now compare that to this year. Biden won the popular vote by 7 million votes and more than 4 percentage points, but there were still eight states where the winning candidate's margin was within 3.5 points. In other words, a swing of a few thousand votes in a few states this year and the country could have been looking at a second term for Trump, even though Biden would have won the national popular vote by 7 million votes. In a country where political divisions have grown more intense, that kind of divide between the popular and the institutional winners would be deeply problematic. Does that mean the Electoral College may be on the way out? Don't bet on it. Remember that point about the Republican presidential candidate's winning the popular vote only once since 1992. And then add this data point about 2020: Biden's national popular vote margin, that 7 million-vote edge, comes from just two states: California and New York. That's not a political reality Republicans are eager to inhabit.   So for now, the popular/electoral gap seems set to grow, driven in part by an urban/rural split among voters. It means that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are likely to capture a mandate that would allow them to do what they want in a country that says it is hungry for change. With a new year and a new president arriving soon, that seems to leave Washington with one meaningful, worthwhile resolution for next year: a more bipartisan 2021. Easy? No. But the holidays are a time to dream.   Dante Chinni Dante Chinni is a contributor to NBC News specializing in data analysis around campaigns, politics and culture.
Did Biden win by a little or a lot? The answer is ... yes.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/did-biden-win-little-or-lot-answer-yes-n1251845
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-president.html
Presidential Election Results: Biden Wins (Published 2020)
2020-11-03
The New York Times
<div><div><article><div> <section> <div> <table> <tbody> <tr> <th>STATE</th> <th>E.V.</th> <th></th> <th>MARGIN</th> <th>VOTE MARGIN</th> <th> EST. REPORTED% RPT. </th> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-arizona-president.html">Ariz. ›</a></td> <td> 11 </td> <td> <p>Winner</p> </td> <td>Biden +0.31</td> <td> +10,457 </td> <td> <div> <p> 100% </p> </div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-georgia-president.html">Ga. ›</a></td> <td> 16 </td> <td> <p>Winner</p> </td> <td>Biden +0.24</td> <td> +11,779 </td> <td> <div> <p> 100% </p> </div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-michigan-president.html">Mich. ›</a></td> <td> 16 </td> <td> <p>Winner</p> </td> <td>Biden +3</td> <td> +154,188 </td> <td> <div> <p> 100% </p> </div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-minnesota-president.html">Minn. ›</a></td> <td> 10 </td> <td> <p>Winner</p> </td> <td>Biden +7</td> <td> +233,012 </td> <td> <div> <p> 100% </p> </div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-nevada-president.html">Nev. ›</a></td> <td> 6 </td> <td> <p>Winner</p> </td> <td>Biden +2</td> <td> +33,596 </td> <td> <div> <p> 100% </p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody> <tbody> <tr> <th>STATE</th> <th>E.V.</th> <th></th> <th>MARGIN</th> <th>VOTE MARGIN</th> <th> EST. REPORTED% RPT. </th> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-pennsylvania-president.html">Pa. ›</a></td> <td> 20 </td> <td> <p>Winner</p> </td> <td>Biden +1.2</td> <td> +81,660 </td> <td> <div> <p> 100% </p> </div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-wisconsin-president.html">Wis. ›</a></td> <td> 10 </td> <td> <p>Winner</p> </td> <td>Biden +0.63</td> <td> +20,682 </td> <td> <div> <p> 100% </p> </div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-florida-president.html">Fla. ›</a></td> <td> 29 </td> <td> <p>Winner</p> </td> <td>Trump +3</td> <td> +371,686 </td> <td> <div> <p> 100% </p> </div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-north-carolina-president.html">N.C. ›</a></td> <td> 15 </td> <td> <p>Winner</p> </td> <td>Trump +1.3</td> <td> +74,483 </td> <td> <div> <p> 100% </p> </div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-ohio-president.html">Ohio ›</a></td> <td> 18 </td> <td> <p>Winner</p> </td> <td>Trump +8</td> <td> +475,669 </td> <td> <div> <p> 100% </p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div> <div> <p> Jan. 7, 2021 </p> <p> Vice President Mike Pence affirms Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris as the next president and vice president. </p> </div> <p> See all updates </p> </div> <div> <div> <h3><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-pennsylvania-president.html">Pennsylvania ›</a></h3> <h4>Vote share over time in Pa. </h4> <h4>Vote margin over time in Pa.</h4> </div> <div> <h3><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-georgia-president.html">Georgia ›</a></h3> <h4>Vote share over time in Ga. </h4> <h4>Vote margin over time in Ga.</h4> </div> <div> <h3><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-arizona-president.html">Arizona ›</a></h3> <h4>Vote share over time in Ariz. </h4> <h4>Vote margin over time in Ariz.</h4> </div> <div> <h3><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-nevada-president.html">Nevada ›</a></h3> <h4>Vote share over time in Nev. </h4> <h4>Vote margin over time in Nev.</h4> </div> </div> </section> </div></article></div>||||I|||| Sections
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 Presidential Election Results: Biden Wins

 Updated June 1, 2021, 2:51 PM ET

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 Claudia Tenney, Republican, wins New York’s 22nd Congressional District ›
 Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Republican, wins Iowa’s Second Congressional District ›
 Congress confirmed Joe Biden’s victory, defying a mob that stormed the Capitol after being egged on by President Trump ›
 Democrats have won the Senate ›
 Lee Zeldin, Republican, wins re-election in New York’s First Congressional District ›
 LIVE

 Presidential Election Results: Biden Wins

 Joseph R. Biden Jr. was elected the 46th president of the United States. Mr. Biden defeated President Trump after winning Pennsylvania, which put his total of Electoral College votes above the 270 he needed to clinch the presidency.

 306
 306
 Joseph R. Biden Jr. Biden
 Winner Winner
 232
 Donald J. Trump Trump
 270 to win
 Joseph R. Biden Jr. Biden
 Winner
 Donald J. Trump Trump
 81,284,666 votes (51.3%)
 74,224,319 votes (46.8%)
 232

 Biden Win Flip

 Trump Win Flip

 Leader:

 Biden

 Trump

 Circle size is proportional to the amount each county’s leading candidate is ahead.
 SHIFT IN MARGIN
 In counties that have reported almost all of their votes
 More Democratic
 More Republican
 By winner
 Electoral votes
 Size of lead
 Shift from 2016

 Battleground states to watch

 Some states will report a vast majority of votes on Election Day, while others will take several days to count mail-in and provisional ballots. See which states have certified their results here.

 STATE E.V. MARGIN VOTE MARGIN EST. REPORTED % RPT.
 Ariz. › 11 Winner Biden +0.31 +10,457 100% 
 Ga. › 16 Winner Biden +0.24 +11,779 100% 
 Mich. › 16 Winner Biden +3 +154,188 100% 
 Minn. › 10 Winner Biden +7 +233,012 100% 
 Nev. › 6 Winner Biden +2 +33,596 100% 
 STATE E.V. MARGIN VOTE MARGIN EST. REPORTED % RPT.
 Pa. › 20 Winner Biden +1.2 +81,660 100% 
 Wis. › 10 Winner Biden +0.63 +20,682 100% 
 Fla. › 29 Winner Trump +3 +371,686 100% 
 N.C. › 15 Winner Trump +1.3 +74,483 100% 
 Ohio › 18 Winner Trump +8 +475,669 100% 
 

 Latest updates

 Maggie Astor Jan. 7, 2021

 Vice President Mike Pence affirms Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris as the next president and vice president.

 See all updates

 Tracking the vote count

 Pennsylvania ›

 Vote share over time in Pa.

 Vote margin over time in Pa.

 Georgia ›

 Vote share over time in Ga.

 Vote margin over time in Ga.

 Arizona ›

 Vote share over time in Ariz.

 Vote margin over time in Ariz.

 Nevada ›

 Vote share over time in Nev.

 Vote margin over time in Nev.

 North Carolina ›

 Vote share over time in N.C.

 Vote margin over time in N.C.

 State results

 Dem. Win Flip

 Rep. Win Flip

 Other Win Flip

 Biden expected to win easily

 STATE MARGIN RPT.
 Calif. Biden +29 100%
 Winner 
 Conn. Biden +20 100%
 Winner 
 Del. Biden +19 100%
 Winner 
 D.C. Biden +87 100%
 Winner 
 Hawaii Biden +29 100%
 Winner 
 Ill. Biden +17 100%
 Winner 
 Md. Biden +33 100%
 Winner 
 Mass. Biden +33 100%
 Winner 
 N.J. Biden +16 100%
 Winner 
 N.M. Biden +11 100%
 Winner 
 N.Y. Biden +23 100%
 Winner 
 Ore. Biden +16 100%
 Winner 
 R.I. Biden +21 100%
 Winner 
 Vt. Biden +35 100%
 Winner 
 Wash. Biden +19 100%
 Winner 
 

 Biden expected to win narrowly

 STATE MARGIN RPT.
 Ariz. Biden +0.31 100%
 Winner 
 Colo. Biden +14 100%
 Winner 
 Maine Biden +9 100%
 Winner 
 Mich. Biden +3 100%
 Winner 
 Minn. Biden +7 100%
 Winner 
 Nev. Biden +2 100%
 Winner 
 N.H. Biden +7 100%
 Winner 
 Pa. Biden +1.2 100%
 Winner 
 Va. Biden +10 100%
 Winner 
 Wis. Biden +0.63 100%
 Winner 
 

 Tossup states

 STATE MARGIN RPT.
 Fla. Trump +3 100%
 Winner 
 Ga. Biden +0.24 100%
 Winner 
 Iowa Trump +8 100%
 Winner 
 N.C. Trump +1.3 100%
 Winner 
 Ohio Trump +8 100%
 Winner 
 Texas Trump +6 100%
 Winner 
 

 Trump expected to win narrowly

 STATE MARGIN RPT.
 Alaska Trump +10 99% 
 Winner 
 Ind. Trump +16 100%
 Winner 
 Kan. Trump +15 100%
 Winner 
 Mo. Trump +15 100%
 Winner 
 Mont. Trump +16 100%
 Winner 
 S.C. Trump +12 100%
 Winner 
 Utah Trump +20 100%
 Winner 
 

 Trump expected to win easily

 STATE MARGIN RPT.
 Ala. Trump +25 100%
 Winner 
 Ark. Trump +28 100%
 Winner 
 Idaho Trump +31 100%
 Winner 
 Ky. Trump +26 100%
 Winner 
 La. Trump +19 100%
 Winner 
 Miss. Trump +17 100%
 Winner 
 Neb. Trump +19 100%
 Winner 
 N.D. Trump +33 100%
 Winner 
 Okla. Trump +33 100%
 Winner 
 S.D. Trump +26 100%
 Winner 
 Tenn. Trump +23 100%
 Winner 
 W.Va. Trump +39 100%
 Winner 
 Wyo. Trump +43 100%
 Winner 
 

 Battleground states

 STATE MARGIN RPT. 
 Ariz. Biden +0.31 100% ›
 Winner 
 Fla. Trump +3 100% ›
 Winner 
 Ga. Biden +0.24 100% ›
 Winner 
 Iowa Trump +8 100% ›
 Winner 
 Mich. Biden +3 100% ›
 Winner 
 Minn. Biden +7 100% ›
 Winner 
 Nev. Biden +2 100% ›
 Winner 
 N.H. Biden +7 100% ›
 Winner 
 N.C. Trump +1.3 100% ›
 Winner 
 Ohio Trump +8 100% ›
 Winner 
 Pa. Biden +1.2 100% ›
 Winner 
 Texas Trump +6 100% ›
 Winner 
 Wis. Biden +0.63 100% ›
 Winner 
 

 Other states

 STATE MARGIN RPT. 
 Ala. Trump +25 100% ›
 Winner 
 Alaska Trump +10 99% ›
 Winner 
 Ark. Trump +28 100% ›
 Winner 
 Calif. Biden +29 100% ›
 Winner 
 Colo. Biden +14 100% ›
 Winner 
 Conn. Biden +20 100% ›
 Winner 
 Del. Biden +19 100% ›
 Winner 
 D.C. Biden +87 100% ›
 Winner 
 Hawaii Biden +29 100% ›
 Winner 
 Idaho Trump +31 100% ›
 Winner 
 Ill. Biden +17 100% ›
 Winner 
 Ind. Trump +16 100% ›
 Winner 
 Kan. Trump +15 100% ›
 Winner 
 Ky. Trump +26 100% ›
 Winner 
 La. Trump +19 100% ›
 Winner 
 Maine Biden +9 100% ›
 Winner 
 Md. Biden +33 100% ›
 Winner 
 Mass. Biden +33 100% ›
 Winner 
 Miss. Trump +17 100% ›
 Winner 
 Mo. Trump +15 100% ›
 Winner 
 Mont. Trump +16 100% ›
 Winner 
 Neb. Trump +19 100% ›
 Winner 
 N.J. Biden +16 100% ›
 Winner 
 N.M. Biden +11 100% ›
 Winner 
 N.Y. Biden +23 100% ›
 Winner 
 N.D. Trump +33 100% ›
 Winner 
 Okla. Trump +33 100% ›
 Winner 
 Ore. Biden +16 100% ›
 Winner 
 R.I. Biden +21 100% ›
 Winner 
 S.C. Trump +12 100% ›
 Winner 
 S.D. Trump +26 100% ›
 Winner 
 Tenn. Trump +23 100% ›
 Winner 
 Utah Trump +20 100% ›
 Winner 
 Vt. Biden +35 100% ›
 Winner 
 Va. Biden +10 100% ›
 Winner 
 Wash. Biden +19 100% ›
 Winner 
 W.Va. Trump +39 100% ›
 Winner 
 Wyo. Trump +43 100% ›
 Winner 
 

 Read our analysis of the vote

 How Biden Flipped Pennsylvania
 Nov. 7, 2020
 Florida Shifts Further to the Right
 Nov. 4, 2020
 Tight Georgia Race Comes Down to Atlanta
 Nov. 4, 2020
 White Voters Shift Michigan Back to Democrats
 Nov. 5, 2020

 Latest updates

 Nicholas Fandos, in Washington

 Congress confirmed Joe Biden’s victory, defying a mob that stormed the Capitol after being egged on by President Trump. Read more ›

 Winner Claudia Tenney, Republican, wins New York’s 22nd Congressional District ›
 Winner Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Republican, wins Iowa’s Second Congressional District ›

 Maggie Astor Jan. 7, 2021

 Vice President Mike Pence affirms Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris as the next president and vice president.

 Astead Herndon, in Atlanta Jan. 6, 2021

 Today encapsulated the politics of progress and grievance that have defined the Trump years: Senate wins for Warnock and Ossoff, and a mob at the Capitol. Read more ›

 Winner Democrats have won the Senate ›

 Jonathan Martin, in Atlanta Jan. 6, 2021

 Democrats have now captured control of the Senate as Jon Ossoff has defeated David Perdue, following the Rev. Raphael Warnock’s victory over Senator Kelly Loeffler. See live results ›

 The New York Times Jan. 6, 2021

 A mob of people loyal to President Trump stormed the Capitol, halting Congress’s counting of the electoral votes to confirm President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. Read more ›

 Trip Gabriel Dec. 14, 2020

 Joseph R. Biden Jr. has received a majority of votes from the Electoral College, formally securing the presidency in the manner set out in the Constitution. Read more ›

 Isabella Grullón Paz Dec. 14, 2020

 The 538 members of the Electoral College are meeting to cast ballots for president based on the election results in their states, formalizing Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. Track the Electoral College results ›

 The New York Times Dec. 5, 2020

 California has certified its electors for the 2020 election, officially giving Joseph R. Biden Jr. more than the 270 pledged electors needed to become president. Read more ›

 Winner Lee Zeldin, Republican, wins re-election in New York’s First Congressional District ›
 Winner Andrew Garbarino, Republican, wins New York’s Second Congressional District ›
 Winner Nicole Malliotakis, Republican, wins New York’s 11th Congressional District ›
 Winner Mike Garcia, Republican, wins re-election in California’s 25th Congressional District ›
 Winner John Katko, Republican, wins re-election in New York’s 24th Congressional District ›

 Reid Epstein, in Washington Nov. 30, 2020

 The chairwoman of the Wisconsin Elections Commission has certified Biden as the winner in Wisconsin, formalizing his narrow victory in a state Trump carried four years ago. Read more ›

 Glenn Thrush, in Washington Nov. 30, 2020

 Arizona has officially certified Biden’s narrow victory in the state, further undermining Trump’s efforts to portray his decisive national loss as a matter still under dispute. Read more ›

 Winner David Valadao, Republican, wins California’s 21st Congressional District ›

 Michael D. Shear, in Washington Nov. 23, 2020

 President Trump authorized his government to begin the transition to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s administration. Read more ›

 2020 Election Results

 * Alabama
 * Alaska
 * Arizona
 * Arkansas
 * California
 * Colorado
 * Connecticut
 * Delaware
 * D.C.
 * Florida
 * Georgia
 * Hawaii
 * Idaho
 * Illinois
 * Indiana
 * Iowa
 * Kansas
 * Kentucky
 * Louisiana
 * Maine
 * Maryland
 * Massachusetts
 * Michigan
 * Minnesota
 * Mississippi
 * Missouri
 * Montana
 * Nebraska
 * Nevada
 * New Hampshire
 * New Jersey
 * New Mexico
 * New York
 * North Carolina
 * North Dakota
 * Ohio
 * Oklahoma
 * Oregon
 * Pennsylvania
 * Rhode Island
 * South Carolina
 * South Dakota
 * Tennessee
 * Texas
 * Utah
 * Vermont
 * Virginia
 * Washington
 * West Virginia
 * Wisconsin
 * Wyoming

 Past Election Results

 2020 Primaries 2018 2016 2014 2012 2010 2008

 Source: Election results from National Election Pool/Edison Research

 Race calls from The Associated Press. Race ratings from Cook Political Report. Results are unofficial until they are certified by election officials.

 By Michael Andre, Aliza Aufrichtig, Gray Beltran, Matthew Bloch, Larry Buchanan, Andrew Chavez, Nate Cohn, Matthew Conlen, Annie Daniel, Asmaa Elkeurti, Andrew Fischer, Josh Holder, Will Houp, Jonathan Huang, Josh Katz, Aaron Krolik, Jasmine C. Lee, Rebecca Lieberman, Ilana Marcus, Jaymin Patel, Charlie Smart, Ben Smithgall, Umi Syam, Rumsey Taylor, Miles Watkins and Isaac White.

 Additional data collection by Alice Park, Rachel Shorey, Thu Trinh and Quoctrung Bui

 Candidate photo research and production by Earl Wilson, Alana Celii, Lalena Fisher, Yuriria Avila, Amanda Cordero, Laura Kaltman, Andrew Rodriguez, Alex Garces, Chris Kahley, Andy Chen, Chris O'Brien, Jim DeMaria, Dave Braun and Jessica White

 Reporting contributed by Alicia Parlapiano.

