In the end, with the vast majority of ballots counted, the world watched as the 2020 U.S. presidential election came down to who would win tight races in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona – all of which were called for Biden (awaiting the outcome of recounts/legal proceedings).

As this infographic shows, swing states where pre-election polling suggested could end up flipping to the Democrats such as Florida and Ohio remained firmly Republican territory, while a possible upset in Texas never ended up materializing for the Biden/Harris ticket.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) provides data on individual donations to presidential campaigns. This analysis looks at the source of the donations by geography and the balance of donations between Democrat and Republican candidates in 2016 and 2020.

There are 100 members of the upper chamber. Republicans held a 53-47 Senate majority. Democrats needed to gain at least three seats to win control, or four if Donald Trump is re-elected and Mike Pence as vice-president can break a tie. Senators serve six-year terms; every two years a third of the seats are up for re-election. This year 35 Senate seats are being contested.

SENATE RESULTS

Democrats won control of the US Senate after a net gain of three seats in the 2020 election, including a pair of runoff wins in Georgia on January 5. With Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential race, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will act as the tie-breaker in a Senate made up of 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans. There were 35 Senate seats up for election in 2020.

HOUSE RESULTS

Democrats retain control of House

House Democrats reelected Nancy Pelosi to another term as speaker of the House, after Democrats held onto their majority in the November elections.

Key details from the exit poll

Exit poll data from across the United States gives a glimpse into voters’ priorities and an indication of how different demographic groups cast their ballots.
The figures suggest the proportion of total voters who are white has fallen by six percentage points on 2016, while remaining the largest group by ethnicity.
The proportion of white voters backing Mr Biden has risen by five points on Hillary Clinton’s figure at the last election, but Mr Trump still takes the largest share of this group, the preliminary polling suggests.
Meanwhile, Mr Biden appears to have gained support among under 30s and the middle-aged.

What voters thought about the key issues

Nationally, more than a third of voters said the economy was the most important issue in deciding who to choose as president, with a further 20% naming racial inequality and 17% saying the coronavirus pandemic.

However the issues were split along partisan lines with more than four times as many Trump voters saying the economy was the deciding factor, and Biden voters answering racial inequality and the virus.

Voters were evenly split on how the US economy was faring, with 48% saying it was in “excellent or good” condition and 50% saying it was “not so good or poor”.

Similarly, 50% said that the US was doing “somewhat or very badly” at containing the pandemic and 48% thought the country was doing “somewhat or very well”.

The possibility of voter fraud has been raised repeatedly by the Trump campaign but a large majority of voters (87%) told the researchers they were confident that votes in their state would be counted accurately.