EXPLAINER: Why AP called the 2020 election, Pennsylvania, Nevada for Biden

Add Us On GoogleAdd as a preferred source on Google

(AP) - WHY AP CALLED THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION FOR BIDEN:

As Election Day ground on into “election week,” it became increasingly clear that Democrat Joe Biden would oust President Donald Trump from the White House. Late-counted ballots in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Georgia continued to keep Biden in the lead and offered him multiple paths to victory.

The questions, rather, were these — where he would win, when it would happen and by how much.

On Saturday, Biden captured the presidency when The Associated Press declared him the victor in his native Pennsylvania at 11:25 a.m. EST. That got him the state’s 20 electoral votes, which pushed him over the 270 electoral-vote threshold needed to prevail.

It was the final piece to fall into place after the former vice president carved a path to the White House by recapturing Democrats' “blue wall,” a trio of Great Lakes states — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan — that Trump narrowly won in 2016. Those states had long served as a bulwark against Republican presidential candidates.

But he also made historic gains in the Sun Belt, becoming the first Democrat to win Arizona since 1996. He also held a narrow lead of more than 7,000 votes on Saturday in Georgia, where a Democrat hasn’t won since 1992.

Democrats entered Election Day confident that Biden would win. But their hopes for a landslide that would quickly repudiate Trumpism — something that polls helped amplify — did not materialize.

Florida, the president’s adopted state and one of the largest electoral prizes, went for Trump on Tuesday.

And a promising early Biden lead in North Carolina eroded. Trump continues to hold a narrow lead there, though the race is still too early to call and mail in ballots postmarked by the Nov. 3 election day can still be counted until Thursday.

On Election Night, both candidates stacked up wins in predictable places. Biden won the West Coast, and carried Democratic states in New England and the mid Atlantic. Trump won much of the South, Texas and rural, sparsely populated states in the the Mountain West and Midwest.

And the slow-going nature of the vote count? Blame the coronavirus pandemic. The election, in many ways a referendum on Trump’s poor management of the virus, led to widespread use of mail voting for the first time in many states.

Though five states conduct elections by mail, most did not. Concern that voters could catch the virus by waiting in line at crowded polling sites led election officials across the U.S. to scramble to quickly adopt the voting practice.

But mail ballots also take a long time to verify, process and count, delaying the tally.

Trump, who refused Saturday to concede the race, prematurely declared victory during a news conference at the White House early Wednesday morning, arguing that he was ahead and “it’s not like, ‘Oh, it’s close.’”

But as mail ballots continued to be counted they overwhelmingly favored Biden and his lead continued to grow.

One big reason for that? For months, Trump has discouraged his supporters from voting that way, falsely claiming that voting by mail would lead to widespread voter fraud.

It was a message he kept amplifying Saturday.

WHY AP CALLED PENNSYLVANIA FOR BIDEN:

Four years ago, President Donald Trump breached the Democrats' “blue wall,” narrowly winning Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — a trio of Great Lakes states that had long served as a bulwark against Republican presidential candidates.

On Saturday, Democrat Joe Biden captured it back — and also won the presidency — after The Associated Press declared the former vice president the winner of his native Pennsylvania at 11:25 a.m. EST.

The AP called the race for Biden, who held a 34,243-vote lead, after it determined that the remaining ballots left to be counted would not allow Trump to catch up. The news agency has already declared Biden the winner in both Michigan and Wisconsin.

Biden held a .51 percentage point lead late Saturday morning. Under Pennsylvania law, a recount is automatic when the margin between two candidates in a statewide race is less than 0.5 percentage points. Biden’s lead over Trump was on track to stay outside of that margin as final votes are counted.

There are roughly 62,000 mail ballots remaining to be counted. Biden has won the overwhelming majority of mail ballots cast in the state.

Biden’s win in Pennsylvania was a dramatic, though not unexpected, turn after Trump jumped out to an early Election Day lead of 675,000 votes and prematurely declared he had won the state.

Over coming days, as local elections officials tabulated more ballots, Trump’s lead dropped sharply, with Biden winning roughly 75 percent of the mail-in vote between Wednesday and Friday, according to an analysis by the AP.

Another reason the late-breaking mail vote broke Biden’s way: Under state law, elections officials are not allowed to process mail-in ballots until Election Day.

Biden, who was born in Scranton, claims favorite-son status in the state and has long played up the idea that he was Pennsylvania’s “third senator” during his decades representing neighboring Delaware. He’s also campaigned extensively in the state from his home in Delaware.

WHY AP CALLED NEVADA FOR BIDEN:

The Associated Press declared Democrat Joe Biden the winner of Nevada’s presidential contest Saturday, after a new batch of ballots released by state election officials gave the former vice president a more than 2 percentage point lead over President Donald Trump. Counting votes in Nevada has been a slow going process. Though 88 percent of the expected vote has been tabulated, mail ballots postmarked by the Nov. 3 election day can be counted until Tuesday. And there were tens of thousands of provisional ballots left to be counted. The AP called the race for Biden after a ballots released Saturday, nearly all of which were from Clark County, a Democratic area where most of the state’s voters live, confirmed that Trump could not catch his lead.