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STATE E.V.   MARGIN VOTE MARGIN  EST. REPORTED% RPT.     Ariz. ›   11   Winner  Biden +0.31  +10,457     100%       Ga. ›   16   Winner  Biden +0.24  +11,779     100%       Mich. ›   16   Winner  Biden +3  +154,188     100%       Minn. ›   10   Winner  Biden +7  +233,012     100%       Nev. ›   6   Winner  Biden +2  +33,596     100%        STATE E.V.   MARGIN VOTE MARGIN  EST. REPORTED% RPT.     Pa. ›   20   Winner  Biden +1.2  +81,660     100%       Wis. ›   10   Winner  Biden +0.63  +20,682     100%       Fla. ›   29   Winner  Trump +3  +371,686     100%       N.C. ›   15   Winner  Trump +1.3  +74,483     100%       Ohio ›   18   Winner  Trump +8  +475,669     100%           Jan. 7, 2021   Vice President Mike Pence affirms Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris as the next president and vice president.    See all updates      Pennsylvania ›  Vote share over time in Pa.  Vote margin over time in Pa.    Georgia ›  Vote share over time in Ga.  Vote margin over time in Ga.    Arizona ›  Vote share over time in Ariz.  Vote margin over time in Ariz.    Nevada ›  Vote share over time in Nev.  Vote margin over time in Nev.
Presidential Election Results: Biden Wins (Published 2020)
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-president.html
https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/2020
2020 Electoral College Results
2019-11-05
None
<div><section>
 
 
 
 
 <table>
 <tbody>
 <tr>
 <th>President</th>
 <td>Joseph R. Biden Jr. [D]</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Main Opponent</th>
 <td>Donald J. Trump [R]</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Electoral Vote</th>
 <td>Winner:   306</td>
 <td>Main Opponent:   232</td>
 <td>Total/Majority:   538/270</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Vice President</th>
 <td>Kamala D. Harris [D]</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>V.P. Opponent:  </th>
 <td>Michael R. Pence [R]</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Notes</th>
 <td>
 <p>For the first time since adopting their respective systems, both Maine and Nebraska split their electoral votes: </p>
 <ul>
 <li>Maine distributes its electoral votes proportionally, with two at-large electors representing the statewide winning presidential and vice presidential candidates and one elector each representing the winners from its two Congressional districts. For only the second time since adopting this system, Maine's four electoral votes were split between the two major party tickets.<br />
  </li>
 <li>Nebraska distributes its electoral votes proportionally, with two at-large electors representing the statewide winning presidential and vice presidential candidates and one elector each representing the winners from its three Congressional districts. For only the second time since adopting this system, Nebraska's five electoral votes were split between the two major party tickets. </li>
 </ul>
 <p>During the electoral vote count, objections were filed with respect to the Arizona and Pennsylvania electoral votes, but neither House sustained the objection, so all votes were counted.</p>
 <p>Due to violent unrest in and around the Capitol, the electoral results were not certified until 3:44 a.m., the morning of January 7, 2021.</p>
 </td>
 </tr>
 </tbody>
</table>
<h2><strong><a></a></strong>Electoral College Certificates and Votes by State</h2>
<ul>
 <li>Click on the name of a State to see its Certificate of Ascertainment.</li>
 <li>Click on the number of electoral votes for each state to see its Certificate of Vote. </li>
</ul>
<table>
 <tbody>
 <tr>
 <th>State</th>
 <th>Number of<br />
 Electoral Votes for Each State</th>
 <th>For President</th>
 <th>For Vice-President</th>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>Joseph R. Biden Jr.,<br />
 of Delaware</td>
 <td>Donald J. Trump,<br />
 of Florida</td>
 <td>Kamala D. Harris,<br />
 of California</td>
 <td>Michael R. Pence,<br />
 of Indiana</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-alabama.pdf">Alabama</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-alabama.pdf">9</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>
 <p>9</p>
 </td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>
 <p>9</p>
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-alaska.pdf">Alaska</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-alaska.pdf">3</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>3</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>3</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/ascertainment-arizona.pdf">Arizona</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-arizona.pdf">11</a></td>
 <td>11</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>11</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-arkansas.pdf">Arkansas</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-arkansas.pdf">6</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>6</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>6</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-california.pdf">California</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-california.pdf">55</a></td>
 <td>55</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>55</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-colorado.pdf">Colorado</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-colorado.pdf">9</a></td>
 <td>9</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>9</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-connecticut.pdf">Connecticut</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-connecticut.pdf">7</a></td>
 <td>7</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>7</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-delaware.pdf">Delaware</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-delaware.pdf">3</a></td>
 <td>3</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>3</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-washington-dc.pdf">District of Columbia</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-washington-dc.pdf">3</a></td>
 <td>3</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>3</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-florida.pdf">Florida</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-florida.pdf">29</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>29</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>29</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-georgia.pdf">Georgia</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-georgia.pdf">16</a></td>
 <td>16</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>16</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-hawaii.pdf">Hawaii</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-hawaii.pdf">4</a></td>
 <td>4</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>4</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-idaho.pdf">Idaho</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-idaho.pdf">4</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>4</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>4</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-illinois.pdf">Illinois</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-illinois.pdf">20</a></td>
 <td>20</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>20</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-indiana.pdf">Indiana</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-indiana.pdf">11</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>11</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>11</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-iowa.pdf">Iowa</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-iowa.pdf">6</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>6</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>6</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-kansas.pdf">Kansas</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-kansas.pdf">6</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>6</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>6</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-kentucky.pdf">Kentucky</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-kentucky.pdf">8</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>8</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>8</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-louisiana.pdf">Louisiana</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-louisiana.pdf">8</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>8</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>8</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-maine.pdf">Maine</a>*</td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-maine.pdf">4</a></td>
 <td>3</td>
 <td>1</td>
 <td>3</td>
 <td>1</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-maryland.pdf">Maryland</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-maryland.pdf">10</a></td>
 <td>10</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>10</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-massachusetts.pdf">Massachusetts</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-massachusetts.pdf">11</a></td>
 <td>11</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>11</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/ascertainment-michigan.pdf">Michigan</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-michigan.pdf">16</a></td>
 <td>16</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>16</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-minnesota.pdf">Minnesota</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-minnesota.pdf">10</a></td>
 <td>10</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>10</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-mississippi.pdf">Mississippi</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-mississippi.pdf">6</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>6</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>6</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-missouri.pdf">Missouri</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-missouri.pdf">10</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>10</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>10</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-montana.pdf">Montana</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-montana.pdf">3</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>3</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>3</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-nebraska.pdf">Nebraska</a>**</td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-nebraska.pdf">5</a></td>
 <td>1</td>
 <td>4</td>
 <td>1</td>
 <td>4</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-nevada.pdf">Nevada</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-nevada.pdf">6</a></td>
 <td>6</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>6</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-new-hampshire.pdf">New Hampshire</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-new-hampshire.pdf">4</a></td>
 <td>4</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>4</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-new-jersey.pdf">New Jersey</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-new-jersey.pdf">14</a></td>
 <td>14</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>14</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-new-mexico.pdf">New Mexico</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-new-mexico.pdf">5</a></td>
 <td>5</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>5</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-new-york.pdf">New York</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-new-york.pdf">29</a></td>
 <td>29</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>29</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-north-carolina.pdf">North Carolina</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-north-carolina.pdf">15</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>15</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>15</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-north-dakota.pdf">North Dakota</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-north-dakota.pdf">3</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>3</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>3</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-ohio.pdf">Ohio</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-ohio.pdf">18</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>18</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>18</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-oklahoma.pdf">Oklahoma</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-oklahoma.pdf">7</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>7</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>7</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-oregon.pdf">Oregon</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-oregon.pdf">7</a></td>
 <td>7</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>7</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-pennsylvania.pdf">Pennsylvania</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-pennsylvania.pdf">20</a></td>
 <td>20</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>20</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-rhode-island.pdf">Rhode Island</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-rhode-island.pdf">4</a></td>
 <td>4</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>4</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-south-carolina.pdf">South Carolina</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-south-carolina.pdf">9</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>9</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>9</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-south-dakota.pdf">South Dakota</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-south-dakota.pdf">3</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>3</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>3</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-tennessee.pdf">Tennessee</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-tennessee.pdf">11</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>11</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>11</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-texas.pdf">Texas</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-texas.pdf">38</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>38</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>38</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-utah.pdf">Utah</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-utah.pdf">6</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>6</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>6</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-vermont.pdf">Vermont</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-vermont.pdf">3</a></td>
 <td>3</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>3</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-virginia.pdf">Virginia</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-virginia.pdf">13</a></td>
 <td>13</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>13</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-washington.pdf">Washington</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-washington.pdf">12</a></td>
 <td>12</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>12</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-west-virginia.pdf">West Virginia</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-west-virginia.pdf">5</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>5</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>5</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-wisconsin.pdf">Wisconsin</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-wisconsin.pdf">10</a></td>
 <td>10</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>10</td>
 <td>-</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/ascertainment-wyoming.pdf">Wyoming</a></td>
 <td><a href="/files/electoral-college/2020/vote-wyoming.pdf">3</a></td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>3</td>
 <td>-</td>
 <td>3</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Total</th>
 <td>538</td>
 <td>306</td>
 <td>232</td>
 <td>306</td>
 <td>232</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>Notes</th>
 <td>
 <p>   *Maine appoints its electors proportionally. Biden-Harris won in the First Congressional District and took the state; Trump-Pence won the Second Congressional District. Maine's electoral votes were proportionally awarded accordingly: for President, Biden 3 and Trump 1; for Vice President, Harris 3 and Pence 1.</p>
 <p>   **Nebraska appoints its electors proportionally. Trump-Pence won in the First and Third Congressional Districts and took the state; Biden-Harris won the Second Congressional District. Nebraska's electoral votes were proportionally awarded accordingly: for President, Trump 4 and Biden 1; for Vice President, Pence 4 and Harris 1.</p>
 </td>
 </tr>
 </tbody>
</table>
</section>||||I|||| Skip to main content
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 2020 Electoral College Results

 President Joseph R. Biden Jr. [D]      
 Main Opponent Donald J. Trump [R]      
 Electoral Vote Winner: 306      Main Opponent: 232 Total/Majority: 538/270
 Vice President Kamala D. Harris [D]      
 V.P. Opponent: Michael R. Pence [R]      
 For the first time since adopting their respective systems, both Maine and Nebraska split their electoral votes:     
       
 * Maine distributes its electoral votes proportionally, with two at-large electors representing the statewide winning presidential and vice presidential candidates and one elector each representing the winners from its two Congressional districts. For only the second time since adopting this system, Maine's four electoral votes were split between the two major party tickets. 
 * Nebraska distributes its electoral votes proportionally, with two at-large electors representing the statewide winning presidential and vice presidential candidates and one elector each representing the winners from its three Congressional districts. For only the second time since adopting this system, Nebraska's five electoral votes were split between the two major party tickets.
 Notes       
 During the electoral vote count, objections were filed with respect to the Arizona and Pennsylvania electoral votes, but neither House sustained the objection, so all votes were counted.    
       
 Due to violent unrest in and around the Capitol, the electoral results were not certified until 3:44 a.m., the morning of January 7, 2021.    
       
 

 Electoral College Certificates and Votes by State

 * Click on the name of a State to see its Certificate of Ascertainment.
 * Click on the number of electoral votes for each state to see its Certificate of Vote.
 State Number of      For President For Vice-President
 Electoral Votes for Each State      
 Joseph R. Biden Jr., Donald J. Trump,     Kamala D. Harris, Michael R. Pence, 
 of Delaware of Florida      of California of Indiana 
 Alabama      9 - 9 - 9
       
 Alaska      3 - 3 - 3
 Arizona      11 11 - 11 -
 Arkansas      6 - 6 - 6
 California      55 55 - 55 -
 Colorado      9 9 - 9 -
 Connecticut      7 7 - 7 -
 Delaware      3 3 - 3 -
 District of Columbia      3 3 - 3 -
 Florida      29 - 29 - 29
 Georgia      16 16 - 16 -
 Hawaii      4 4 - 4 -
 Idaho      4 - 4 - 4
 Illinois      20 20 - 20 -
 Indiana      11 - 11 - 11
 Iowa      6 - 6 - 6
 Kansas      6 - 6 - 6
 Kentucky      8 - 8 - 8
 Louisiana      8 - 8 - 8
 Maine*      4 3 1 3 1
 Maryland      10 10 - 10 -
 Massachusetts      11 11 - 11 -
 Michigan      16 16 - 16 -
 Minnesota      10 10 - 10 -
 Mississippi      6 - 6 - 6
 Missouri      10 - 10 - 10
 Montana      3 - 3 - 3
 Nebraska**      5 1 4 1 4
 Nevada      6 6 - 6 -
 New Hampshire      4 4 - 4 -
 New Jersey      14 14 - 14 -
 New Mexico      5 5 - 5 -
 New York      29 29 - 29 -
 North Carolina      15 - 15 - 15
 North Dakota      3 - 3 - 3
 Ohio      18 - 18 - 18
 Oklahoma      7 - 7 - 7
 Oregon      7 7 - 7 -
 Pennsylvania      20 20 - 20 -
 Rhode Island      4 4 - 4 -
 South Carolina      9 - 9 - 9
 South Dakota      3 - 3 - 3
 Tennessee      11 - 11 - 11
 Texas      38 - 38 - 38
 Utah      6 - 6 - 6
 Vermont      3 3 - 3 -
 Virginia      13 13 - 13 -
 Washington      12 12 - 12 -
 West Virginia      5 - 5 - 5
 Wisconsin      10 10 - 10 -
 Wyoming      3 - 3 - 3
 Total      538 306 232 306 232
 *Maine appoints its electors proportionally. Biden-Harris won in the First Congressional District and took the state; Trump-Pence won the Second Congressional District. Maine's electoral votes were proportionally awarded accordingly: for President, Biden 3 and Trump 1; for Vice President, Harris 3 and Pence 1. 
 Notes      
 **Nebraska appoints its electors proportionally. Trump-Pence won in the First and Third Congressional Districts and took the state; Biden-Harris won the Second Congressional District. Nebraska's electoral votes were proportionally awarded accordingly: for President, Trump 4 and Biden 1; for Vice President, Pence 4 and Harris 1.
      
 
 Snippet

 ...a Process, not a Place

 The Office of the Federal Register (OFR) is a part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and, on behalf of the Archivist of the United States, coordinates certain functions of the Electoral College between the States and Congress. It has no role in appointing electors and has no contact with them.

 Snippet
 Search the U.S. Electoral College
 

 Accordion

 Key Dates and Events

 * November 3, 2020—Election Day
 The voters in each State choose electors to serve in the Electoral College.

 * December 14, 2020 —Electors vote
 The electors in each State meet to select the President and Vice President of the United States.

 * January 6, 2021 —Congress counts the vote
 Congress meets in joint session to count the electoral votes (unless Congress passes a law to change the date).

 * January 20, 2021—Inauguration Day
 The President-Elect is sworn in as President of the United States.

 View Electoral College timeline

 This page was last reviewed on April 16, 2021.
 Contact us with questions or comments.

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 Top
President
 Joseph R. Biden Jr. [D]
 
 
 Main Opponent
 Donald J. Trump [R]
 
 
 Electoral Vote
 Winner:   306
 Main Opponent:   232
 Total/Majority:   538/270
 
 
 Vice President
 Kamala D. Harris [D]
 
 
 V.P. Opponent:  
 Michael R. Pence [R]
 
 
 Notes
 
 For the first time since adopting their respective systems, both Maine and Nebraska split their electoral votes: 
 
 Maine distributes its electoral votes proportionally, with two at-large electors representing the statewide winning presidential and vice presidential candidates and one elector each representing the winners from its two Congressional districts. For only the second time since adopting this system, Maine's four electoral votes were split between the two major party tickets.
  
 Nebraska distributes its electoral votes proportionally, with two at-large electors representing the statewide winning presidential and vice presidential candidates and one elector each representing the winners from its three Congressional districts. For only the second time since adopting this system, Nebraska's five electoral votes were split between the two major party tickets. 
 
 During the electoral vote count, objections were filed with respect to the Arizona and Pennsylvania electoral votes, but neither House sustained the objection, so all votes were counted.
 Due to violent unrest in and around the Capitol, the electoral results were not certified until 3:44 a.m., the morning of January 7, 2021.
 
 
 
    Electoral College Certificates and Votes by State
 Click on the name of a State to see its Certificate of Ascertainment.
 Click on the number of electoral votes for each state to see its Certificate of Vote. 
 
 
 State
 Number of
 Electoral Votes for Each State
 For President
 For Vice-President
 
 
 Joseph R. Biden Jr.,
 of Delaware
 Donald J. Trump,
 of Florida
 Kamala D. Harris,
 of California
 Michael R. Pence,
 of Indiana
 
 
  Alabama 
  9 
 -
 
 9
 
 -
 
 9
 
 
 
  Alaska 
  3 
 -
 3
 -
 3
 
 
  Arizona 
  11 
 11
 -
 11
 -
 
 
  Arkansas 
  6 
 -
 6
 -
 6
 
 
  California 
  55 
 55
 -
 55
 -
 
 
  Colorado 
  9 
 9
 -
 9
 -
 
 
  Connecticut 
  7 
 7
 -
 7
 -
 
 
  Delaware 
  3 
 3
 -
 3
 -
 
 
  District of Columbia 
  3 
 3
 -
 3
 -
 
 
  Florida 
  29 
 -
 29
 -
 29
 
 
  Georgia 
  16 
 16
 -
 16
 -
 
 
  Hawaii 
  4 
 4
 -
 4
 -
 
 
  Idaho 
  4 
 -
 4
 -
 4
 
 
  Illinois 
  20 
 20
 -
 20
 -
 
 
  Indiana 
  11 
 -
 11
 -
 11
 
 
  Iowa 
  6 
 -
 6
 -
 6
 
 
  Kansas 
  6 
 -
 6
 -
 6
 
 
  Kentucky 
  8 
 -
 8
 -
 8
 
 
  Louisiana 
  8 
 -
 8
 -
 8
 
 
  Maine*
  4 
 3
 1
 3
 1
 
 
  Maryland 
  10 
 10
 -
 10
 -
 
 
  Massachusetts 
  11 
 11
 -
 11
 -
 
 
  Michigan 
  16 
 16
 -
 16
 -
 
 
  Minnesota 
  10 
 10
 -
 10
 -
 
 
  Mississippi 
  6 
 -
 6
 -
 6
 
 
  Missouri 
  10 
 -
 10
 -
 10
 
 
  Montana 
  3 
 -
 3
 -
 3
 
 
  Nebraska**
  5 
 1
 4
 1
 4
 
 
  Nevada 
  6 
 6
 -
 6
 -
 
 
  New Hampshire 
  4 
 4
 -
 4
 -
 
 
  New Jersey 
  14 
 14
 -
 14
 -
 
 
  New Mexico 
  5 
 5
 -
 5
 -
 
 
  New York 
  29 
 29
 -
 29
 -
 
 
  North Carolina 
  15 
 -
 15
 -
 15
 
 
  North Dakota 
  3 
 -
 3
 -
 3
 
 
  Ohio 
  18 
 -
 18
 -
 18
 
 
  Oklahoma 
  7 
 -
 7
 -
 7
 
 
  Oregon 
  7 
 7
 -
 7
 -
 
 
  Pennsylvania 
  20 
 20
 -
 20
 -
 
 
  Rhode Island 
  4 
 4
 -
 4
 -
 
 
  South Carolina 
  9 
 -
 9
 -
 9
 
 
  South Dakota 
  3 
 -
 3
 -
 3
 
 
  Tennessee 
  11 
 -
 11
 -
 11
 
 
  Texas 
  38 
 -
 38
 -
 38
 
 
  Utah 
  6 
 -
 6
 -
 6
 
 
  Vermont 
  3 
 3
 -
 3
 -
 
 
  Virginia 
  13 
 13
 -
 13
 -
 
 
  Washington 
  12 
 12
 -
 12
 -
 
 
  West Virginia 
  5 
 -
 5
 -
 5
 
 
  Wisconsin 
  10 
 10
 -
 10
 -
 
 
  Wyoming 
  3 
 -
 3
 -
 3
 
 
 Total
 538
 306
 232
 306
 232
 
 
 Notes
 
    *Maine appoints its electors proportionally. Biden-Harris won in the First Congressional District and took the state; Trump-Pence won the Second Congressional District. Maine's electoral votes were proportionally awarded accordingly: for President, Biden 3 and Trump 1; for Vice President, Harris 3 and Pence 1.
    **Nebraska appoints its electors proportionally. Trump-Pence won in the First and Third Congressional Districts and took the state; Biden-Harris won the Second Congressional District. Nebraska's electoral votes were proportionally awarded accordingly: for President, Trump 4 and Biden 1; for Vice President, Pence 4 and Harris 1.
2020 Electoral College Results
https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/2020
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/12/politics/trump-overturn-2020-election-fake-electoral-college/index.html
Trump allies' fake Electoral College certificates offer fresh insights about plot to overturn Biden's victory | CNN Politics
2022-01-12
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  — 
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</p>
 <p>
 In the weeks after the 2020 election, then-President Donald Trump’s allies sent fake certificates to the National Archives declaring that Trump won seven states that he actually lost. The documents had no impact on the outcome of the election, but they are yet another example of how Team Trump tried to subvert the Electoral College – a key line of inquiry for the January 6 committee.
 </p>
 <p>
 The fake certificates were created by Trump allies in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico, who sought to replace valid presidential electors from their states with a pro-Trump slate, according to <a href="https://www.americanoversight.org/american-oversight-obtains-seven-phony-certificates-of-pro-trump-electors">documents obtained by American Oversight</a>.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 The documents contain the signatures of Trump supporters who claimed to be the rightful electors from seven states that President Joe Biden won. But these rogue slates of electors didn’t have the backing of any elected officials in the seven states – like a governor or secretary of state, who are involved in certifying election results – and they served no legitimate purpose. 
 </p>
 <p>
 The documents were first posted online in March by the government watchdog group. But they received renewed attention this week, as the January 6 committee ramps up its investigation into Trump’s attempted coup, including how his allies tried to stop states from certifying Biden’s victory, in part, by installing friendly slates of electors who would overturn the will of the voters. 
 </p>
 <p>
 <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/10/jan-6-committee-ramps-up-state-level-investigation-526752">Politico</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/1481109115418120194?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1481109115418120194%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rollingstone.com%2Fpolitics%2Fpolitics-news%2Fpro-trump-groups-fake-letter-national-archives-1281966%2F">MSNBC</a> were first to report on the documents this week. 
 </p>
 
