How Joe Biden won the U.S. presidential election

Published On: November 8, 2020 07:05 AM NPT By: Reuters

NOV 8: Democrat Joe Biden captured the U.S. presidency on Saturday after days of vote-counting in a closely divided country.

Biden won by expanding his party’s appeal among suburban voters, in middle- and upper-income communities and in places where a large share of people graduated from college. From the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt, he benefited from a surge in turnout in suburbs and other areas that skew well-to-do. The shifts were small but consequential in a nation appearing as politically divided as ever.

President Donald Trump, a Republican, deepened his support in lower-income communities and in places where people are overwhelmingly white and lack a college degree. He also made inroads with Black voters and with Latinos in Texas and Florida, whose votes helped him win both states. And he intensified his support in many of the counties where the coronavirus pandemic has been especially deadly.

The changes in suburbs and other well-to-do areas build on trends that have been realigning U.S. politics for years as upper-income, college-educated voters increasingly skew Democratic.

In 2020, the shift was just enough in a high-turnout election for Biden to flip a handful of battleground states - including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin - that had narrowly voted for Trump in 2016. Biden also won them by thin margins.