Election 2020 updates: Biden warns of 'dark winter,' pushes masks in pandemic plan
The president-elect emphasized how he would handle the pandemic response.
Joe Biden is set to become the 46th president of the United States, capping a tumultuous and tension-filled campaign during a historic pandemic against President Donald Trump. ABC News characterized Joe Biden as the apparent winner of his home state of Pennsylvania, putting him over the 270 vote threshold needed to capture the presidency.
The hard-fought battle against the president was set against the backdrop of racial unrest and the coronavirus pandemic and bitter divisions among the electorate.
Trump had falsely declared on election night, when he held a lead in several key states, that he won the contest and alleged without evidence, after the count started to swing the other way, that the election was being stolen from him and that fraud had been committed.
Painting the election as a "battle for the soul of the nation," Biden won on a message of unity over division, compassion over anger, and reality over what he called Trump's "wishful thinking" as the coronavirus pandemic cast a heavy shadow over the campaign.
The 2020 election has shattered voting records with votes totaling 147 million and counting, surpassing the 138 million who voted in 2016.
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If 2018 was the year of the woman, 2020 is the year of even more women
At least 106 women will serve in the House, based on the latest ABC News projections, eclipsing the previous record of 102 set in 2019, according to the Center for American Women and Politics.
Of those, at least 46 are women of color, which is also record-setting, beating out the record of 44 set in 2019.
Republican women are making up significant ground after 2018, with at least 24 projected by ABC News to win their contests. The current total stands just shy of the record of 25 GOP women serving in the House, which was set in 2006.
Some of the winners include Stephanie Bice in Oklahoma's 5th Congressional District, Ashley Hinson in Iowa's 1st Congressional District and Michelle Fischbach in Minnesota's 7th Congressional District, who all flipped Democratic-held seats. Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia's 14th Congressional District and Lauren Boebert in Colorado's 3rd Congressional District -- two controversial candidates who either embraced or showed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory -- will be among the GOP's ranks in the next Congress.
-ABC News' Kendall Karson
Latest totals from Arizona's Maricopa County cut into Biden's lead
New vote totals from Arizona's Maricopa County slightly reduce Biden’s lead in the Grand Canyon State.
Statewide, the former vice president leads Trump 50.3% to 48.3%, with Biden up by 46,257 votes. That new vote total is a decrease of about a thousand ballots for Biden.
In Maricopa County, Biden leads Trump 51% to 47.6%, with 944,285 votes compared to the president's 880,347. Arizona's most populous county has an estimated 224,866 ballots left to count.
In the Arizona Senate race, Democratic candidate Mark Kelly leads Republican Sen. Martha McSally 52% to 48%, with 1,565,506 votes compared to McSally's 1,462,532.
ABC News has not made a projection in either race out of Arizona.
-ABC News' Meg Cunningham
Some Republicans vocalize their support for Trump's comments
While some Republicans rebuked the president's remarks on Thursday night, others supported and even echoed his comments.
Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton tweeted "all votes that are *legally* cast should be counted."
"There is NO excuse not to allow poll watchers to observe counting," he added, also tweeting a link to the president's legal defense fund.
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley also tweeted in support of Trump.
"The American people, whatever their party, deserve total transparency in the election vote," he said. "Allow poll watchers to be present as ballots counted. Full accounting of all ballots. Ban ballot harvesting."
Trump Jr. and others rally Republican supporters in Atlanta
Donald Trump Jr. and a few Trump campaign surrogates held a press conference in Atlanta Thursday night.
Georgia State Rep. Vernon Jones kicked things off by falsely claiming illegal ballots were being counted and that Trump supporters should be ready for a fight.
"We need to know now. ... How the hell you can send a man to the moon, but you can't get results in 24 hours? Something’s wrong with that," he said.
Trump Jr. took the stage next and said, "I think the number one thing that Donald Trump can do in this election is fight each and every one of these battles to the death, so that we get full transparency in the process and everyone on the Democrat side should welcome this unless they're actually cheating. Because if they're winning these things fair and square, then everyone would love to know that because me as an American, I'd like to know that because I've lost all faith in the process."
Rep. Doug Collins and Georgia Republican National Committeewoman Ginger Howard also attended.
Throughout the event there were several rallying cries of the Republican members in the audience who loudly chanted "stop the steal" and "Georgia is red."
-ABC News' Justin Gomez and Terrance Smith