 <p>
 As part of the Electoral College process, governors are required to sign a formal “certificate of ascertainment,” verifying that the statewide winner’s slate of electors are the legitimate electors. These electors then sign a second certificate, formally affirming their votes for president.
 </p>
 <p>
 These documents are sent to the National Archives in Washington, DC, which processes them before they are sent onto Congress, which formally counts the electoral votes on January 6.
 </p>
 <p>
 The real certificates, which have been <a href="https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/2020">posted to the National Archives website</a>, correctly stated that Biden won the seven battleground states. They also list the legitimate group of electors from each state, rather than the rogue pro-Trump slate included on the unofficial documents. 
 </p>
 
 <p>
 Some of the fake certificates with pro-Trump electors were sent to the National Archives by top officials representing the Republican Party in each state, according to the documents.
 </p>
 <p>
 They sent these fake certificates after Trump himself failed to block governors from signing the real certificates. Specifically, Trump encouraged Republican governors in states like Georgia and Arizona not to certify the election results, and falsely claimed the elections were fraudulent. But these GOP officials ignored Trump, followed the law, and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/20/politics/georgia-certify-secretary-of-state-raffensperger/index.html">awarded the electors to Biden</a>. 
 </p>
 <p>
 Installing slates of “alternate electors” was an integral part of the ill-fated plan conceived by Trump allies to usurp power on January 6 by pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to throw out the pro-Biden electors that had been chosen by voters. The idea was promoted by Trump advisers inside and outside the White House, including controversial right-wing lawyer John Eastman. 
 </p>
 <p>
 Eastman, who has been subpoenaed by the January 6 committee, authored a memo outlining a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/20/politics/trump-pence-election-memo/index.html">six-step plan for Pence to overturn the election </a>and award Trump a second term. The plan included throwing out results from seven states because they allegedly had competing electors. 
 </p>
 <p>
 In truth, no state actually had two slates of competing electors. The pro-Trump electors were merely claiming without any authority to be electors, as documented in the fake certificates sent to the National Archives. The certificates were essentially an elaborate public relations stunt.
 </p>
 <p>
 The new documents weren’t the only fake certificates sent to the National Archives. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, told CNN’s Don Lemon that a <a href="https://www.azmirror.com/blog/hobbs-asks-ag-to-investigate-fake-electors-for-using-state-seal/">second group </a>called the “Sovereign Citizens of the State of Arizona” sent a rogue document to the National Archives in 2020, and she said they improperly used the Arizona state seal on their fake certificate. 
 </p>
 <p>
 “They used this fake seal to make it look official, which is not a legal activity,” Hobbs said. 
 </p>
 
 <p>
 The fake certificates and accompanying emails that were also obtained by American Oversight were sent in mid-December 2020, while Team Trump was aggressively pushing false claims about widespread voter fraud in an effort to overturn the election. Weeks later, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/politics/january-6-investigation-criminal-activity-trump/index.html">pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol</a> in a violent bid to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory. 
 </p>
 
 <p>
 Their pressure campaign against election officials in many of these battleground states is now a key area of focus for the House select committee that is investigating the January 6 attack. 
 </p>
 <p>
 An entire team of investigators, known as the “gold team,” is dedicated to unpacking that pressure campaign. The panel has spoken to numerous election officials from states where Trump falsely claimed there was evidence of fraud, and in some cases traveled to those states. 
 </p>
 <p>
 All of the testimony and information the committee has gathered from these election officials about the pressure campaign will materialize in its first set of hearings, potentially in primetime hours, which is set to debunk the “Big Lie” that the election was stolen. Some of the state election officials that the committee has interviewed in private could even appear as witnesses. 
 </p>
 <p>
 Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the Democratic chairman of the committee, told CNN ,”We’ve gone to Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania. We have reviewed 60-odd lawsuits that had been filed in federal various courts, and obviously dismissed. We’ve talked to people who conducted elections in areas where people say those elections are fraudulent.”
 </p>
 <p>
 CNN has independently confirmed that the panel has spoken to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/08/opinions/michigan-armed-people-screaming-falsehoods-obscenities-benson/index.html">Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson </a>and members of her staff and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a GOP official who forcefully batted down pressure from Trump to overturn his state’s election results, for more than four hours. 
 </p>
 <p>
 In addition to Benson, the committee has also interviewed Chris Thomas, a former longtime Michigan director of elections who was brought in during the 2020 election to oversee absentee ballot processing at the TCF Center in Detroit.
 </p>
 <p>
 “I think it’s important that in our body of work, we try to make sure we cannot say what beyond a shadow of a doubt that elections will honest, conducted fairly, and the elections being certified was the right thing to do,” Thompson said.
 </p>
 <p>
 <em>CNN’s Annie Grayer and Katherine Dautrich contributed to this story</em>
</p>
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 Trump allies’ fake Electoral College certificates offer fresh insights about plot to overturn Biden’s victory

 By Zachary Cohen and Marshall Cohen , CNN
 Updated 9:12 PM EST, Wed January 12, 2022
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 In the weeks after the 2020 election, then-President Donald Trump’s allies sent fake certificates to the National Archives declaring that Trump won seven states that he actually lost. The documents had no impact on the outcome of the election, but they are yet another example of how Team Trump tried to subvert the Electoral College – a key line of inquiry for the January 6 committee.

 The fake certificates were created by Trump allies in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico, who sought to replace valid presidential electors from their states with a pro-Trump slate, according to documents obtained by American Oversight.

 Pool

 Biden condemns Trump as a threat to democracy in speech marking one year since January 6 attack

 The documents contain the signatures of Trump supporters who claimed to be the rightful electors from seven states that President Joe Biden won. But these rogue slates of electors didn’t have the backing of any elected officials in the seven states – like a governor or secretary of state, who are involved in certifying election results – and they served no legitimate purpose.

 The documents were first posted online in March by the government watchdog group. But they received renewed attention this week, as the January 6 committee ramps up its investigation into Trump’s attempted coup, including how his allies tried to stop states from certifying Biden’s victory, in part, by installing friendly slates of electors who would overturn the will of the voters.

 Politico and MSNBC were first to report on the documents this week.

 Rogue slates of electors

 As part of the Electoral College process, governors are required to sign a formal “certificate of ascertainment,” verifying that the statewide winner’s slate of electors are the legitimate electors. These electors then sign a second certificate, formally affirming their votes for president.

 These documents are sent to the National Archives in Washington, DC, which processes them before they are sent onto Congress, which formally counts the electoral votes on January 6.

 The real certificates, which have been posted to the National Archives website, correctly stated that Biden won the seven battleground states. They also list the legitimate group of electors from each state, rather than the rogue pro-Trump slate included on the unofficial documents.

 Pro-Trump Republicans try to rewrite state election laws as a voting rights showdown looms in Congress

 Some of the fake certificates with pro-Trump electors were sent to the National Archives by top officials representing the Republican Party in each state, according to the documents.

 They sent these fake certificates after Trump himself failed to block governors from signing the real certificates. Specifically, Trump encouraged Republican governors in states like Georgia and Arizona not to certify the election results, and falsely claimed the elections were fraudulent. But these GOP officials ignored Trump, followed the law, and awarded the electors to Biden.

 Installing slates of “alternate electors” was an integral part of the ill-fated plan conceived by Trump allies to usurp power on January 6 by pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to throw out the pro-Biden electors that had been chosen by voters. The idea was promoted by Trump advisers inside and outside the White House, including controversial right-wing lawyer John Eastman.

 Eastman, who has been subpoenaed by the January 6 committee, authored a memo outlining a six-step plan for Pence to overturn the election and award Trump a second term. The plan included throwing out results from seven states because they allegedly had competing electors.

 In truth, no state actually had two slates of competing electors. The pro-Trump electors were merely claiming without any authority to be electors, as documented in the fake certificates sent to the National Archives. The certificates were essentially an elaborate public relations stunt.

 The new documents weren’t the only fake certificates sent to the National Archives. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, told CNN’s Don Lemon that a second group called the “Sovereign Citizens of the State of Arizona” sent a rogue document to the National Archives in 2020, and she said they improperly used the Arizona state seal on their fake certificate.

 “They used this fake seal to make it look official, which is not a legal activity,” Hobbs said.

 Key focus for January 6 panel

 The fake certificates and accompanying emails that were also obtained by American Oversight were sent in mid-December 2020, while Team Trump was aggressively pushing false claims about widespread voter fraud in an effort to overturn the election. Weeks later, pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol in a violent bid to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.

 Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) (C), chair of the select committee investigating the January 6 attack, speaks to reporters after the conclusion of a business meeting on Capitol Hill on December 13, 2021 in Washington, DC.
 Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

 A running list of who has received a subpoena or request to appear from the House January 6 select committee

 Their pressure campaign against election officials in many of these battleground states is now a key area of focus for the House select committee that is investigating the January 6 attack.

 An entire team of investigators, known as the “gold team,” is dedicated to unpacking that pressure campaign. The panel has spoken to numerous election officials from states where Trump falsely claimed there was evidence of fraud, and in some cases traveled to those states.

 All of the testimony and information the committee has gathered from these election officials about the pressure campaign will materialize in its first set of hearings, potentially in primetime hours, which is set to debunk the “Big Lie” that the election was stolen. Some of the state election officials that the committee has interviewed in private could even appear as witnesses.

 Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the Democratic chairman of the committee, told CNN ,”We’ve gone to Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania. We have reviewed 60-odd lawsuits that had been filed in federal various courts, and obviously dismissed. We’ve talked to people who conducted elections in areas where people say those elections are fraudulent.”

 CNN has independently confirmed that the panel has spoken to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and members of her staff and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a GOP official who forcefully batted down pressure from Trump to overturn his state’s election results, for more than four hours.

 In addition to Benson, the committee has also interviewed Chris Thomas, a former longtime Michigan director of elections who was brought in during the 2020 election to oversee absentee ballot processing at the TCF Center in Detroit.

 “I think it’s important that in our body of work, we try to make sure we cannot say what beyond a shadow of a doubt that elections will honest, conducted fairly, and the elections being certified was the right thing to do,” Thompson said.

 CNN’s Annie Grayer and Katherine Dautrich contributed to this story

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 CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.

Trump ends interview after being pressed about false 2020 election claims
 
 01:45
 
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 Politics of the Day
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 Trump ends interview after being pressed about false 2020 election claims
 
 
 
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 CNN
  — 
 
 
 In the weeks after the 2020 election, then-President Donald Trump’s allies sent fake certificates to the National Archives declaring that Trump won seven states that he actually lost. The documents had no impact on the outcome of the election, but they are yet another example of how Team Trump tried to subvert the Electoral College – a key line of inquiry for the January 6 committee.
 
 
 The fake certificates were created by Trump allies in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico, who sought to replace valid presidential electors from their states with a pro-Trump slate, according to documents obtained by American Oversight.
 
 
 
 The documents contain the signatures of Trump supporters who claimed to be the rightful electors from seven states that President Joe Biden won. But these rogue slates of electors didn’t have the backing of any elected officials in the seven states – like a governor or secretary of state, who are involved in certifying election results – and they served no legitimate purpose. 
 
 
 The documents were first posted online in March by the government watchdog group. But they received renewed attention this week, as the January 6 committee ramps up its investigation into Trump’s attempted coup, including how his allies tried to stop states from certifying Biden’s victory, in part, by installing friendly slates of electors who would overturn the will of the voters. 
 
 
 Politico and MSNBC were first to report on the documents this week. 
 
 
 
 As part of the Electoral College process, governors are required to sign a formal “certificate of ascertainment,” verifying that the statewide winner’s slate of electors are the legitimate electors. These electors then sign a second certificate, formally affirming their votes for president.
 
 
 These documents are sent to the National Archives in Washington, DC, which processes them before they are sent onto Congress, which formally counts the electoral votes on January 6.
 
 
 The real certificates, which have been posted to the National Archives website, correctly stated that Biden won the seven battleground states. They also list the legitimate group of electors from each state, rather than the rogue pro-Trump slate included on the unofficial documents. 
 
 
 
 Some of the fake certificates with pro-Trump electors were sent to the National Archives by top officials representing the Republican Party in each state, according to the documents.
 
 
 They sent these fake certificates after Trump himself failed to block governors from signing the real certificates. Specifically, Trump encouraged Republican governors in states like Georgia and Arizona not to certify the election results, and falsely claimed the elections were fraudulent. But these GOP officials ignored Trump, followed the law, and awarded the electors to Biden. 
 
 
 Installing slates of “alternate electors” was an integral part of the ill-fated plan conceived by Trump allies to usurp power on January 6 by pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to throw out the pro-Biden electors that had been chosen by voters. The idea was promoted by Trump advisers inside and outside the White House, including controversial right-wing lawyer John Eastman. 
 
 
 Eastman, who has been subpoenaed by the January 6 committee, authored a memo outlining a six-step plan for Pence to overturn the election and award Trump a second term. The plan included throwing out results from seven states because they allegedly had competing electors. 
 
 
 In truth, no state actually had two slates of competing electors. The pro-Trump electors were merely claiming without any authority to be electors, as documented in the fake certificates sent to the National Archives. The certificates were essentially an elaborate public relations stunt.
 
 
 The new documents weren’t the only fake certificates sent to the National Archives. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, told CNN’s Don Lemon that a second group called the “Sovereign Citizens of the State of Arizona” sent a rogue document to the National Archives in 2020, and she said they improperly used the Arizona state seal on their fake certificate. 
 
 
 “They used this fake seal to make it look official, which is not a legal activity,” Hobbs said. 
 
 
 
 The fake certificates and accompanying emails that were also obtained by American Oversight were sent in mid-December 2020, while Team Trump was aggressively pushing false claims about widespread voter fraud in an effort to overturn the election. Weeks later, pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol in a violent bid to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory. 
 
 
 
 Their pressure campaign against election officials in many of these battleground states is now a key area of focus for the House select committee that is investigating the January 6 attack. 
 
 
 An entire team of investigators, known as the “gold team,” is dedicated to unpacking that pressure campaign. The panel has spoken to numerous election officials from states where Trump falsely claimed there was evidence of fraud, and in some cases traveled to those states. 
 
 
 All of the testimony and information the committee has gathered from these election officials about the pressure campaign will materialize in its first set of hearings, potentially in primetime hours, which is set to debunk the “Big Lie” that the election was stolen. Some of the state election officials that the committee has interviewed in private could even appear as witnesses. 
 
 
 Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the Democratic chairman of the committee, told CNN ,”We’ve gone to Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania. We have reviewed 60-odd lawsuits that had been filed in federal various courts, and obviously dismissed. We’ve talked to people who conducted elections in areas where people say those elections are fraudulent.”
 
 
 CNN has independently confirmed that the panel has spoken to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and members of her staff and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a GOP official who forcefully batted down pressure from Trump to overturn his state’s election results, for more than four hours. 
 
 
 In addition to Benson, the committee has also interviewed Chris Thomas, a former longtime Michigan director of elections who was brought in during the 2020 election to oversee absentee ballot processing at the TCF Center in Detroit.
 
 
 “I think it’s important that in our body of work, we try to make sure we cannot say what beyond a shadow of a doubt that elections will honest, conducted fairly, and the elections being certified was the right thing to do,” Thompson said.
 
 
 CNN’s Annie Grayer and Katherine Dautrich contributed to this story
Trump allies' fake Electoral College certificates offer fresh insights about plot to overturn Biden's victory | CNN Politics
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/12/politics/trump-overturn-2020-election-fake-electoral-college/index.html
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-12-28/poll-a-third-of-americans-question-legitimacy-of-biden-victory-nearly-a-year-since-jan-6
Poll: A Third of Americans Question Legitimacy of Biden Victory Nearly a Year Since Jan. 6
2021-12-28
U S News Staff
<div><div><p>More than a third of Americans believe President Joe Biden’s victory was illegitimate, according to a new poll conducted almost a year since rioters breached the U.S. Capitol as Congress worked to certify the 2020 election.<br/></p><p>A new University of Massachusetts Amherst poll released Tuesday highlights how partisanship has hardened in the year since the deadly Jan. 6 attack and the stark breakdown on how Democrats and Republicans view that day and the results of last November’s presidential race.</p><p>Fifty-eight percent of respondents surveyed across the country believe Biden’s victory was legitimate, while 33% contend it was illegitimate – numbers that have held steady since the university’s last poll on the subject in April. Of Republicans polled, an overwhelming majority of them – 71% – still contest the 2020 election results. Only 21% believe Biden’s win was legitimate.<br/></p><p>For respondents who still question the legitimacy, the top reason cited was voter fraud, specifically fraudulent ballots favoring Biden that were “counted by election officials in certain states.” There was no evidence of rampant voter fraud in 2020, an assessment backed up by former President Donald Trump’s Justice Department.</p><p>“Regardless of the truth of the situation, public officials need to shore up faith in how we vote,” said Raymond La Raja, a political science professor at UMass Amherst and associate director of the poll. “These are extremely worrisome perceptions, and improved faith in the electoral process won’t happen until Republicans stop saying the election was stolen.”</p><p>The poll’s findings come about a week and a half ahead of the one-year mark since the Capitol attack as a House select committee ramps up its investigation into the origins of the riot and who in power may have been involved, largely zeroing in on Trump and his allies inside and outside of the White House. The panel is now requesting information from two sitting GOP lawmakers, both of whom challenged the certification of the election just hours after the riots.</p><p>When asked which person or group holds the most responsibility for the Jan. 6 riots, a large plurality of Americans – 44% – holds Trump accountable. But challenges to the 2020 election, which are amplified by the former president and many Republican lawmakers, continue to be a strong political and electoral force in the GOP.</p><p>Fifty-five percent of Republicans say they’d be more likely to vote for a GOP candidate running in the 2022 midterm elections who questions the legitimacy of Biden’s victory. Majorities in both chambers of Congress are at stake next year and, according to historical trends in midterm elections, Republicans hold an edge.</p><p>The findings also don’t bode well for GOP lawmakers who voted to impeach Trump over his handling of the Jan. 6 attack. Sixty-eight percent of Republican respondents would be less likely to support someone who supported impeachment efforts, a troubling prospect for those running for reelection in 2022. But many of those Republicans are retiring at the end of the session.</p><p>Ten House Republicans joined all Democrats earlier this year to impeach Trump for a second time. Only two of them sit on the select committee investigating Jan. 6: Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Meanwhile in the Senate, seven GOP senators voted to convict Trump in the impeachment trial, which was ultimately unsuccessful.</p><p>“Perceptions of the events of Jan. 6 have remained strikingly stable over the past year, despite the dramatic and disturbing revelations of the Jan. 6 Commission,” said Jesse Rhodes, political science professor at UMass Amherst and associate director of the poll. “This stability reveals the remarkable power of ideology and partisanship in shaping these perceptions, even in the face of contrary evidence.”</p><p>The university’s poll was conducted by YouGov with a sample size of 1,000 respondents who were surveyed from Dec. 14 to 20. The margin of error was 3.1%.<br/></p></div></div>||||I||||Skip to content
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 1. Poll: One-Third Say Biden Win Illegitimate
 2. Politics
 3. News
 4. Home

 Poll: A Third of Americans Question Legitimacy of Biden Victory Nearly a Year Since Jan. 6

 An overwhelming majority of Republicans still question the 2020 election results. They are also more likely to vote for 2022 candidates who challenge Biden’s legitimacy.

