Democratic party candidate Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump and is projected to become the 46th president of the United States on Saturday, reports say.
Kamala Harris will be Biden’s vice president. She is the first woman as well as the first person of colour in the post.
77-year-old Biden’s victory came after more than three days of uncertainty as election officials sorted through a surge of mail-in votes that delayed the processing of some ballots.
Biden crossed 270 Electoral College votes with a win in Pennsylvania.
Biden staked his candidacy less on any distinctive political ideology than on galvanizing a broad coalition of voters around the notion that Trump posed an existential threat to American democracy.
Biden was Barack Obama’s vice president from 2008 to 2016, and has sought the Democratic nomination twice before – in 1988 and 2008.
He is a six-time senator from Delaware.
Biden has projected himself as a calm and empathetic potential commander-in-chief, in stark contrast against the inexperienced Trump who let the coronavirus pandemic spiral out of control in the country.
His campaign has stressed on his experience of over 50 years in public life in the midst of a volatile situation in North America.
Biden supports same-sex marriage, protecting women from violence, wants to expand on the Affordable Care Act, and focus on climate change, among other things.