Many news outlets, including the Associated Press and Fox News, announced that Democratic candidate Joe Biden will become the next president of the United States.
The outlets called Pennsylvania for Biden on Saturday, and the state’s 20 Electoral College votes put the former vice president over the 270-vote threshold necessary to become president.
President Trump has not conceded the race and is still pursuing legal challenges that give him a slim chance to win his bid for four more years.
“Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for mandatory recounts, or states where our campaign has valid and legitimate legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor,” Trump said in a written statement shortly after the network calls. “In Pennsylvania, for example, our legal observers were not permitted meaningful access to watch the counting process. Legal votes decide who is president, not the news media.”
In addition to Pennsylvania, the states with slim margins that could change the outcome through legal challenges and recounts are Arizona (which the Trump campaign is hoping might win outright as ballots continue to be counted), Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
The president would have to be successful with legal challenges or recounts in multiple states called by the news organizations in order to change the outcome of the race.
Biden, now the apparent winner, also released a statement.
“In the face of unprecedented obstacles, a record number of Americans voted. Proving once again, that democracy beats deep in the heart of America,” he said. “With the campaign over, it’s time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation. It’s time for America to unite. And to heal.”
Fox News sent shock waves on election night when it declared that Biden had won in Arizona, flipping the state blue for the first time since 1996. While the campaign publicly rebuked the network and demanded a retraction, Trump telephoned Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News.
The network stood by the decision repeatedly, and as recently as Thursday evening, it put Arnon Mishkin, the director of Fox’s decision desk, on-air to explain why it called the state for Biden.
“We made it after basically a half-hour of debating ‘Is it time yet?’ because it’s been clear for a while that the former vice president is in the lead in Arizona and was most likely to win the state,” he stated. “It has been in the category that we call ‘knowable, but not callable’ for about an hour. We finally called it right now. Yes, there are some outstanding votes in Arizona. Most of them are coming from Maricopa [County], where Biden is currently in a very strong position.”
The AP called the race hours later, and as of Saturday morning, no other network has called Arizona for either candidate, even if their calls for Pennsylvania put Biden over the 270-vote threshold.