 By Lisa Hagen
 |
 Dec. 28, 2021
 |
 By Lisa Hagen
 |
 Dec. 28, 2021, at 2:40 p.m.
 Save
 More

 Poll: One-Third Say Biden Win Illegitimate

 More

 Jabin Botsford | The Washington Post via Getty Images

 President Donald J. Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden participate in the final Presidential debate on the campus of Belmont University on Thursday, Oct 22, 2020 in Nashville, TN.


 More than a third of Americans believe President Joe Biden’s victory was illegitimate, according to a new poll conducted almost a year since rioters breached the U.S. Capitol as Congress worked to certify the 2020 election.

 Related:

 Trump Asks High Court to Block Jan. 6 Records

 A new University of Massachusetts Amherst poll released Tuesday highlights how partisanship has hardened in the year since the deadly Jan. 6 attack and the stark breakdown on how Democrats and Republicans view that day and the results of last November’s presidential race.

 Fifty-eight percent of respondents surveyed across the country believe Biden’s victory was legitimate, while 33% contend it was illegitimate – numbers that have held steady since the university’s last poll on the subject in April. Of Republicans polled, an overwhelming majority of them – 71% – still contest the 2020 election results. Only 21% believe Biden’s win was legitimate.

 Political Cartoons

 View All 253 Images

 For respondents who still question the legitimacy, the top reason cited was voter fraud, specifically fraudulent ballots favoring Biden that were “counted by election officials in certain states.” There was no evidence of rampant voter fraud in 2020, an assessment backed up by former President Donald Trump’s Justice Department.

 “Regardless of the truth of the situation, public officials need to shore up faith in how we vote,” said Raymond La Raja, a political science professor at UMass Amherst and associate director of the poll. “These are extremely worrisome perceptions, and improved faith in the electoral process won’t happen until Republicans stop saying the election was stolen.”

 The poll’s findings come about a week and a half ahead of the one-year mark since the Capitol attack as a House select committee ramps up its investigation into the origins of the riot and who in power may have been involved, largely zeroing in on Trump and his allies inside and outside of the White House. The panel is now requesting information from two sitting GOP lawmakers, both of whom challenged the certification of the election just hours after the riots.

 When asked which person or group holds the most responsibility for the Jan. 6 riots, a large plurality of Americans – 44% – holds Trump accountable. But challenges to the 2020 election, which are amplified by the former president and many Republican lawmakers, continue to be a strong political and electoral force in the GOP.

 Fifty-five percent of Republicans say they’d be more likely to vote for a GOP candidate running in the 2022 midterm elections who questions the legitimacy of Biden’s victory. Majorities in both chambers of Congress are at stake next year and, according to historical trends in midterm elections, Republicans hold an edge.

 The findings also don’t bode well for GOP lawmakers who voted to impeach Trump over his handling of the Jan. 6 attack. Sixty-eight percent of Republican respondents would be less likely to support someone who supported impeachment efforts, a troubling prospect for those running for reelection in 2022. But many of those Republicans are retiring at the end of the session.

 Ten House Republicans joined all Democrats earlier this year to impeach Trump for a second time. Only two of them sit on the select committee investigating Jan. 6: Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Meanwhile in the Senate, seven GOP senators voted to convict Trump in the impeachment trial, which was ultimately unsuccessful.

 “Perceptions of the events of Jan. 6 have remained strikingly stable over the past year, despite the dramatic and disturbing revelations of the Jan. 6 Commission,” said Jesse Rhodes, political science professor at UMass Amherst and associate director of the poll. “This stability reveals the remarkable power of ideology and partisanship in shaping these perceptions, even in the face of contrary evidence.”

 The university’s poll was conducted by YouGov with a sample size of 1,000 respondents who were surveyed from Dec. 14 to 20. The margin of error was 3.1%.

