With mostly heavily Biden-leaning mail-in votes to count left in the U.S. presidential election, Joe Biden was the hot favorite to win 306 electoral votes, leaving Donald Trump with 213. Former vice president Joe Biden was most likley to win the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania, and that is how the cliffhanger election played out.
Pennsylvania alone could push former vice president Biden over the finish line. Arizona and Nevada together, too. Other options were obviously also possible. The road to victory for Biden was a highway. Trump needed to win both Pennsylvania and Georgia to be reelected. It did not happen. However, votes had to be counted first. Therefore, “forever”, the electoral vote count stood at 253 for Biden and 213 for Trump, still far from the 270-threshold to win the election, with the four oustanding races too close to call.
On November 7, 2020 at 16:24 Madeira time, the vote count in Pennsylvania finally arrived at the pivotal moment when CNN projected that Joe Biden will become the next U.S. president. The 20 votes from Pennsylvania put Joe Biden to 273 electoral votes, clearly above the magical treshold of 270 electoral votes. Joe Biden can now be called president-elect. Trump, you’re fired!
As for the balance in the Senate, a January runoff-election in Georgia will decide who will control a majority: Biden’s Democrats or Trump’s Republicans.