Honestly, trying to remember the vibe of November 2020 feels like a fever dream now. You’ve probably got these mental snapshots of flickering news maps and that blue-and-red see-saw that just wouldn't stop moving for days. It wasn't just another Tuesday. Because of the pandemic, everything was weirdly stretched out. We all learned way too much about how the Associated Press calls a race and why "too close to call" became the most stressful phrase in the English language.
The 2020 election results ap tally eventually landed on a definitive number: 306 electoral votes for Joe Biden and 232 for Donald Trump. But getting to those digits was a massive undertaking that involved counting over 158 million ballots. That is a lot of paper.
The Saturday Morning That Changed Everything
Most people remember exactly where they were on November 7, 2020. It was a Saturday. At roughly 11:25 a.m. ET, the Associated Press "called" Pennsylvania for Joe Biden. That was the moment. By adding Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes to his column, Biden crossed the 270 threshold needed to win.
It wasn't a guess. The AP uses a pretty intense group of experts called the Decision Desk. They don't use exit polls alone because those can be flaky. Instead, they look at actual counted votes, historical trends, and "the wall"—the point where it's mathematically impossible for the trailing candidate to catch up. In 2020, that wall was taller than usual because of the mountain of mail-in ballots.
Why the popular vote was a different story
While the Electoral College was 306 to 232, the popular vote wasn't even close. Biden pulled in 81,283,501 votes, while Trump got 74,223,975.
That’s a gap of over 7 million people.
Biden basically set a record for the most votes ever received by a presidential candidate in U.S. history. Part of that was just the sheer turnout—66.6% of eligible voters showed up, which is the highest we've seen since 1900. People were motivated.
The Swing State Breakdown (The Real Battle)
The election didn't happen all at once. It happened in pockets. If you look at the 2020 election results ap data, the "Blue Wall"—Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—is what did the heavy lifting for the Democrats.
- Michigan: Biden flipped this back with a margin of about 154,000 votes.
- Wisconsin: This was a nail-biter, decided by just under 21,000 votes.
- Pennsylvania: The "keystone" state lived up to its name, going blue by about 80,000 votes.
Then you had the surprises. Georgia and Arizona.
Arizona was called by the AP quite early, which caused a huge stir at the time. Biden won it by a tiny sliver—about 10,457 votes. Georgia was even tighter, with a margin of 11,779. These weren't just "wins"; they were tectonic shifts in states that hadn't gone for a Democrat in decades.
The "Red" Highlights
It wasn't a total blue sweep, though. Trump held onto Florida and Ohio, two states many pollsters thought might flip. In Florida, he actually improved his 2016 performance, winning by over 370,000 votes. He also dominated in the "rural core" of the country, winning states like West Virginia and Wyoming by massive percentages—70% of the vote in some cases.
The Mechanics of the Count
A lot of folks got confused by the "Red Mirage" and the "Blue Shift." Basically, many Republican-leaning voters voted in person on Election Day, so those results were reported first. Since mail-in ballots (which leaned heavily Democratic) took longer to process and count—especially in states like Pennsylvania where law-makers didn't allow processing until the morning of the election—the map looked "redder" early on and shifted "blue" as the week went by.
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The AP waited until they were sure about the remaining uncounted votes before making a call. They actually didn't call some states for weeks. For example, the formal certification in many places didn't wrap up until late November or early December after various audits and recounts.
What AP VoteCast revealed
The AP uses a system called VoteCast, which is a massive survey of over 110,000 voters. It showed that Biden won because of:
- College Graduates: He won this group by a wide margin.
- Suburbanites: There was a significant "move" away from Trump in the suburbs.
- Young Voters: About 6 in 10 voters under 30 went for Biden.
- The Pandemic: About 4 in 10 voters said COVID-19 was their top issue, and 75% of those people voted for Biden.
The Congressional Ripple Effect
While the presidency gets the headlines, the 2020 election results ap for Congress were just as messy. Democrats kept the House, but their majority actually shrank. They ended up with 222 seats to the Republicans' 212.
The Senate was even weirder. It ended in a 50-50 tie. It stayed that way until the Georgia runoff elections in January 2021, when Democrats won both seats, giving Vice President Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote. It was the definition of "by the skin of your teeth."
Actionable Insights: Navigating Future Election Data
Looking back at 2020 helps us understand how to read the news during any election cycle. Here is how you can be a more informed observer next time:
- Check the "Percent In" Metric: When looking at results, don't just look at the leader. Look at how many votes are left to count and where they are coming from. If 10% of the vote is missing from a huge city, the current leader might not stay the leader.
- Distinguish Between "Called" and "Certified": News outlets "call" races based on math. Election officials "certify" them weeks later based on law. Both are important, but they happen on different timelines.
- Follow the Decision Desk Methodology: Trust outlets like the Associated Press that explain why they are calling a race. If they say "the trailing candidate has no path," they usually have the data to back it up.
- Look for Down-Ballot Trends: Often, the "mood" of the country is better reflected in local House races than in the top-of-the-ticket presidential race.
The 2020 election was a marathon, not a sprint. It changed how we think about voting, how we wait for results, and how we define "swing states." Whether you're researching for history or preparing for the next cycle, the numbers from the AP remain the gold standard for what actually happened during those long days in November.