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More than a third of Americans believe President Joe Biden’s victory was illegitimate, according to a new poll conducted almost a year since rioters breached the U.S. Capitol as Congress worked to certify the 2020 election.  A new University of Massachusetts Amherst poll released Tuesday highlights how partisanship has hardened in the year since the deadly Jan. 6 attack and the stark breakdown on how Democrats and Republicans view that day and the results of last November’s presidential race. Fifty-eight percent of respondents surveyed across the country believe Biden’s victory was legitimate, while 33% contend it was illegitimate – numbers that have held steady since the university’s last poll on the subject in April. Of Republicans polled, an overwhelming majority of them – 71% – still contest the 2020 election results. Only 21% believe Biden’s win was legitimate.  For respondents who still question the legitimacy, the top reason cited was voter fraud, specifically fraudulent ballots favoring Biden that were “counted by election officials in certain states.” There was no evidence of rampant voter fraud in 2020, an assessment backed up by former President Donald Trump’s Justice Department. “Regardless of the truth of the situation, public officials need to shore up faith in how we vote,” said Raymond La Raja, a political science professor at UMass Amherst and associate director of the poll. “These are extremely worrisome perceptions, and improved faith in the electoral process won’t happen until Republicans stop saying the election was stolen.” The poll’s findings come about a week and a half ahead of the one-year mark since the Capitol attack as a House select committee ramps up its investigation into the origins of the riot and who in power may have been involved, largely zeroing in on Trump and his allies inside and outside of the White House. The panel is now requesting information from two sitting GOP lawmakers, both of whom challenged the certification of the election just hours after the riots. When asked which person or group holds the most responsibility for the Jan. 6 riots, a large plurality of Americans – 44% – holds Trump accountable. But challenges to the 2020 election, which are amplified by the former president and many Republican lawmakers, continue to be a strong political and electoral force in the GOP. Fifty-five percent of Republicans say they’d be more likely to vote for a GOP candidate running in the 2022 midterm elections who questions the legitimacy of Biden’s victory. Majorities in both chambers of Congress are at stake next year and, according to historical trends in midterm elections, Republicans hold an edge. The findings also don’t bode well for GOP lawmakers who voted to impeach Trump over his handling of the Jan. 6 attack. Sixty-eight percent of Republican respondents would be less likely to support someone who supported impeachment efforts, a troubling prospect for those running for reelection in 2022. But many of those Republicans are retiring at the end of the session. Ten House Republicans joined all Democrats earlier this year to impeach Trump for a second time. Only two of them sit on the select committee investigating Jan. 6: Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Meanwhile in the Senate, seven GOP senators voted to convict Trump in the impeachment trial, which was ultimately unsuccessful. “Perceptions of the events of Jan. 6 have remained strikingly stable over the past year, despite the dramatic and disturbing revelations of the Jan. 6 Commission,” said Jesse Rhodes, political science professor at UMass Amherst and associate director of the poll. “This stability reveals the remarkable power of ideology and partisanship in shaping these perceptions, even in the face of contrary evidence.” The university’s poll was conducted by YouGov with a sample size of 1,000 respondents who were surveyed from Dec. 14 to 20. The margin of error was 3.1%.
Poll: A Third of Americans Question Legitimacy of Biden Victory Nearly a Year Since Jan. 6
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-12-28/poll-a-third-of-americans-question-legitimacy-of-biden-victory-nearly-a-year-since-jan-6
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/joe-biden-just-won-the-presidency-what-does-that-mean-for-americas-role-in-the-world/
Joe Biden just won the presidency: What does that mean for America’s role in the world?
2020-11-07
Katherine Walla
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<p>We finally have a winner. After several days of counting votes, former Vice President Joe Biden has defeated President Donald J. Trump in the US presidential election, after <a href="https://twitter.com/AP_Politics/status/1325112441928359939">the Associated Press</a> called Pennsylvania for the former vice president on November 7. </p>
<p>While Biden may have to contend with a divided Congress to achieve his many domestic priorities, he will have much more power to shape US foreign policy going forward. “Under a Biden presidency, the United States will shift from a ‘with or without us’ approach to a policy that fundamentally believes the United States can achieve more when we work together with partner nations,” Jason Marczak, director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, said. </p>
<p>But while President Trump was defeated, his stronger-than-expected showing should give pause to those who expected the United States to fully abandon his foreign-policy doctrine. As Emma Ashford, a resident senior fellow in the New American Engagement Initiative at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, argues, the “post-Trump Republican party is likely to continue to be apathetic about the value of international institutions, and skeptical of the utility of multilateral agreements on topics like climate change and arms control.” </p>
<p>What are the most significant changes we should expect from the new Biden administration? Experts from across the Atlantic Council weigh in on what the outcome of the 2020 election will mean for US foreign policy and America’s role in the world:  </p>
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<h3>US FOREIGN POLICY: <strong>Biden will seek to rebuild alliances.</strong> </h3>
<p>“The election to the presidency of former Vice President Joe Biden—in the midst of what may be one of the most chaotic and dangerous eras in US history—represents a victory for the foundation of our nation: the values that have undergirded our Republic and that we Americans share among ourselves and with our closest democratic allies and partners. It also is an important signal to those friends abroad of our renewed commitment to working together—a reinvestment in multilateral cooperation, international norms, and the global order, which are the only effective means for addressing the urgent challenges that we all face. Together. </p>
<p>“Yet, the challenges and fears that led to the election of Donald Trump do not leave us, even as Trump himself leaves the White House. They must be addressed, even as new challenges compound them. We’ve failed to protect those most vulnerable to the ugliness of racism, sexism, xenophobia, and, sadly, much more. We’ve failed to invite those who feel alienated by Washington and found a home in Trumpism to see just how much stronger America is when we work together and are engaged in the world. The recent US retreat from global leadership left our allies and friends all over the world abandoned during our new era of great-power competition, emerging threats, and a raging, global pandemic. The vitriol that has permeated our discourse has left an indelible mark on our character, and it will take much more than a presidential election to rebuild at home and overseas. But it is a new beginning. </p>
<p>“What America needs now is a unifier: someone who will bridge the unprecedently wide chasm in our society and polity. Someone who will look above the ramparts that have risen to divide us. This is no easy task. The future of our nation lies in the hands of a person who must draw on our founding principles and rebuild them for the modern world.  </p>
<p>“At the Scowcroft Center, our namesake is our North Star. General Brent Scowcroft was commonly referred to as an “honest broker”; highly respected across party lines and national borders, he was known for his fairness and humility. Few possess the ability to bring people together the way General Scowcroft did, especially in this moment of deep polarization. President-elect Joe Biden is one of those people.   </p>
<p>“An internationalist in his DNA, President-elect Joe Biden will seek above all else to renew our polity at home and to rebuild America’s alliances abroad, the most important asset that the United States has to navigate the world. We share this foundational strategic tenet for America’s role in the world, and we are committed to working with the Biden administration to advance our mission of strengthening America’s alliances and partnerships around the world. <strong>Facing multiple overlapping crises at home and abroad, now is exactly the moment for the United States to lay out a bold vision and for the new president to lead a renewal of our values at home and a new era of rejuvenation of the democratic world abroad. </strong>Now is our chance to rebuild a stronger, more resilient rules-based system that can meet the challenges and leverage the opportunities of this century. With cooperation, determination, and resolve, the United States and its allies can recover from this period of crisis and revitalize an adapted rules-based system to bring about decades of freedom, peace, and prosperity. </p>
<p>“There is so much work to be done. But in this moment, one thing is clear: in reaffirming our leadership abroad, America has finally come home.” </p>
<h4><em><strong>Barry Pavel, senior vice president and director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.</strong> </em></h4>
<h3>CHINA: <strong>US allies and partners need to know where Biden stands on Beijing—and soon</strong> </h3>
<p>“President-elect Biden should present a clear goal, strategy, and roadmap for his China policy as soon as he is inaugurated in order to build political consensus not only with Congress, but also with like-minded countries. While the Biden campaign emphasized the importance of alliances and multilateralism in order to restore US global leadership and democracy, US allies and partners will want to know how a Biden administration’s China policy will fit into his overarching goals. First, <strong>US allies and partners will want to know how the Biden administration is going to identify areas of conflicting versus common interest with China</strong>, as the Biden campaign said that a Biden administration would pursue both competition and cooperation with China. Given Asia-Pacific allies’ heavy economic reliance on China as well as China’s more aggressive behavior and narratives since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, US policy toward China will have significant implications for how these allies re-evaluate and adjust their own China policies and strategies.  </p>
<p>“Second, the Biden administration should clarify its stance and approach in terms of US-China decoupling. It is worth noting that the stakeholders in the Asia-Pacific that are involved in US-China decoupling, directly or indirectly, seem to have different understandings about it. The Biden administration will also need to make clear whether it aims to decouple and, if so, how it is going to create a rules-based, level-playing field in order to respond to the rise of China collectively with like-minded countries. The realm of national security is increasingly inter-connected with economic security, which is likely to continue for the time being with the uncertainties stemming from the pandemic and economic recessions. Showing how and where the Biden administration’s China policy will be similar to and different from the Obama administration’s will be the key to rebuilding political consensus domestically and internationally.” </p>
<h4><em><strong>Miyeon Oh, director of the Asia Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security</strong> </em></h4>
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<h3>NATO: <strong>Now the hard part—earning back the trust of a relieved but more cynical Europe</strong>  </h3>
<p>“President-elect Biden’s win is a relief for much of Europe. European allies and partners will look to pivot quickly to a ‘new normal’ with an American president focused on healing the transatlantic divide—a circumstance many hope will resemble the ‘old normal’ that pre-dated President Trump’s surprise win of the White House in 2016. Indeed, there are rumors of a NATO summit early in Biden’s administration that will signal the preeminence of the transatlantic relationship and rapidly change the tone of the Trump years. Expect a quick effort to put the US-EU relationship on better footing as well.  </p>
<p>“However, Biden’s administration will not in itself assure a ‘snapback’ to old patterns of cooperation. <strong>Europe’s estimation of American leadership has become more cynical, especially after an election that seemed to validate Trump’s perspective as much as it did Biden’s. </strong>Parts of the European political and policy establishment want a permanently more independent posture from US policy and can use the closely contested election as ammunition for that purpose. While Biden’s team will undoubtedly demonstrate a sustained commitment to working with Europe on most major issues, repairing the mistrust of US intentions that Trump has cultivated in European capitals will likely take positive relations with successive administrations. US prevarication towards NATO, for instance, predates Trump and has roots in domestic perceptions of foreign policy that need to be addressed before the transatlantic relationship can be considered repaired.   </p>
<p>“To that end, Biden administration’s should focus on diversifying the public appeal of our institutions. For NATO, that starts with resolving the unhelpful debate around burden sharing (especially in light of downward pressures on defense budgets in the wake of COVID-19). NATO’s importance must be understood by a broader swath of an increasingly diverse American public, many of whom have foreign-policy concerns that are not transatlantic in nature. Working with NATO to find new champions for the Alliance among the American public is the best hedge against a return to the toxicity of the Trump years during future presidencies.  </p>
<p>“Prioritizing NATO while necessarily reestablishing US security bona fides in other regions, particularly the Indo-Pacific, will be a tricky proposition in terms of US attention and resources. An early indicator might be whether Biden will move to reverse Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops from Germany. Doing so will be a down payment on ensuring adequate resources are available to deter Russia. A decision otherwise would indicate a gap between rhetoric and resources and that will augur further, if more polite, transatlantic tensions.   </p>
<p>“In any case, Biden’s approach to foreign policy places alliances as central to US global influence, signaling a reinvigorated promise of American international leadership. While the details will matter over time, there will be a collective sigh of relief from Brussels in the first instance.”  </p>
<h4><em><strong>Christopher Skaluba, director of the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security</strong> </em></h4>
<h3>ECONOMY: <strong> Just how ambitious will Biden’s agenda be? Look to Congress.</strong>  </h3>
<p>“The economic agenda for the next four years depends as much on the future make-up of the new Senate as it does on the election of the next US president. A Republican Senate and Democratic House are likely to deliver a scaled-back stimulus bill in the near-term and a compromise infrastructure package in the medium term. The Biden administration will still advance its priorities toward building the green economy and improving health care, childcare, and education, with the goal of providing universal pre-K for all families. To partly fund these major spending increases, the Biden administration plans to raise taxes on corporate profits and American households that make more than $400,000 per year. While all of this will be up for debate in a Republican Senate, <strong>it would be a mistake to think compromise is impossible with only on</strong><strong>e to two</strong><strong> </strong><strong>R</strong><strong>epublicans needed for a bill</strong>.  </p>
<p>“On the global stage, a Biden administration is expected to reach out to traditional allies to confront the many economic challenges posed by China. You will see a focus on this given the realities of a divided Congress.” </p>
<h4><strong><em>Josh Lipsky, director of the Atlantic Council’s Geoeconomics Center</em></strong></h4>
<h3><strong>EURASIA: Biden will bring a rhetorical shift, but the actual policy might not change much</strong> </h3>
<p><strong>“</strong>Joe Biden’s victory will be greeted enthusiastically in Kyiv and Tblisi, not to mention Brussels and Berlin. But in Moscow the mood will be subdued. Biden is a strong transatlanticist who will work hard at shoring up NATO and improving relations with the EU, which is necessary to deal with the revisionist challenges coming from Moscow and Beijing. Biden will also maintain strong US support for Ukraine as it confronts Kremlin occupation and ongoing war in Donbas, and as it pursues reform. This also applies to Georgia. The irony, though, is that <strong>Biden’s policy toward Russia, Ukraine, and the other states of Eurasia will not be that much different than Trump’s</strong>. He too will maintain sanctions on Russia, arm Ukraine, and act to enhance the freedom and sovereignty of all the nations of Eurasia. But we can be sure that his own statements will reinforce his policy. That will set him apart from Trump, whose soft public pronouncements about or alongside Putin appeared inconsistent with his overall policy. </p>
<p>“Trump has been strong in opposing Nord Stream 2, as has Congress. Biden will rightly work to repair relations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Ending sanctions on Nord Stream 2 should not be part of outreach to Germany.” </p>
<h4><strong>John Herbst, </strong><strong>director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former US ambassador to Ukraine and Uzbekistan</strong> </h4>
<h3>AFRICA: <strong>The path to more commercial ties is through repaired diplomatic relationships</strong> </h3>
<p>“The war on terrorism is mostly over, and US interest in military adventures in Africa has been waning. At the same time, there has been a decisive effort to solidify commercial relationships with African states. New policy tools such as the equity-backed US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the forthcoming $500-750 million Africa Trade and Investment Program (ATIP) stand to overhaul US policy and significantly move the needle on increasing two-way trade and investment.  </p>
<p>“Yet these positive developments emerge at a time when US soft power on the continent is in decline. Racialized commentary that has leaked from the White House, in conjunction with criticisms of the US coronavirus response, have tarnished America’s image in Africa, with damage done to signature relationships with Nigeria, South Africa, and Ethiopia, among others.<strong> To capitalize on its commercial push, the United States must refocus its policy in Africa on repairing these critical relationships</strong>.  </p>
<p>“A Biden presidency affords the opportunity for a credible reset and the prospects of a more predictable policy toward Africa, in which regional allies will again be treated as the important partners that they are. Biden is also likely to reassure US allies that he won’t unilaterally yank American security support away from Somalia and the Sahel, which will produce sighs of relief not only in Africa, but in Europe.”  </p>
<h4><em><strong>Bronwyn Bruton, director of programs and studies at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center</strong> </em></h4>
<h3>MIDDLE EAST: <strong>This is an opportunity for the region to depoliticize its relations with the US</strong></h3>
<p>“For about fifty years until shortly after the turn of the 21st century, the American approach toward the Middle East was remarkably consistent, notwithstanding the region’s seemingly perpetual state of turmoil. The United States largely sought little more than to strengthen the existing status quo or return to that status quo once it was upset. The countries of the region generally enjoyed the relative safety provided by the American-led security regime and took care to ensure that their relationships with Washington remained resolutely apolitical in tone and bipartisan in nature. However, beginning with the war in Iraq and continuing since, the United States sharply diverged from its traditional approach and became increasingly seen in the region as a threat to the status quo. The ramifications of these strategic errors continue to define the challenges that President-elect Biden will face in the region.     </p>
<p>“Over roughly the same period of time, several key countries in the region also sharply diverged from their traditionally apolitical approach to Washington, preferring instead to increasingly align themselves with the Republican party. This was also a fundamental strategic error. <strong>A new Biden administration provides an opportunity for leaders in the region, particularly the current leaders in Saudi Arabia and Israel, to appreciate the negative consequences of their politicized approach to Washington and to seek to ‘reset’ relations along lines of longstanding common interests, including dealing with threats from Iran</strong>. Of course, the coming Biden administration will need to focus immediately on the wide range of domestic challenges facing our deeply divided society and dysfunctional political elite. The primary strategic challenges abroad will be from China and Russia and the existential threat of global warming. Nevertheless, the odds are high that when he turns his eyes to the Middle East, President-elect Biden will look to offer the possibility of such a reset to the region on these terms. Time will tell whether leaders like Bibi Netanyahu and Mohamed bin Salman, who chose not to hide their support for President Trump’s reelection, will have the wisdom to meet him there.”  </p>
<h4><em><strong>William F. Wechsler</strong>, <strong>director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs.</strong> </em></h4>
<h3>LATIN AMERICA: <strong>Biden will work with allies to help solve the Venezuela and migrant crises</strong>  </h3>
<p>“Joe Biden’s election win will yield significant shifts in the direction of US foreign policy, including with our partners across the Western Hemisphere. <strong>Under a Biden presidency, the United States will shift from a ‘with or without us’ approach to a policy that fundamentally believes the United States can achieve more when we work together with partner nations</strong>. </p>
<p>“In Latin America, where President-elect Biden brings deep experience and commitment, this shift in mindset will bear out in a number of issues but will be most acutely seen in two areas. First in Venezuela, where the United States and regional partners must contend with a Maduro regime that remains deeply entrenched despite the ratcheting up of US sanctions during the Trump presidency. Here, expect a more nuanced approach that remains tough on Maduro but with new strategies that prioritize working with allies to advance a transition. Expect a more collaborative approach as well in trying to stem the root causes that force Central Americans to leave their homes and migrate north. During the Trump administration, rather than addressing the holistic economic development and security challenges that must be solved to reduce migratory flows, US policy was focused on security and on making other countries bear the brunt of imposing draconian US policy toward migrants and refugees. President-elect Biden—long a champion of a multi-pronged strategy in Central America—will work hand-in-hand with regional leaders to address the corruption, the challenges with rule of law, the necessary drivers for economic development, and the security issues that perpetuate instability in Central America. </p>
<p>“Expect a Biden administration to also focus on human-rights issues, addressing climate change in the hemisphere, and ensuring that labor rights are upheld in the new US-Mexico-Canada agreement (USMCA). And importantly, Joe Biden will have a plan to work with the hemisphere to ‘build back better’ from the COVID-19 pandemic through a strategy that benefits US workers and US businesses while also making the hemisphere once again prosperous and more resilient to future shocks. This multi-pronged strategy will better position the United States, rather than China, to be the partner of choice for allies across our hemisphere.”  </p>
<h4><em><strong> Jason Marczak, director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center</strong> </em></h4>
<h3>EUROPE: <strong>Biden should welcome a stronger Europe</strong></h3>
<p>“President-elect Joe Biden’s win will be welcomed with relief in much of Europe, where he is seen as a friend and supporter of the transatlantic relationship and a multilateral agenda. He faces an immense task and the narrow result should inspire humility when engaging allies who have been following the contest closely over the last few days.  </p>
<p>“A strong Europe is America’s best asset when tackling global challenges—from dealing with an assertive China and fighting climate change to rebuilding the global economy post-COVID-19. Disagreements will linger, on trade or digital regulation, but they can be addressed through constructive dialogue rather than confrontation. However, <strong>the Biden administration should acknowledge that the </strong><strong>p</strong><strong>ast years have awakened Europeans to the necessity </strong><strong>of</strong><strong> build</strong><strong>ing</strong><strong> their own strategic identity and progressively reduc</strong><strong>ing</strong><strong> some of their depend</strong><strong>e</strong><strong>nce on US power, especially in their own neighborhood. </strong>More friendly rhetoric won’t reverse this. On the contrary, President-elect Biden should welcome and harness those changes to shape a forward-looking transatlantic relationship with a more responsible Europe.” </p>
<h4><em><strong>Benjamin Haddad, director of the Atlantic Council’s Future Europe Initiative</strong>. </em></h4>
<h3>TURKEY: <strong>A Biden presidency means near-term uncertainty but longer-term opportunity</strong></h3>
<p>“Joe Biden’s victory may appear to cast new uncertainty over the US-Turkey relationship, already at historic lows.  </p>
<p>“On the other hand, in the medium term, Biden could present an opportunity to reset relations between the two NATO allies, and Turkey should welcome Biden’s commitment to having the United States re-assume greater transatlantic leadership and cooperation. <strong>Turkey, home to NATO’s second-largest army, can and should be an integral partner in balancing Russian and Iranian influence in the region</strong>. As vice president, Biden traveled to Turkey on several occasions to meet with his future counterpart President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, including for talks at even tougher times such as after the failed coup attempt. Ultimately, Biden is an experienced politician who should perceive and work in harmony with Turkey’s growing regional importance in Syria, Libya, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Black Sea. It is in the best of interest of both the United States and Turkey to work towards finding common ground and compromise on these issues.” </p>
<h4><em><strong>Defne Arslan, director of Atlantic Council in Turkey</strong> </em></h4>
<h3>US FOREIGN POLICY: <strong> The old, pre-Trump model of US leadership won’t work</strong></h3>
<p>“A succession of US presidents has carried out foreign policy by fiat, and a newly-elected President Biden will be able to undo some of Donald Trump’s most egregious foreign-policy errors with the stroke of a pen. On the whole, however, Joe Biden will discover that changing US foreign policy back to the way it was before will be very difficult—and probably impossible.  </p>
<p>“So, for example, the Biden administration may reenter the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, resume US membership in the World Health Organization, and recommit the United States to meeting its obligations within the Paris Climate Accord. He also should revisit the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other measures to liberalize global trade. These steps would be welcomed by most of America’s allies and partners and would signal a greater willingness to take others’ interests into account—something that Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ approach explicitly did not.  </p>
<p>“Beyond these steps, however, a Biden administration tempted to restore the old model of US leadership from the pre-Trump era is likely to be disappointed. After all, Trump’s victory in 2016 shook allies’ confidence that America would have their backs, no matter what. An American political system characterized by polarization and deep dysfunction is an unreliable long-term partner. Accordingly, US allies are likely to hedge their bets, deepening cooperation with others. Some might modestly increase their own military spending as an insurance policy against US abandonment. </p>
<p>“<strong>The true source of this nation’s power is the American people, and that is why Joe Biden must focus his efforts here at home.</strong> That includes dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and restarting the economy once the virus recedes, a process that could grind well into 2022. In addressing these challenges, President-elect Biden’s administration can expect more cooperation from allies and partners than a second Trump administration would have received. But repairing the deep divisions within our society will require his full attention.” </p>
<h4><em><strong>Christopher Preble, co-director of the New American Engagement Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security</strong> </em></h4>
<h3>US FOREIGN POLICY: <strong>Trump foreign policy vision will not simply go away</strong></h3>
<p>“Elections are not won or lost on foreign-policy issues. Nonetheless, the failure of the 2020 election to repudiate the domestic and foreign policies of Donald Trump has major implications for the future of America’s role in the world. Though Joe Biden has won the 2020 election, the strength of Donald Trump’s electoral success suggests that Trumpism in the Republican party is here to stay. The more challenging question, of course, is what Trumpism actually means for foreign policy in the long-term. Donald Trump himself has been at best mercurial in foreign policy, tweeting insults at other world leaders, ramping up tensions with Iran or North Korea, and suddenly and unexpectedly altering long-standing US foreign policies to meet his whims. But there is far more consistency among his advisors and a core set of themes that run throughout Trump’s time in office that we can expect to inform future Republican foreign policymakers.” </p>
<p>“Both parties increasingly embrace the frame of great-power competition, but the Trump administration’s framing of the issue has focused heavily on trade and economic issues, to the extent that questions about protectionism and domestic industrial policy re-entered the mainstream of national-security discussion for the first time in several decades. We can expect this—and the question of economic decoupling from China—to continue to play a major role in Republican foreign policy moving forward. Perhaps more importantly, though they continue to pay lip service to the importance of US allies and partners, administration documents and officials have increasingly framed US foreign policy in unilateralist terms. <strong>A post-Trump Republican party is likely to continue to be apathetic about the value of international institutions, and skeptical of the utility of multilateral agreements on topics like climate change and arms control</strong>. This has substantive implications for US allies. As the Trump era has shown, allies are likely to be able to preserve their strong relationship with a unilateralist United States only insofar as they support American policy choices; as the US withdrawal from the JCPOA highlighted, allies are increasingly unlikely to be successful in shifting US foreign-policy priorities.  </p>
<p>“While the Biden administration may prove a brief respite from these trends, the strength of the Republican showing in the 2020 election suggests they are likely to continue in future Republican administrations, with significant consequences for American allies and adversaries.” </p>
<h4><em><strong>Emma Ashford, resident senior fellow in the New American Engagement Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security</strong> </em></h4>
<h3>ENERGY AND CLIMATE: <strong>Biden will need to navigate political left and right on climate policy</strong></h3>
<p>“Despite being considered a moderate compared to most of the other Democratic primary candidates, President-elect Joe Biden’s climate and energy plan is the most ambitious ever of any major party presidential nominee. However, with the Senate likely to remain in Republican control, these ambitions will probably be curtailed. The administration’s power will be limited to executive order and agency rulemaking, with a few exceptions where there is bipartisan Congressional support such as for basic research, nuclear energy, carbon capture, and nature-based solutions. While there is growing support for climate action in some parts of the Republican Party, it is not something that can be counted on under Senator Mitch McConnell’s leadership. </p>
<p>“Biden’s challenge in the short term will be to rejoin the Paris agreement and undo much of the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda without significant support from the Hill while remaining under pressure from the left to do more. Biden recognizes that a rush to ban fossil fuel production is bad politics, undermines US foreign policy goals, and ultimately has minimal impact on the climate. (Some argue that these bans will raise prices, making fossil fuels less competitive, but this is not the case in a world awash with energy.) Instead, <strong>Biden is likely to focus his efforts on reducing demand for fossil fuels while also making them cleaner by limiting methane emissions and encouraging carbon capture and sequestration</strong>.  </p>
<p>“Getting the United States on a path to net-zero emissions by 2050 is hugely ambitious and puts the United States in the same club with the Europeans, Japanese, South Koreans, and Chinese (though the Chinese are aiming for 2060). If Biden’s ambitious but pragmatic policies come under fire from the left wing of his party, Biden should remember what he said in the second debate: he “beat all those other people because [he] disagreed with them.” </p>
<h4><em><strong>Randolph Bell</strong>, <strong>director of the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center </strong> </em></h4>
<h3>CLIMATE CHANGE: <strong>Biden will make climate change a national priority </strong></h3>
<p>“President-elect Biden has declared climate change to be a national priority, promising unprecedented executive action out of the gate to both reducing emissions and investing in addressing the growing impacts of a hotter planet and to reclaim the position of the United States as a global leader in aggressive climate and environmental policy.   </p>
<p>“President elect Biden plans to advance legislation during his first year in office that establishes an enforcement mechanism that includes milestone greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets by his first term’s end in 2025; makes a historic investment of $2 trillion in clean energy and climate research and innovation; and incentivizes the rapid deployment of clean-energy innovations and climate-smart infrastructure across the country. <strong>Such investments will focus especially on areas most vulnerable to climate impacts such as extreme heat, and on communities of color, </strong>including coastal communities suffering from the effects of sea-level rise, salt-water intrusion, and sunny-day flooding, as well as the storms that increasingly hammer at-risk areas, where <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/population.html#:~:text=As%20of%202014%2C%20nearly%2040,people%20live%20in%20coastal%20counties.">40 percent of Americans</a> live and work.”  </p>
<h4><em><strong>Kathy Baughman McLeod, senior vice president and director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center</strong> </em></h4>
<h3>CYBER AND TECH: Look for a shift on process from Biden</h3>
<p>“In the next four years, we’re going to see some level of pivoting in US-China technology relations. The Trump administration pursued a series of recklessly executed technology policies aimed at China, whether proposed export controls on emerging technologies that were drafted problematically broadly, or a hastily written set of executive orders on Chinese mobile applications TikTok and WeChat that were outright bad policy. While the given reason for these decisions was national security, it was clear that the Trump administration’s calculus was far more (if not exclusively) politically driven—aimed at contributing to the trade war and enhancing the president’s personal image; it was more about ‘looking tough’ on China than actually developing sound policies. This is why we can expect ‘somewhat’ of a pivot: the Biden administration is likely to develop a suite of policies on US-China technology that is far more calibrated to recognize the realities and the benefits of interconnection and interdependence while simultaneously acting to mitigate national and economic security risks where they do exist. This would pivot from the zero-sum view of the Trump administration while maintaining a legitimate focus on security threats. The Huawei campaign is a prime example of something that can be handled very differently: nominally speaking, the national security motivation will stay the same (for there are real security risks with Huawei supplying critical 5G infrastructure), but there will actually be a legitimate, informed policy process in the White House again behind those kinds of decisions.”</p>
<h4><em>Justin Sherman, nonresident fellow in the Atlantic Council Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Cyberstatecraft Initiative.</em></h4>
<h4>Further reading: </h4>
	<p>Image: FILE PHOTO: Democratic U.S. presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a drive-in campaign rally at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., November 2, 2020. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo</p>
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 Elections 2020

 November 7, 2020

 Joe Biden just won the presidency: What does that mean for America’s role in the world?

 By Atlantic Council

 We finally have a winner. After several days of counting votes, former Vice President Joe Biden has defeated President Donald J. Trump in the US presidential election, after the Associated Press called Pennsylvania for the former vice president on November 7.

 While Biden may have to contend with a divided Congress to achieve his many domestic priorities, he will have much more power to shape US foreign policy going forward. “Under a Biden presidency, the United States will shift from a ‘with or without us’ approach to a policy that fundamentally believes the United States can achieve more when we work together with partner nations,” Jason Marczak, director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, said.

 But while President Trump was defeated, his stronger-than-expected showing should give pause to those who expected the United States to fully abandon his foreign-policy doctrine. As Emma Ashford, a resident senior fellow in the New American Engagement Initiative at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, argues, the “post-Trump Republican party is likely to continue to be apathetic about the value of international institutions, and skeptical of the utility of multilateral agreements on topics like climate change and arms control.”

 What are the most significant changes we should expect from the new Biden administration? Experts from across the Atlantic Council weigh in on what the outcome of the 2020 election will mean for US foreign policy and America’s role in the world:

 Jump to an expert reaction:

 Biden will seek to rebuild alliances

 Allies want clarity on China

 Winning NATO’s trust back

 Biden and Congress must be ambitious on the economy

 Rhetoric, but not policy, will change in Eurasia

 Stronger African commercial ties will require repaired relationships

 An opportunity for Mideast powers to depoliticize US relations

 Biden will work with Latin American allies on twin crises

 Biden should welcome a stronger Europe

 Near-term uncertainty, but longer-term opportunity with Turkey

 The pre-Trump model of US leadership won’t work

 Trumpism isn’t going away

 Biden will aim high on climate, but remain moderate

 Climate change will be national priority

 Expect a process pivot on tech policy

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 US FOREIGN POLICY: Biden will seek to rebuild alliances.

 “The election to the presidency of former Vice President Joe Biden—in the midst of what may be one of the most chaotic and dangerous eras in US history—represents a victory for the foundation of our nation: the values that have undergirded our Republic and that we Americans share among ourselves and with our closest democratic allies and partners. It also is an important signal to those friends abroad of our renewed commitment to working together—a reinvestment in multilateral cooperation, international norms, and the global order, which are the only effective means for addressing the urgent challenges that we all face. Together.

 “Yet, the challenges and fears that led to the election of Donald Trump do not leave us, even as Trump himself leaves the White House. They must be addressed, even as new challenges compound them. We’ve failed to protect those most vulnerable to the ugliness of racism, sexism, xenophobia, and, sadly, much more. We’ve failed to invite those who feel alienated by Washington and found a home in Trumpism to see just how much stronger America is when we work together and are engaged in the world. The recent US retreat from global leadership left our allies and friends all over the world abandoned during our new era of great-power competition, emerging threats, and a raging, global pandemic. The vitriol that has permeated our discourse has left an indelible mark on our character, and it will take much more than a presidential election to rebuild at home and overseas. But it is a new beginning.

 “What America needs now is a unifier: someone who will bridge the unprecedently wide chasm in our society and polity. Someone who will look above the ramparts that have risen to divide us. This is no easy task. The future of our nation lies in the hands of a person who must draw on our founding principles and rebuild them for the modern world.

 “At the Scowcroft Center, our namesake is our North Star. General Brent Scowcroft was commonly referred to as an “honest broker”; highly respected across party lines and national borders, he was known for his fairness and humility. Few possess the ability to bring people together the way General Scowcroft did, especially in this moment of deep polarization. President-elect Joe Biden is one of those people.

 “An internationalist in his DNA, President-elect Joe Biden will seek above all else to renew our polity at home and to rebuild America’s alliances abroad, the most important asset that the United States has to navigate the world. We share this foundational strategic tenet for America’s role in the world, and we are committed to working with the Biden administration to advance our mission of strengthening America’s alliances and partnerships around the world. Facing multiple overlapping crises at home and abroad, now is exactly the moment for the United States to lay out a bold vision and for the new president to lead a renewal of our values at home and a new era of rejuvenation of the democratic world abroad. Now is our chance to rebuild a stronger, more resilient rules-based system that can meet the challenges and leverage the opportunities of this century. With cooperation, determination, and resolve, the United States and its allies can recover from this period of crisis and revitalize an adapted rules-based system to bring about decades of freedom, peace, and prosperity.

