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The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and the junior U.S. senator from California Kamala Harris defeated the incumbent Republican president Donald Trump and incumbent vice president Mike Pence. The election took place against the backdrop of the global COVID-19 pandemic and related recession. It was the first election since 1992 in which the incumbent president failed to win a second term. The election saw the highest voter turnout by percentage since 1952, with each of the two main tickets receiving more than 74 million votes, surpassing Barack Obama's record of 69.5 million votes from 2008. Biden received more than 81 million votes, the most votes ever cast for a candidate in a U.S. presidential election.

In a competitive primary that featured the most candidates for any political party in the modern era of American politics, Biden secured the Democratic presidential nomination over his closest rival, Senator Bernie Sanders. Biden's running mate, Harris, became the first African-American, first Asian-American, and third female vice presidential nominee on a major party ticket. Trump secured re-nomination, getting a total of 2,549 delegates, one of the most in presidential primary history, to runner-up Bill Weld’s one delegate in the Republican primaries. Jo Jorgensen secured the Libertarian presidential nomination with Spike Cohen as her running mate, and Howie Hawkins secured the Green presidential nomination with Angela Nicole Walker as his running mate.

The central issues of the election included the public health and economic impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; civil unrest in reaction to the police murder of George Floyd and others; the Supreme Court following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett; and the future of the Affordable Care Act. Due to the ongoing pandemic, a record number of ballots were cast early and by mail. Many more registered Democrats voted by mail than registered Republicans. As a result of a large number of mail-in ballots, some swing states saw delays in vote counting and reporting; this led to major news outlets delaying their projection of Biden and Harris as the president-elect and vice president-elect until the morning of November 7, three and a half days after the election. Major media networks project a state for a candidate once there is high statistical confidence that the outstanding vote would be unlikely to prevent the projected winner from ultimately winning that state.

Biden ultimately received the majority in the Electoral College with 306 electoral votes, while Trump received 232. Key to Biden's victory were his wins in the Democratic-leaning Great Lakes states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which Trump carried in 2016 and whose combined 46 electoral votes were enough to swing the election to either candidate. Biden also became the first Democrat to win the presidential election in Georgia since 1992, in Arizona since 1996, and in Nebraska's 2nd congressional district since 2008.

Before, during, and after Election Day, Trump and numerous other Republicans attempted to subvert the election and overturn the results, falsely alleging widespread voter fraud and trying to influence the vote-counting process in swing states. Attorney General William Barr and officials in each of the 50 states found no evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities in the election. Federal agencies overseeing election security said it was the most secure in American history. The Trump campaign and its allies, including Republican members of Congress, continued to engage in numerous attempts to overturn the results of the election by filing 63 lawsuits in several states (all of which were withdrawn or dismissed),  spreading conspiracy theories alleging fraud, pressuring Republican state election officials (including, notably, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in a phone call that later became widely publicized) and legislators to change results, pressuring the Department of Justice to declare the election "corrupt" and intervene,  objecting to the Electoral College certification in Congress,  and refusing to cooperate with the presidential transition of Joe Biden. This culminated in a mob of Trump supporters attacking the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, after Trump repeatedly said that he would never concede the election. On January 7, Trump acknowledged the incoming administration without mentioning Biden's name. Biden and Harris were inaugurated on January 20, 2021.

Procedure
Article Two of the United States Constitution states that for a person to serve as president, the individual must be a natural-born citizen of the United States, be at least 35 years old, and have been a United States resident for at least 14 years. Candidates for the presidency typically seek the nomination of one of the various political parties in the United States. Each party develops a method (such as a primary election) to choose the candidate the party deems best suited to run for the position. Primary elections are usually indirect elections where voters cast ballots for a slate of party delegates pledged to a particular candidate. The party's delegates then officially nominate a candidate to run on the party's behalf. The presidential nominee typically chooses a vice presidential running mate to form that party's ticket, which is then ratified by the delegates at the party's convention (except for the Libertarian Party, which nominates its vice-presidential candidate by delegate vote regardless of the presidential nominee's preference). The general election in November is also an indirect election, in which voters cast ballots for a slate of members of the Electoral College; these electors then directly elect the president and vice president. If no candidate receives the minimum 270 electoral votes needed to win the election, the United States House of Representatives will select the president from among the three candidates who received the most electoral votes, and the United States Senate will select the vice president from among the candidates who received the two highest totals. The presidential election occurred simultaneously alongside elections for the House of Representatives, the Senate, and various state and local-level elections. 