 “There is so much work to be done. But in this moment, one thing is clear: in reaffirming our leadership abroad, America has finally come home.”

 Barry Pavel, senior vice president and director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

 CHINA: US allies and partners need to know where Biden stands on Beijing—and soon

 “President-elect Biden should present a clear goal, strategy, and roadmap for his China policy as soon as he is inaugurated in order to build political consensus not only with Congress, but also with like-minded countries. While the Biden campaign emphasized the importance of alliances and multilateralism in order to restore US global leadership and democracy, US allies and partners will want to know how a Biden administration’s China policy will fit into his overarching goals. First, US allies and partners will want to know how the Biden administration is going to identify areas of conflicting versus common interest with China, as the Biden campaign said that a Biden administration would pursue both competition and cooperation with China. Given Asia-Pacific allies’ heavy economic reliance on China as well as China’s more aggressive behavior and narratives since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, US policy toward China will have significant implications for how these allies re-evaluate and adjust their own China policies and strategies.

 “Second, the Biden administration should clarify its stance and approach in terms of US-China decoupling. It is worth noting that the stakeholders in the Asia-Pacific that are involved in US-China decoupling, directly or indirectly, seem to have different understandings about it. The Biden administration will also need to make clear whether it aims to decouple and, if so, how it is going to create a rules-based, level-playing field in order to respond to the rise of China collectively with like-minded countries. The realm of national security is increasingly inter-connected with economic security, which is likely to continue for the time being with the uncertainties stemming from the pandemic and economic recessions. Showing how and where the Biden administration’s China policy will be similar to and different from the Obama administration’s will be the key to rebuilding political consensus domestically and internationally.”

 Miyeon Oh, director of the Asia Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

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 NATO: Now the hard part—earning back the trust of a relieved but more cynical Europe

 “President-elect Biden’s win is a relief for much of Europe. European allies and partners will look to pivot quickly to a ‘new normal’ with an American president focused on healing the transatlantic divide—a circumstance many hope will resemble the ‘old normal’ that pre-dated President Trump’s surprise win of the White House in 2016. Indeed, there are rumors of a NATO summit early in Biden’s administration that will signal the preeminence of the transatlantic relationship and rapidly change the tone of the Trump years. Expect a quick effort to put the US-EU relationship on better footing as well.

 “However, Biden’s administration will not in itself assure a ‘snapback’ to old patterns of cooperation. Europe’s estimation of American leadership has become more cynical, especially after an election that seemed to validate Trump’s perspective as much as it did Biden’s. Parts of the European political and policy establishment want a permanently more independent posture from US policy and can use the closely contested election as ammunition for that purpose. While Biden’s team will undoubtedly demonstrate a sustained commitment to working with Europe on most major issues, repairing the mistrust of US intentions that Trump has cultivated in European capitals will likely take positive relations with successive administrations. US prevarication towards NATO, for instance, predates Trump and has roots in domestic perceptions of foreign policy that need to be addressed before the transatlantic relationship can be considered repaired.

 “To that end, Biden administration’s should focus on diversifying the public appeal of our institutions. For NATO, that starts with resolving the unhelpful debate around burden sharing (especially in light of downward pressures on defense budgets in the wake of COVID-19). NATO’s importance must be understood by a broader swath of an increasingly diverse American public, many of whom have foreign-policy concerns that are not transatlantic in nature. Working with NATO to find new champions for the Alliance among the American public is the best hedge against a return to the toxicity of the Trump years during future presidencies.

 “Prioritizing NATO while necessarily reestablishing US security bona fides in other regions, particularly the Indo-Pacific, will be a tricky proposition in terms of US attention and resources. An early indicator might be whether Biden will move to reverse Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops from Germany. Doing so will be a down payment on ensuring adequate resources are available to deter Russia. A decision otherwise would indicate a gap between rhetoric and resources and that will augur further, if more polite, transatlantic tensions.

 “In any case, Biden’s approach to foreign policy places alliances as central to US global influence, signaling a reinvigorated promise of American international leadership. While the details will matter over time, there will be a collective sigh of relief from Brussels in the first instance.”

 Christopher Skaluba, director of the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

 ECONOMY: Just how ambitious will Biden’s agenda be? Look to Congress.

 “The economic agenda for the next four years depends as much on the future make-up of the new Senate as it does on the election of the next US president. A Republican Senate and Democratic House are likely to deliver a scaled-back stimulus bill in the near-term and a compromise infrastructure package in the medium term. The Biden administration will still advance its priorities toward building the green economy and improving health care, childcare, and education, with the goal of providing universal pre-K for all families. To partly fund these major spending increases, the Biden administration plans to raise taxes on corporate profits and American households that make more than $400,000 per year. While all of this will be up for debate in a Republican Senate, it would be a mistake to think compromise is impossible with only one to two Republicans needed for a bill.

 “On the global stage, a Biden administration is expected to reach out to traditional allies to confront the many economic challenges posed by China. You will see a focus on this given the realities of a divided Congress.”

 Josh Lipsky, director of the Atlantic Council’s Geoeconomics Center

 EURASIA: Biden will bring a rhetorical shift, but the actual policy might not change much

 “Joe Biden’s victory will be greeted enthusiastically in Kyiv and Tblisi, not to mention Brussels and Berlin. But in Moscow the mood will be subdued. Biden is a strong transatlanticist who will work hard at shoring up NATO and improving relations with the EU, which is necessary to deal with the revisionist challenges coming from Moscow and Beijing. Biden will also maintain strong US support for Ukraine as it confronts Kremlin occupation and ongoing war in Donbas, and as it pursues reform. This also applies to Georgia. The irony, though, is that Biden’s policy toward Russia, Ukraine, and the other states of Eurasia will not be that much different than Trump’s. He too will maintain sanctions on Russia, arm Ukraine, and act to enhance the freedom and sovereignty of all the nations of Eurasia. But we can be sure that his own statements will reinforce his policy. That will set him apart from Trump, whose soft public pronouncements about or alongside Putin appeared inconsistent with his overall policy.

 “Trump has been strong in opposing Nord Stream 2, as has Congress. Biden will rightly work to repair relations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Ending sanctions on Nord Stream 2 should not be part of outreach to Germany.”

 John Herbst, director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former US ambassador to Ukraine and Uzbekistan

 AFRICA: The path to more commercial ties is through repaired diplomatic relationships

 “The war on terrorism is mostly over, and US interest in military adventures in Africa has been waning. At the same time, there has been a decisive effort to solidify commercial relationships with African states. New policy tools such as the equity-backed US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the forthcoming $500-750 million Africa Trade and Investment Program (ATIP) stand to overhaul US policy and significantly move the needle on increasing two-way trade and investment.

 “Yet these positive developments emerge at a time when US soft power on the continent is in decline. Racialized commentary that has leaked from the White House, in conjunction with criticisms of the US coronavirus response, have tarnished America’s image in Africa, with damage done to signature relationships with Nigeria, South Africa, and Ethiopia, among others. To capitalize on its commercial push, the United States must refocus its policy in Africa on repairing these critical relationships.

 “A Biden presidency affords the opportunity for a credible reset and the prospects of a more predictable policy toward Africa, in which regional allies will again be treated as the important partners that they are. Biden is also likely to reassure US allies that he won’t unilaterally yank American security support away from Somalia and the Sahel, which will produce sighs of relief not only in Africa, but in Europe.”

 Bronwyn Bruton, director of programs and studies at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center

 MIDDLE EAST: This is an opportunity for the region to depoliticize its relations with the US

 “For about fifty years until shortly after the turn of the 21st century, the American approach toward the Middle East was remarkably consistent, notwithstanding the region’s seemingly perpetual state of turmoil. The United States largely sought little more than to strengthen the existing status quo or return to that status quo once it was upset. The countries of the region generally enjoyed the relative safety provided by the American-led security regime and took care to ensure that their relationships with Washington remained resolutely apolitical in tone and bipartisan in nature. However, beginning with the war in Iraq and continuing since, the United States sharply diverged from its traditional approach and became increasingly seen in the region as a threat to the status quo. The ramifications of these strategic errors continue to define the challenges that President-elect Biden will face in the region.

 “Over roughly the same period of time, several key countries in the region also sharply diverged from their traditionally apolitical approach to Washington, preferring instead to increasingly align themselves with the Republican party. This was also a fundamental strategic error. A new Biden administration provides an opportunity for leaders in the region, particularly the current leaders in Saudi Arabia and Israel, to appreciate the negative consequences of their politicized approach to Washington and to seek to ‘reset’ relations along lines of longstanding common interests, including dealing with threats from Iran. Of course, the coming Biden administration will need to focus immediately on the wide range of domestic challenges facing our deeply divided society and dysfunctional political elite. The primary strategic challenges abroad will be from China and Russia and the existential threat of global warming. Nevertheless, the odds are high that when he turns his eyes to the Middle East, President-elect Biden will look to offer the possibility of such a reset to the region on these terms. Time will tell whether leaders like Bibi Netanyahu and Mohamed bin Salman, who chose not to hide their support for President Trump’s reelection, will have the wisdom to meet him there.”

 William F. Wechsler, director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs.

 LATIN AMERICA: Biden will work with allies to help solve the Venezuela and migrant crises

 “Joe Biden’s election win will yield significant shifts in the direction of US foreign policy, including with our partners across the Western Hemisphere. Under a Biden presidency, the United States will shift from a ‘with or without us’ approach to a policy that fundamentally believes the United States can achieve more when we work together with partner nations.

 “In Latin America, where President-elect Biden brings deep experience and commitment, this shift in mindset will bear out in a number of issues but will be most acutely seen in two areas. First in Venezuela, where the United States and regional partners must contend with a Maduro regime that remains deeply entrenched despite the ratcheting up of US sanctions during the Trump presidency. Here, expect a more nuanced approach that remains tough on Maduro but with new strategies that prioritize working with allies to advance a transition. Expect a more collaborative approach as well in trying to stem the root causes that force Central Americans to leave their homes and migrate north. During the Trump administration, rather than addressing the holistic economic development and security challenges that must be solved to reduce migratory flows, US policy was focused on security and on making other countries bear the brunt of imposing draconian US policy toward migrants and refugees. President-elect Biden—long a champion of a multi-pronged strategy in Central America—will work hand-in-hand with regional leaders to address the corruption, the challenges with rule of law, the necessary drivers for economic development, and the security issues that perpetuate instability in Central America.

 “Expect a Biden administration to also focus on human-rights issues, addressing climate change in the hemisphere, and ensuring that labor rights are upheld in the new US-Mexico-Canada agreement (USMCA). And importantly, Joe Biden will have a plan to work with the hemisphere to ‘build back better’ from the COVID-19 pandemic through a strategy that benefits US workers and US businesses while also making the hemisphere once again prosperous and more resilient to future shocks. This multi-pronged strategy will better position the United States, rather than China, to be the partner of choice for allies across our hemisphere.”

 Jason Marczak, director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center

 EUROPE: Biden should welcome a stronger Europe

 “President-elect Joe Biden’s win will be welcomed with relief in much of Europe, where he is seen as a friend and supporter of the transatlantic relationship and a multilateral agenda. He faces an immense task and the narrow result should inspire humility when engaging allies who have been following the contest closely over the last few days.

 “A strong Europe is America’s best asset when tackling global challenges—from dealing with an assertive China and fighting climate change to rebuilding the global economy post-COVID-19. Disagreements will linger, on trade or digital regulation, but they can be addressed through constructive dialogue rather than confrontation. However, the Biden administration should acknowledge that the past years have awakened Europeans to the necessity of building their own strategic identity and progressively reducing some of their dependence on US power, especially in their own neighborhood. More friendly rhetoric won’t reverse this. On the contrary, President-elect Biden should welcome and harness those changes to shape a forward-looking transatlantic relationship with a more responsible Europe.”

 Benjamin Haddad, director of the Atlantic Council’s Future Europe Initiative.

 TURKEY: A Biden presidency means near-term uncertainty but longer-term opportunity

 “Joe Biden’s victory may appear to cast new uncertainty over the US-Turkey relationship, already at historic lows.

 “On the other hand, in the medium term, Biden could present an opportunity to reset relations between the two NATO allies, and Turkey should welcome Biden’s commitment to having the United States re-assume greater transatlantic leadership and cooperation. Turkey, home to NATO’s second-largest army, can and should be an integral partner in balancing Russian and Iranian influence in the region. As vice president, Biden traveled to Turkey on several occasions to meet with his future counterpart President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, including for talks at even tougher times such as after the failed coup attempt. Ultimately, Biden is an experienced politician who should perceive and work in harmony with Turkey’s growing regional importance in Syria, Libya, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Black Sea. It is in the best of interest of both the United States and Turkey to work towards finding common ground and compromise on these issues.”

 Defne Arslan, director of Atlantic Council in Turkey

 US FOREIGN POLICY: The old, pre-Trump model of US leadership won’t work

 “A succession of US presidents has carried out foreign policy by fiat, and a newly-elected President Biden will be able to undo some of Donald Trump’s most egregious foreign-policy errors with the stroke of a pen. On the whole, however, Joe Biden will discover that changing US foreign policy back to the way it was before will be very difficult—and probably impossible.

 “So, for example, the Biden administration may reenter the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, resume US membership in the World Health Organization, and recommit the United States to meeting its obligations within the Paris Climate Accord. He also should revisit the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other measures to liberalize global trade. These steps would be welcomed by most of America’s allies and partners and would signal a greater willingness to take others’ interests into account—something that Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ approach explicitly did not.

 “Beyond these steps, however, a Biden administration tempted to restore the old model of US leadership from the pre-Trump era is likely to be disappointed. After all, Trump’s victory in 2016 shook allies’ confidence that America would have their backs, no matter what. An American political system characterized by polarization and deep dysfunction is an unreliable long-term partner. Accordingly, US allies are likely to hedge their bets, deepening cooperation with others. Some might modestly increase their own military spending as an insurance policy against US abandonment.

 “The true source of this nation’s power is the American people, and that is why Joe Biden must focus his efforts here at home. That includes dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and restarting the economy once the virus recedes, a process that could grind well into 2022. In addressing these challenges, President-elect Biden’s administration can expect more cooperation from allies and partners than a second Trump administration would have received. But repairing the deep divisions within our society will require his full attention.”

 Christopher Preble, co-director of the New American Engagement Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

 US FOREIGN POLICY: Trump foreign policy vision will not simply go away

 “Elections are not won or lost on foreign-policy issues. Nonetheless, the failure of the 2020 election to repudiate the domestic and foreign policies of Donald Trump has major implications for the future of America’s role in the world. Though Joe Biden has won the 2020 election, the strength of Donald Trump’s electoral success suggests that Trumpism in the Republican party is here to stay. The more challenging question, of course, is what Trumpism actually means for foreign policy in the long-term. Donald Trump himself has been at best mercurial in foreign policy, tweeting insults at other world leaders, ramping up tensions with Iran or North Korea, and suddenly and unexpectedly altering long-standing US foreign policies to meet his whims. But there is far more consistency among his advisors and a core set of themes that run throughout Trump’s time in office that we can expect to inform future Republican foreign policymakers.”

 “Both parties increasingly embrace the frame of great-power competition, but the Trump administration’s framing of the issue has focused heavily on trade and economic issues, to the extent that questions about protectionism and domestic industrial policy re-entered the mainstream of national-security discussion for the first time in several decades. We can expect this—and the question of economic decoupling from China—to continue to play a major role in Republican foreign policy moving forward. Perhaps more importantly, though they continue to pay lip service to the importance of US allies and partners, administration documents and officials have increasingly framed US foreign policy in unilateralist terms. A post-Trump Republican party is likely to continue to be apathetic about the value of international institutions, and skeptical of the utility of multilateral agreements on topics like climate change and arms control. This has substantive implications for US allies. As the Trump era has shown, allies are likely to be able to preserve their strong relationship with a unilateralist United States only insofar as they support American policy choices; as the US withdrawal from the JCPOA highlighted, allies are increasingly unlikely to be successful in shifting US foreign-policy priorities.

 “While the Biden administration may prove a brief respite from these trends, the strength of the Republican showing in the 2020 election suggests they are likely to continue in future Republican administrations, with significant consequences for American allies and adversaries.”

 Emma Ashford, resident senior fellow in the New American Engagement Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

 ENERGY AND CLIMATE: Biden will need to navigate political left and right on climate policy

 “Despite being considered a moderate compared to most of the other Democratic primary candidates, President-elect Joe Biden’s climate and energy plan is the most ambitious ever of any major party presidential nominee. However, with the Senate likely to remain in Republican control, these ambitions will probably be curtailed. The administration’s power will be limited to executive order and agency rulemaking, with a few exceptions where there is bipartisan Congressional support such as for basic research, nuclear energy, carbon capture, and nature-based solutions. While there is growing support for climate action in some parts of the Republican Party, it is not something that can be counted on under Senator Mitch McConnell’s leadership.

 “Biden’s challenge in the short term will be to rejoin the Paris agreement and undo much of the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda without significant support from the Hill while remaining under pressure from the left to do more. Biden recognizes that a rush to ban fossil fuel production is bad politics, undermines US foreign policy goals, and ultimately has minimal impact on the climate. (Some argue that these bans will raise prices, making fossil fuels less competitive, but this is not the case in a world awash with energy.) Instead, Biden is likely to focus his efforts on reducing demand for fossil fuels while also making them cleaner by limiting methane emissions and encouraging carbon capture and sequestration.

 “Getting the United States on a path to net-zero emissions by 2050 is hugely ambitious and puts the United States in the same club with the Europeans, Japanese, South Koreans, and Chinese (though the Chinese are aiming for 2060). If Biden’s ambitious but pragmatic policies come under fire from the left wing of his party, Biden should remember what he said in the second debate: he “beat all those other people because [he] disagreed with them.”

 Randolph Bell, director of the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center

 CLIMATE CHANGE: Biden will make climate change a national priority

 “President-elect Biden has declared climate change to be a national priority, promising unprecedented executive action out of the gate to both reducing emissions and investing in addressing the growing impacts of a hotter planet and to reclaim the position of the United States as a global leader in aggressive climate and environmental policy.

 “President elect Biden plans to advance legislation during his first year in office that establishes an enforcement mechanism that includes milestone greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets by his first term’s end in 2025; makes a historic investment of $2 trillion in clean energy and climate research and innovation; and incentivizes the rapid deployment of clean-energy innovations and climate-smart infrastructure across the country. Such investments will focus especially on areas most vulnerable to climate impacts such as extreme heat, and on communities of color, including coastal communities suffering from the effects of sea-level rise, salt-water intrusion, and sunny-day flooding, as well as the storms that increasingly hammer at-risk areas, where 40 percent of Americans live and work.”

 Kathy Baughman McLeod, senior vice president and director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center

 CYBER AND TECH: Look for a shift on process from Biden

 “In the next four years, we’re going to see some level of pivoting in US-China technology relations. The Trump administration pursued a series of recklessly executed technology policies aimed at China, whether proposed export controls on emerging technologies that were drafted problematically broadly, or a hastily written set of executive orders on Chinese mobile applications TikTok and WeChat that were outright bad policy. While the given reason for these decisions was national security, it was clear that the Trump administration’s calculus was far more (if not exclusively) politically driven—aimed at contributing to the trade war and enhancing the president’s personal image; it was more about ‘looking tough’ on China than actually developing sound policies. This is why we can expect ‘somewhat’ of a pivot: the Biden administration is likely to develop a suite of policies on US-China technology that is far more calibrated to recognize the realities and the benefits of interconnection and interdependence while simultaneously acting to mitigate national and economic security risks where they do exist. This would pivot from the zero-sum view of the Trump administration while maintaining a legitimate focus on security threats. The Huawei campaign is a prime example of something that can be handled very differently: nominally speaking, the national security motivation will stay the same (for there are real security risks with Huawei supplying critical 5G infrastructure), but there will actually be a legitimate, informed policy process in the White House again behind those kinds of decisions.”

 Justin Sherman, nonresident fellow in the Atlantic Council Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Cyberstatecraft Initiative.

 Further reading:

 Inflection Points Nov 6, 2020

 Biden’s victory provides an ‘inflection point’ for American democracy

 By Frederick Kempe

 A Biden victory provides an opportunity for Americans to regain their appetite for compromise at home to tackle the country’s most pressing challenges and for international common cause to safeguard the gains in democracy and prosperity of the past seventy-five years.

 Elections United States and Canada

 Elections 2020 Nov 6, 2020

 America’s commitment to democracy must prevail at home and abroad

 By Daniel Fried

 To pass the existential test now before us, we Americans must not only hold fast to our best values at home, but also uphold our commitment to reflecting those values as we look abroad.

 Elections Politics & Diplomacy

 Elections 2020 Nov 4, 2020

 What America’s allies and adversaries will make of the 2020 election

 By William F. Wechsler

 Rather than provide an opportunity to “bind up the nation’s wounds” once again, the election has instead clearly confirmed the deep divisions in American society by class, region, race, gender, religion, and culture. No matter who wins the presidency, the result will likely be a nation increasingly focused inward on the implications of these divisions.

 Elections Politics & Diplomacy

 Related Experts: Barry Pavel , Miyeon Oh , Christopher Skaluba , Josh Lipsky , John E. Herbst , Bronwyn Bruton , William F. Wechsler , Jason Marczak , Benjamin Haddad , Defne Arslan , Christopher Preble , Emma Ashford , Randolph Bell , Kathy Baughman McLeod , and Justin Sherman

 Economy & Business Elections Energy & Environment Politics & Diplomacy Security & Defense Technology & Innovation United States and Canada

 Image: FILE PHOTO: Democratic U.S. presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a drive-in campaign rally at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., November 2, 2020. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

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Atlantic Council	
	
	
We finally have a winner. After several days of counting votes, former Vice President Joe Biden has defeated President Donald J. Trump in the US presidential election, after the Associated Press called Pennsylvania for the former vice president on November 7. 
While Biden may have to contend with a divided Congress to achieve his many domestic priorities, he will have much more power to shape US foreign policy going forward. “Under a Biden presidency, the United States will shift from a ‘with or without us’ approach to a policy that fundamentally believes the United States can achieve more when we work together with partner nations,” Jason Marczak, director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, said. 
But while President Trump was defeated, his stronger-than-expected showing should give pause to those who expected the United States to fully abandon his foreign-policy doctrine. As Emma Ashford, a resident senior fellow in the New American Engagement Initiative at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, argues, the “post-Trump Republican party is likely to continue to be apathetic about the value of international institutions, and skeptical of the utility of multilateral agreements on topics like climate change and arms control.” 
What are the most significant changes we should expect from the new Biden administration? Experts from across the Atlantic Council weigh in on what the outcome of the 2020 election will mean for US foreign policy and America’s role in the world:  
Jump to an expert reaction: 
	
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US FOREIGN POLICY: Biden will seek to rebuild alliances. 
“The election to the presidency of former Vice President Joe Biden—in the midst of what may be one of the most chaotic and dangerous eras in US history—represents a victory for the foundation of our nation: the values that have undergirded our Republic and that we Americans share among ourselves and with our closest democratic allies and partners. It also is an important signal to those friends abroad of our renewed commitment to working together—a reinvestment in multilateral cooperation, international norms, and the global order, which are the only effective means for addressing the urgent challenges that we all face. Together. 
“Yet, the challenges and fears that led to the election of Donald Trump do not leave us, even as Trump himself leaves the White House. They must be addressed, even as new challenges compound them. We’ve failed to protect those most vulnerable to the ugliness of racism, sexism, xenophobia, and, sadly, much more. We’ve failed to invite those who feel alienated by Washington and found a home in Trumpism to see just how much stronger America is when we work together and are engaged in the world. The recent US retreat from global leadership left our allies and friends all over the world abandoned during our new era of great-power competition, emerging threats, and a raging, global pandemic. The vitriol that has permeated our discourse has left an indelible mark on our character, and it will take much more than a presidential election to rebuild at home and overseas. But it is a new beginning. 
“What America needs now is a unifier: someone who will bridge the unprecedently wide chasm in our society and polity. Someone who will look above the ramparts that have risen to divide us. This is no easy task. The future of our nation lies in the hands of a person who must draw on our founding principles and rebuild them for the modern world.  
“At the Scowcroft Center, our namesake is our North Star. General Brent Scowcroft was commonly referred to as an “honest broker”; highly respected across party lines and national borders, he was known for his fairness and humility. Few possess the ability to bring people together the way General Scowcroft did, especially in this moment of deep polarization. President-elect Joe Biden is one of those people.   
“An internationalist in his DNA, President-elect Joe Biden will seek above all else to renew our polity at home and to rebuild America’s alliances abroad, the most important asset that the United States has to navigate the world. We share this foundational strategic tenet for America’s role in the world, and we are committed to working with the Biden administration to advance our mission of strengthening America’s alliances and partnerships around the world. Facing multiple overlapping crises at home and abroad, now is exactly the moment for the United States to lay out a bold vision and for the new president to lead a renewal of our values at home and a new era of rejuvenation of the democratic world abroad. Now is our chance to rebuild a stronger, more resilient rules-based system that can meet the challenges and leverage the opportunities of this century. With cooperation, determination, and resolve, the United States and its allies can recover from this period of crisis and revitalize an adapted rules-based system to bring about decades of freedom, peace, and prosperity. 
“There is so much work to be done. But in this moment, one thing is clear: in reaffirming our leadership abroad, America has finally come home.” 
  Barry Pavel, senior vice president and director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.  
CHINA: US allies and partners need to know where Biden stands on Beijing—and soon 
“President-elect Biden should present a clear goal, strategy, and roadmap for his China policy as soon as he is inaugurated in order to build political consensus not only with Congress, but also with like-minded countries. While the Biden campaign emphasized the importance of alliances and multilateralism in order to restore US global leadership and democracy, US allies and partners will want to know how a Biden administration’s China policy will fit into his overarching goals. First, US allies and partners will want to know how the Biden administration is going to identify areas of conflicting versus common interest with China, as the Biden campaign said that a Biden administration would pursue both competition and cooperation with China. Given Asia-Pacific allies’ heavy economic reliance on China as well as China’s more aggressive behavior and narratives since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, US policy toward China will have significant implications for how these allies re-evaluate and adjust their own China policies and strategies.  
“Second, the Biden administration should clarify its stance and approach in terms of US-China decoupling. It is worth noting that the stakeholders in the Asia-Pacific that are involved in US-China decoupling, directly or indirectly, seem to have different understandings about it. The Biden administration will also need to make clear whether it aims to decouple and, if so, how it is going to create a rules-based, level-playing field in order to respond to the rise of China collectively with like-minded countries. The realm of national security is increasingly inter-connected with economic security, which is likely to continue for the time being with the uncertainties stemming from the pandemic and economic recessions. Showing how and where the Biden administration’s China policy will be similar to and different from the Obama administration’s will be the key to rebuilding political consensus domestically and internationally.” 
  Miyeon Oh, director of the Asia Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security  
	
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NATO: Now the hard part—earning back the trust of a relieved but more cynical Europe  
“President-elect Biden’s win is a relief for much of Europe. European allies and partners will look to pivot quickly to a ‘new normal’ with an American president focused on healing the transatlantic divide—a circumstance many hope will resemble the ‘old normal’ that pre-dated President Trump’s surprise win of the White House in 2016. Indeed, there are rumors of a NATO summit early in Biden’s administration that will signal the preeminence of the transatlantic relationship and rapidly change the tone of the Trump years. Expect a quick effort to put the US-EU relationship on better footing as well.  
“However, Biden’s administration will not in itself assure a ‘snapback’ to old patterns of cooperation. Europe’s estimation of American leadership has become more cynical, especially after an election that seemed to validate Trump’s perspective as much as it did Biden’s. Parts of the European political and policy establishment want a permanently more independent posture from US policy and can use the closely contested election as ammunition for that purpose. While Biden’s team will undoubtedly demonstrate a sustained commitment to working with Europe on most major issues, repairing the mistrust of US intentions that Trump has cultivated in European capitals will likely take positive relations with successive administrations. US prevarication towards NATO, for instance, predates Trump and has roots in domestic perceptions of foreign policy that need to be addressed before the transatlantic relationship can be considered repaired.   
“To that end, Biden administration’s should focus on diversifying the public appeal of our institutions. For NATO, that starts with resolving the unhelpful debate around burden sharing (especially in light of downward pressures on defense budgets in the wake of COVID-19). NATO’s importance must be understood by a broader swath of an increasingly diverse American public, many of whom have foreign-policy concerns that are not transatlantic in nature. Working with NATO to find new champions for the Alliance among the American public is the best hedge against a return to the toxicity of the Trump years during future presidencies.  
“Prioritizing NATO while necessarily reestablishing US security bona fides in other regions, particularly the Indo-Pacific, will be a tricky proposition in terms of US attention and resources. An early indicator might be whether Biden will move to reverse Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops from Germany. Doing so will be a down payment on ensuring adequate resources are available to deter Russia. A decision otherwise would indicate a gap between rhetoric and resources and that will augur further, if more polite, transatlantic tensions.   
“In any case, Biden’s approach to foreign policy places alliances as central to US global influence, signaling a reinvigorated promise of American international leadership. While the details will matter over time, there will be a collective sigh of relief from Brussels in the first instance.”  
  Christopher Skaluba, director of the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security  
ECONOMY:  Just how ambitious will Biden’s agenda be? Look to Congress.  
“The economic agenda for the next four years depends as much on the future make-up of the new Senate as it does on the election of the next US president. A Republican Senate and Democratic House are likely to deliver a scaled-back stimulus bill in the near-term and a compromise infrastructure package in the medium term. The Biden administration will still advance its priorities toward building the green economy and improving health care, childcare, and education, with the goal of providing universal pre-K for all families. To partly fund these major spending increases, the Biden administration plans to raise taxes on corporate profits and American households that make more than $400,000 per year. While all of this will be up for debate in a Republican Senate, it would be a mistake to think compromise is impossible with only on e to two   R epublicans needed for a bill.  
“On the global stage, a Biden administration is expected to reach out to traditional allies to confront the many economic challenges posed by China. You will see a focus on this given the realities of a divided Congress.” 
  Josh Lipsky, director of the Atlantic Council’s Geoeconomics Center  
 EURASIA: Biden will bring a rhetorical shift, but the actual policy might not change much 
 “Joe Biden’s victory will be greeted enthusiastically in Kyiv and Tblisi, not to mention Brussels and Berlin. But in Moscow the mood will be subdued. Biden is a strong transatlanticist who will work hard at shoring up NATO and improving relations with the EU, which is necessary to deal with the revisionist challenges coming from Moscow and Beijing. Biden will also maintain strong US support for Ukraine as it confronts Kremlin occupation and ongoing war in Donbas, and as it pursues reform. This also applies to Georgia. The irony, though, is that Biden’s policy toward Russia, Ukraine, and the other states of Eurasia will not be that much different than Trump’s. He too will maintain sanctions on Russia, arm Ukraine, and act to enhance the freedom and sovereignty of all the nations of Eurasia. But we can be sure that his own statements will reinforce his policy. That will set him apart from Trump, whose soft public pronouncements about or alongside Putin appeared inconsistent with his overall policy. 
“Trump has been strong in opposing Nord Stream 2, as has Congress. Biden will rightly work to repair relations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Ending sanctions on Nord Stream 2 should not be part of outreach to Germany.” 
 John Herbst,  director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former US ambassador to Ukraine and Uzbekistan 
AFRICA: The path to more commercial ties is through repaired diplomatic relationships 
“The war on terrorism is mostly over, and US interest in military adventures in Africa has been waning. At the same time, there has been a decisive effort to solidify commercial relationships with African states. New policy tools such as the equity-backed US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the forthcoming $500-750 million Africa Trade and Investment Program (ATIP) stand to overhaul US policy and significantly move the needle on increasing two-way trade and investment.  
“Yet these positive developments emerge at a time when US soft power on the continent is in decline. Racialized commentary that has leaked from the White House, in conjunction with criticisms of the US coronavirus response, have tarnished America’s image in Africa, with damage done to signature relationships with Nigeria, South Africa, and Ethiopia, among others. To capitalize on its commercial push, the United States must refocus its policy in Africa on repairing these critical relationships.  
“A Biden presidency affords the opportunity for a credible reset and the prospects of a more predictable policy toward Africa, in which regional allies will again be treated as the important partners that they are. Biden is also likely to reassure US allies that he won’t unilaterally yank American security support away from Somalia and the Sahel, which will produce sighs of relief not only in Africa, but in Europe.”  
  Bronwyn Bruton, director of programs and studies at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center  
MIDDLE EAST: This is an opportunity for the region to depoliticize its relations with the US 
“For about fifty years until shortly after the turn of the 21st century, the American approach toward the Middle East was remarkably consistent, notwithstanding the region’s seemingly perpetual state of turmoil. The United States largely sought little more than to strengthen the existing status quo or return to that status quo once it was upset. The countries of the region generally enjoyed the relative safety provided by the American-led security regime and took care to ensure that their relationships with Washington remained resolutely apolitical in tone and bipartisan in nature. However, beginning with the war in Iraq and continuing since, the United States sharply diverged from its traditional approach and became increasingly seen in the region as a threat to the status quo. The ramifications of these strategic errors continue to define the challenges that President-elect Biden will face in the region.     
“Over roughly the same period of time, several key countries in the region also sharply diverged from their traditionally apolitical approach to Washington, preferring instead to increasingly align themselves with the Republican party. This was also a fundamental strategic error. A new Biden administration provides an opportunity for leaders in the region, particularly the current leaders in Saudi Arabia and Israel, to appreciate the negative consequences of their politicized approach to Washington and to seek to ‘reset’ relations along lines of longstanding common interests, including dealing with threats from Iran. Of course, the coming Biden administration will need to focus immediately on the wide range of domestic challenges facing our deeply divided society and dysfunctional political elite. The primary strategic challenges abroad will be from China and Russia and the existential threat of global warming. Nevertheless, the odds are high that when he turns his eyes to the Middle East, President-elect Biden will look to offer the possibility of such a reset to the region on these terms. Time will tell whether leaders like Bibi Netanyahu and Mohamed bin Salman, who chose not to hide their support for President Trump’s reelection, will have the wisdom to meet him there.”  
  William F. Wechsler, director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs.  
LATIN AMERICA: Biden will work with allies to help solve the Venezuela and migrant crises  
“Joe Biden’s election win will yield significant shifts in the direction of US foreign policy, including with our partners across the Western Hemisphere. Under a Biden presidency, the United States will shift from a ‘with or without us’ approach to a policy that fundamentally believes the United States can achieve more when we work together with partner nations. 
“In Latin America, where President-elect Biden brings deep experience and commitment, this shift in mindset will bear out in a number of issues but will be most acutely seen in two areas. First in Venezuela, where the United States and regional partners must contend with a Maduro regime that remains deeply entrenched despite the ratcheting up of US sanctions during the Trump presidency. Here, expect a more nuanced approach that remains tough on Maduro but with new strategies that prioritize working with allies to advance a transition. Expect a more collaborative approach as well in trying to stem the root causes that force Central Americans to leave their homes and migrate north. During the Trump administration, rather than addressing the holistic economic development and security challenges that must be solved to reduce migratory flows, US policy was focused on security and on making other countries bear the brunt of imposing draconian US policy toward migrants and refugees. President-elect Biden—long a champion of a multi-pronged strategy in Central America—will work hand-in-hand with regional leaders to address the corruption, the challenges with rule of law, the necessary drivers for economic development, and the security issues that perpetuate instability in Central America. 
“Expect a Biden administration to also focus on human-rights issues, addressing climate change in the hemisphere, and ensuring that labor rights are upheld in the new US-Mexico-Canada agreement (USMCA). And importantly, Joe Biden will have a plan to work with the hemisphere to ‘build back better’ from the COVID-19 pandemic through a strategy that benefits US workers and US businesses while also making the hemisphere once again prosperous and more resilient to future shocks. This multi-pronged strategy will better position the United States, rather than China, to be the partner of choice for allies across our hemisphere.”  
   Jason Marczak, director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center  
EUROPE: Biden should welcome a stronger Europe 
“President-elect Joe Biden’s win will be welcomed with relief in much of Europe, where he is seen as a friend and supporter of the transatlantic relationship and a multilateral agenda. He faces an immense task and the narrow result should inspire humility when engaging allies who have been following the contest closely over the last few days.  
“A strong Europe is America’s best asset when tackling global challenges—from dealing with an assertive China and fighting climate change to rebuilding the global economy post-COVID-19. Disagreements will linger, on trade or digital regulation, but they can be addressed through constructive dialogue rather than confrontation. However, the Biden administration should acknowledge that the  p ast years have awakened Europeans to the necessity  of  build ing  their own strategic identity and progressively reduc ing  some of their depend e nce on US power, especially in their own neighborhood. More friendly rhetoric won’t reverse this. On the contrary, President-elect Biden should welcome and harness those changes to shape a forward-looking transatlantic relationship with a more responsible Europe.” 
  Benjamin Haddad, director of the Atlantic Council’s Future Europe Initiative.  
TURKEY: A Biden presidency means near-term uncertainty but longer-term opportunity 
“Joe Biden’s victory may appear to cast new uncertainty over the US-Turkey relationship, already at historic lows.  
“On the other hand, in the medium term, Biden could present an opportunity to reset relations between the two NATO allies, and Turkey should welcome Biden’s commitment to having the United States re-assume greater transatlantic leadership and cooperation. Turkey, home to NATO’s second-largest army, can and should be an integral partner in balancing Russian and Iranian influence in the region. As vice president, Biden traveled to Turkey on several occasions to meet with his future counterpart President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, including for talks at even tougher times such as after the failed coup attempt. Ultimately, Biden is an experienced politician who should perceive and work in harmony with Turkey’s growing regional importance in Syria, Libya, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Black Sea. It is in the best of interest of both the United States and Turkey to work towards finding common ground and compromise on these issues.” 
  Defne Arslan, director of Atlantic Council in Turkey  
US FOREIGN POLICY:  The old, pre-Trump model of US leadership won’t work 
“A succession of US presidents has carried out foreign policy by fiat, and a newly-elected President Biden will be able to undo some of Donald Trump’s most egregious foreign-policy errors with the stroke of a pen. On the whole, however, Joe Biden will discover that changing US foreign policy back to the way it was before will be very difficult—and probably impossible.  
“So, for example, the Biden administration may reenter the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, resume US membership in the World Health Organization, and recommit the United States to meeting its obligations within the Paris Climate Accord. He also should revisit the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other measures to liberalize global trade. These steps would be welcomed by most of America’s allies and partners and would signal a greater willingness to take others’ interests into account—something that Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ approach explicitly did not.  
“Beyond these steps, however, a Biden administration tempted to restore the old model of US leadership from the pre-Trump era is likely to be disappointed. After all, Trump’s victory in 2016 shook allies’ confidence that America would have their backs, no matter what. An American political system characterized by polarization and deep dysfunction is an unreliable long-term partner. Accordingly, US allies are likely to hedge their bets, deepening cooperation with others. Some might modestly increase their own military spending as an insurance policy against US abandonment. 
“The true source of this nation’s power is the American people, and that is why Joe Biden must focus his efforts here at home. That includes dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and restarting the economy once the virus recedes, a process that could grind well into 2022. In addressing these challenges, President-elect Biden’s administration can expect more cooperation from allies and partners than a second Trump administration would have received. But repairing the deep divisions within our society will require his full attention.” 
  Christopher Preble, co-director of the New American Engagement Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security  
US FOREIGN POLICY: Trump foreign policy vision will not simply go away 
“Elections are not won or lost on foreign-policy issues. Nonetheless, the failure of the 2020 election to repudiate the domestic and foreign policies of Donald Trump has major implications for the future of America’s role in the world. Though Joe Biden has won the 2020 election, the strength of Donald Trump’s electoral success suggests that Trumpism in the Republican party is here to stay. The more challenging question, of course, is what Trumpism actually means for foreign policy in the long-term. Donald Trump himself has been at best mercurial in foreign policy, tweeting insults at other world leaders, ramping up tensions with Iran or North Korea, and suddenly and unexpectedly altering long-standing US foreign policies to meet his whims. But there is far more consistency among his advisors and a core set of themes that run throughout Trump’s time in office that we can expect to inform future Republican foreign policymakers.” 
“Both parties increasingly embrace the frame of great-power competition, but the Trump administration’s framing of the issue has focused heavily on trade and economic issues, to the extent that questions about protectionism and domestic industrial policy re-entered the mainstream of national-security discussion for the first time in several decades. We can expect this—and the question of economic decoupling from China—to continue to play a major role in Republican foreign policy moving forward. Perhaps more importantly, though they continue to pay lip service to the importance of US allies and partners, administration documents and officials have increasingly framed US foreign policy in unilateralist terms. A post-Trump Republican party is likely to continue to be apathetic about the value of international institutions, and skeptical of the utility of multilateral agreements on topics like climate change and arms control. This has substantive implications for US allies. As the Trump era has shown, allies are likely to be able to preserve their strong relationship with a unilateralist United States only insofar as they support American policy choices; as the US withdrawal from the JCPOA highlighted, allies are increasingly unlikely to be successful in shifting US foreign-policy priorities.  
“While the Biden administration may prove a brief respite from these trends, the strength of the Republican showing in the 2020 election suggests they are likely to continue in future Republican administrations, with significant consequences for American allies and adversaries.” 
  Emma Ashford, resident senior fellow in the New American Engagement Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security  
ENERGY AND CLIMATE: Biden will need to navigate political left and right on climate policy 
“Despite being considered a moderate compared to most of the other Democratic primary candidates, President-elect Joe Biden’s climate and energy plan is the most ambitious ever of any major party presidential nominee. However, with the Senate likely to remain in Republican control, these ambitions will probably be curtailed. The administration’s power will be limited to executive order and agency rulemaking, with a few exceptions where there is bipartisan Congressional support such as for basic research, nuclear energy, carbon capture, and nature-based solutions. While there is growing support for climate action in some parts of the Republican Party, it is not something that can be counted on under Senator Mitch McConnell’s leadership. 
“Biden’s challenge in the short term will be to rejoin the Paris agreement and undo much of the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda without significant support from the Hill while remaining under pressure from the left to do more. Biden recognizes that a rush to ban fossil fuel production is bad politics, undermines US foreign policy goals, and ultimately has minimal impact on the climate. (Some argue that these bans will raise prices, making fossil fuels less competitive, but this is not the case in a world awash with energy.) Instead, Biden is likely to focus his efforts on reducing demand for fossil fuels while also making them cleaner by limiting methane emissions and encouraging carbon capture and sequestration.  
“Getting the United States on a path to net-zero emissions by 2050 is hugely ambitious and puts the United States in the same club with the Europeans, Japanese, South Koreans, and Chinese (though the Chinese are aiming for 2060). If Biden’s ambitious but pragmatic policies come under fire from the left wing of his party, Biden should remember what he said in the second debate: he “beat all those other people because [he] disagreed with them.” 
  Randolph Bell, director of the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center   
CLIMATE CHANGE: Biden will make climate change a national priority  
“President-elect Biden has declared climate change to be a national priority, promising unprecedented executive action out of the gate to both reducing emissions and investing in addressing the growing impacts of a hotter planet and to reclaim the position of the United States as a global leader in aggressive climate and environmental policy.   
“President elect Biden plans to advance legislation during his first year in office that establishes an enforcement mechanism that includes milestone greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets by his first term’s end in 2025; makes a historic investment of $2 trillion in clean energy and climate research and innovation; and incentivizes the rapid deployment of clean-energy innovations and climate-smart infrastructure across the country. Such investments will focus especially on areas most vulnerable to climate impacts such as extreme heat, and on communities of color, including coastal communities suffering from the effects of sea-level rise, salt-water intrusion, and sunny-day flooding, as well as the storms that increasingly hammer at-risk areas, where 40 percent of Americans live and work.”  
  Kathy Baughman McLeod, senior vice president and director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center  
CYBER AND TECH: Look for a shift on process from Biden
“In the next four years, we’re going to see some level of pivoting in US-China technology relations. The Trump administration pursued a series of recklessly executed technology policies aimed at China, whether proposed export controls on emerging technologies that were drafted problematically broadly, or a hastily written set of executive orders on Chinese mobile applications TikTok and WeChat that were outright bad policy. While the given reason for these decisions was national security, it was clear that the Trump administration’s calculus was far more (if not exclusively) politically driven—aimed at contributing to the trade war and enhancing the president’s personal image; it was more about ‘looking tough’ on China than actually developing sound policies. This is why we can expect ‘somewhat’ of a pivot: the Biden administration is likely to develop a suite of policies on US-China technology that is far more calibrated to recognize the realities and the benefits of interconnection and interdependence while simultaneously acting to mitigate national and economic security risks where they do exist. This would pivot from the zero-sum view of the Trump administration while maintaining a legitimate focus on security threats. The Huawei campaign is a prime example of something that can be handled very differently: nominally speaking, the national security motivation will stay the same (for there are real security risks with Huawei supplying critical 5G infrastructure), but there will actually be a legitimate, informed policy process in the White House again behind those kinds of decisions.”
 Justin Sherman, nonresident fellow in the Atlantic Council Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Cyberstatecraft Initiative. 
Further reading: 
	Image: FILE PHOTO: Democratic U.S. presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a drive-in campaign rally at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., November 2, 2020. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
Joe Biden just won the presidency: What does that mean for America’s role in the world?
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/joe-biden-just-won-the-presidency-what-does-that-mean-for-americas-role-in-the-world/
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/14/election-results-biden-electoral-votes.html
President-elect Joe Biden wins Electoral College vote, cementing his victory over Trump
2020-12-14
Christina Wilkie; Hannah Miao
<div><div><div><p></p></div><div><p>WASHINGTON — The Electoral College voted Monday to cement President-elect Joe Biden's victory over President Donald Trump in this year's presidential election.</p><p>The ballots were cast throughout the day by individual electors in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and they mirror their state's popular vote.</p><p>Shortly before 5:30 p.m. ET, California electors cast their 55 votes for Biden, pushing him over the crucial threshold of 270 electoral votes. At approximately 7:15 p.m., Hawaii cast the final four electoral votes of the day for Biden, who won 306 total electoral votes. Trump won 232 votes.</p><p><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/14/biden-calls-for-unity-and-healing-after-electoral-college-cements-his-victory.html">Biden addressed the nation</a> later Monday, where he will emphasize that "the integrity of our elections remains intact."</p><p>"And so, now it is time to turn the page. To unite. To heal," Biden said.</p></div><div><p>Democratic elector Stacey Abrams leads her fellow electors through the process of casting their votes for President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris in the Georgia State Senate chambers in the Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., December 14, 2020.</p><p>Elijah Nouvelage | Reuters</p></div><div><p>The Electoral College vote is typically a formality, occurring more than a month after Election Day votes are cast. But Trump's unprecedented legal and legislative efforts to overturn the election results this year have imparted a greater significance upon the proceedings.</p><p>The president, his campaign and his political allies have filed dozens of lawsuits since Election Day, asking federal and state courts to nullify the election results based on myriad unsubstantiated claims of irregularities.</p><p>These efforts <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/11/supreme-court-rejects-texas-lawsuit-challenging-bidens-election-wins-in-4-key-states.html">repeatedly failed</a>, prompting the president to shift tactics in early December and begin to personally pressure Republican state legislators to intervene in the selection of individual electors. This, too, has failed.</p><p>Yet Trump continues to falsely claim that he, not Biden, is the legitimate winner of the November election and that he was the victim of a massive, coordinated nationwide conspiracy to alter votes in Biden's favor.</p><p>In Pennsylvania and Arizona, two key swing states that Biden won, Trump supporters convened Monday outside their state capitols to protest the electoral college vote.</p></div><div><p>A small band of Trump supporters march with flags as electors gathered to cast their votes for the U.S. presidential election at the State Capitol complex in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. December 14, 2020.</p><p>Joanathan Ernst | Reuters</p></div><div><p>In Michigan, electors received police escorts amid threats of violence at the state capitol. A Republican state representative was <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/14/electoral-college-michigan-republican-hints-at-violence.html">stripped of his committee assignments</a> by GOP leaders Monday after refusing to rule out that violence would occur in the capital of Lansing during the electoral vote.</p><p>On Capitol Hill, congressional Republicans fearful of angering their Trump-loving constituents have largely fallen in step behind the president and refused to acknowledge Biden's victory.</p><p>Once electors have formally recorded their votes for president and vice president, the next major event in the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/10/heres-when-the-results-of-the-2020-election-will-be-finalized.html">Electoral College process</a> is a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, during which both chambers will officially count the electoral votes.</p><p>Vice President Mike Pence is expected to preside over the Jan. 6 proceedings in his formal role as president of the Senate, a job that includes announcing the results.</p><p>Any objections in Congress to the electoral votes must be submitted in writing and signed by at least one member of the House and one senator. If an objection arises, the two chambers consider the objection separately.</p><p>Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks has already said he will challenge the results. In the Senate, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/529480-gop-senator-wont-rule-out-challenging-electoral-college-results-in-congress"> not ruled out</a> doing so.</p><p>But not all Republicans approve of Brooks' plan to jam up the electoral count in a bid to challenge results that is sure to fail. And several Republican senators who have yet to publicly acknowledge Biden's win have indicated that they will accept the results of Monday's vote in the Electoral College as the final judgment on the 2020 presidential election.</p><p>Still, the denial of Biden's victory by some Republicans in Congress is likely to stretch into January and beyond.</p><p>In a Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/congress-republicans-trump-election-claims/#if-joe-biden-wins-a-majority-in-the-electoral-college-will-you-accept-him-as-the-legitimately-elected-president-of-the-united-states?itid=lk_inline_manual_7">survey</a> of all 249 congressional Republicans, published Dec. 6, only 27 said they accepted Biden as the legitimately elected president. Another 220 GOP lawmakers gave an unclear answer or did not respond, and two, Brooks and Rep. Paul A. Gosar of Arizona, said they believed Trump was the rightful winner of the election.</p><p>Ever since Election Day, Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have largely tried to stay above the fray of Trump's increasingly desperate campaign to overturn the results.</p><p>While a small team of Biden campaign lawyers monitors Trump's lawsuits, the president-elect is charging ahead with a formal transition process, announcing his nominees for his Cabinet and laying out a plan to aggressively combat the coronavirus pandemic during his first 100 days in office.</p><p>Biden and Harris are set to be sworn into office as president and vice president of the United States on Jan. 20, Inauguration Day.</p></div></div></div>||||I|||| Skip Navigation
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 Politics

 President-elect Joe Biden wins Electoral College vote, cementing his victory over Trump

 Published Mon, Dec 14 202011:44 AM ESTUpdated Tue, Dec 15 20208:08 AM EST
 Christina Wilkie@in/christina-wilkie-6004564/@christinawilkie
 Hannah Miao@hannahmiao_
 WATCH LIVE
 Key Points
 * The Electoral College voted Monday to cement Joe Biden's victory over incumbent President Donald Trump.
 * The ballots were cast by individual electors in all 50 states and the District of Columbia mirror their state's popular vote, and Biden won 306 votes to Trump's 232 votes.
 * Trump's legal and legislative efforts to overturn this year's election brought heightened importance to the procedural votes.
 watch now
 VIDEO 0:00 00:00
 Biden officially surpasses 270 electoral votes
 Fast Money

 WASHINGTON — The Electoral College voted Monday to cement President-elect Joe Biden's victory over President Donald Trump in this year's presidential election.

 The ballots were cast throughout the day by individual electors in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and they mirror their state's popular vote.

 Shortly before 5:30 p.m. ET, California electors cast their 55 votes for Biden, pushing him over the crucial threshold of 270 electoral votes. At approximately 7:15 p.m., Hawaii cast the final four electoral votes of the day for Biden, who won 306 total electoral votes. Trump won 232 votes.

 Biden addressed the nation later Monday, where he will emphasize that "the integrity of our elections remains intact."

 "And so, now it is time to turn the page. To unite. To heal," Biden said.

 Democratic elector Stacey Abrams leads her fellow electors through the process of casting their votes for President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris in the Georgia State Senate chambers in the Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., December 14, 2020.
 Elijah Nouvelage | Reuters

 The Electoral College vote is typically a formality, occurring more than a month after Election Day votes are cast. But Trump's unprecedented legal and legislative efforts to overturn the election results this year have imparted a greater significance upon the proceedings.

 The president, his campaign and his political allies have filed dozens of lawsuits since Election Day, asking federal and state courts to nullify the election results based on myriad unsubstantiated claims of irregularities.

 These efforts repeatedly failed, prompting the president to shift tactics in early December and begin to personally pressure Republican state legislators to intervene in the selection of individual electors. This, too, has failed.

 Yet Trump continues to falsely claim that he, not Biden, is the legitimate winner of the November election and that he was the victim of a massive, coordinated nationwide conspiracy to alter votes in Biden's favor.

 In Pennsylvania and Arizona, two key swing states that Biden won, Trump supporters convened Monday outside their state capitols to protest the electoral college vote.

 A small band of Trump supporters march with flags as electors gathered to cast their votes for the U.S. presidential election at the State Capitol complex in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. December 14, 2020.
 Joanathan Ernst | Reuters

 In Michigan, electors received police escorts amid threats of violence at the state capitol. A Republican state representative was stripped of his committee assignments by GOP leaders Monday after refusing to rule out that violence would occur in the capital of Lansing during the electoral vote.

 On Capitol Hill, congressional Republicans fearful of angering their Trump-loving constituents have largely fallen in step behind the president and refused to acknowledge Biden's victory.

 Once electors have formally recorded their votes for president and vice president, the next major event in the Electoral College process is a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, during which both chambers will officially count the electoral votes.

 Vice President Mike Pence is expected to preside over the Jan. 6 proceedings in his formal role as president of the Senate, a job that includes announcing the results.

 Any objections in Congress to the electoral votes must be submitted in writing and signed by at least one member of the House and one senator. If an objection arises, the two chambers consider the objection separately.

 Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks has already said he will challenge the results. In the Senate, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has not ruled out doing so.

 But not all Republicans approve of Brooks' plan to jam up the electoral count in a bid to challenge results that is sure to fail. And several Republican senators who have yet to publicly acknowledge Biden's win have indicated that they will accept the results of Monday's vote in the Electoral College as the final judgment on the 2020 presidential election.

 Still, the denial of Biden's victory by some Republicans in Congress is likely to stretch into January and beyond.

 In a Washington Post survey of all 249 congressional Republicans, published Dec. 6, only 27 said they accepted Biden as the legitimately elected president. Another 220 GOP lawmakers gave an unclear answer or did not respond, and two, Brooks and Rep. Paul A. Gosar of Arizona, said they believed Trump was the rightful winner of the election.

 Ever since Election Day, Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have largely tried to stay above the fray of Trump's increasingly desperate campaign to overturn the results.

 While a small team of Biden campaign lawyers monitors Trump's lawsuits, the president-elect is charging ahead with a formal transition process, announcing his nominees for his Cabinet and laying out a plan to aggressively combat the coronavirus pandemic during his first 100 days in office.

 Biden and Harris are set to be sworn into office as president and vice president of the United States on Jan. 20, Inauguration Day.

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WASHINGTON — The Electoral College voted Monday to cement President-elect Joe Biden's victory over President Donald Trump in this year's presidential election. The ballots were cast throughout the day by individual electors in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and they mirror their state's popular vote. Shortly before 5:30 p.m. ET, California electors cast their 55 votes for Biden, pushing him over the crucial threshold of 270 electoral votes. At approximately 7:15 p.m., Hawaii cast the final four electoral votes of the day for Biden, who won 306 total electoral votes. Trump won 232 votes.  Biden addressed the nation later Monday, where he will emphasize that "the integrity of our elections remains intact." "And so, now it is time to turn the page. To unite. To heal," Biden said.   Democratic elector Stacey Abrams leads her fellow electors through the process of casting their votes for President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris in the Georgia State Senate chambers in the Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., December 14, 2020. Elijah Nouvelage | Reuters   The Electoral College vote is typically a formality, occurring more than a month after Election Day votes are cast. But Trump's unprecedented legal and legislative efforts to overturn the election results this year have imparted a greater significance upon the proceedings. The president, his campaign and his political allies have filed dozens of lawsuits since Election Day, asking federal and state courts to nullify the election results based on myriad unsubstantiated claims of irregularities. These efforts repeatedly failed, prompting the president to shift tactics in early December and begin to personally pressure Republican state legislators to intervene in the selection of individual electors. This, too, has failed. Yet Trump continues to falsely claim that he, not Biden, is the legitimate winner of the November election and that he was the victim of a massive, coordinated nationwide conspiracy to alter votes in Biden's favor. In Pennsylvania and Arizona, two key swing states that Biden won, Trump supporters convened Monday outside their state capitols to protest the electoral college vote.   A small band of Trump supporters march with flags as electors gathered to cast their votes for the U.S. presidential election at the State Capitol complex in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. December 14, 2020. Joanathan Ernst | Reuters   In Michigan, electors received police escorts amid threats of violence at the state capitol. A Republican state representative was stripped of his committee assignments by GOP leaders Monday after refusing to rule out that violence would occur in the capital of Lansing during the electoral vote. On Capitol Hill, congressional Republicans fearful of angering their Trump-loving constituents have largely fallen in step behind the president and refused to acknowledge Biden's victory. Once electors have formally recorded their votes for president and vice president, the next major event in the Electoral College process is a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, during which both chambers will officially count the electoral votes. Vice President Mike Pence is expected to preside over the Jan. 6 proceedings in his formal role as president of the Senate, a job that includes announcing the results. Any objections in Congress to the electoral votes must be submitted in writing and signed by at least one member of the House and one senator. If an objection arises, the two chambers consider the objection separately. Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks has already said he will challenge the results. In the Senate, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has not ruled out doing so. But not all Republicans approve of Brooks' plan to jam up the electoral count in a bid to challenge results that is sure to fail. And several Republican senators who have yet to publicly acknowledge Biden's win have indicated that they will accept the results of Monday's vote in the Electoral College as the final judgment on the 2020 presidential election. Still, the denial of Biden's victory by some Republicans in Congress is likely to stretch into January and beyond. In a Washington Post survey of all 249 congressional Republicans, published Dec. 6, only 27 said they accepted Biden as the legitimately elected president. Another 220 GOP lawmakers gave an unclear answer or did not respond, and two, Brooks and Rep. Paul A. Gosar of Arizona, said they believed Trump was the rightful winner of the election. Ever since Election Day, Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have largely tried to stay above the fray of Trump's increasingly desperate campaign to overturn the results. While a small team of Biden campaign lawyers monitors Trump's lawsuits, the president-elect is charging ahead with a formal transition process, announcing his nominees for his Cabinet and laying out a plan to aggressively combat the coronavirus pandemic during his first 100 days in office. Biden and Harris are set to be sworn into office as president and vice president of the United States on Jan. 20, Inauguration Day.
President-elect Joe Biden wins Electoral College vote, cementing his victory over Trump
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/14/election-results-biden-electoral-votes.html