2020 United States elections

The 2020 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Democratic Party's nominee, former vice president Joe Biden, defeated incumbent Republican president Donald Trump in the presidential election. Despite losing seats in the House of Representatives, Democrats retained control of the House and gained control of the Senate. As a result, the Democrats obtained a government trifecta, the first time since the elections in 2008 that the party gained unified control of Congress and the presidency. With Trump losing his bid for re-election, he became the first defeated incumbent president to have overseen his party lose the presidency and control of both the House and the Senate since Herbert Hoover in 1932. This was the first time since 1980 that either chamber of Congress flipped partisan control in a presidential year, and the first time Democrats did so since 1948.

2020 United States elections
2018          2019          2020          2021          2022
Presidential election year
Election dayNovember 3
Incumbent presidentDonald Trump (Republican)
Next Congress117th
Presidential election
Partisan controlDemocratic gain
Popular vote marginDemocratic +4.5%
Electoral vote
Joe Biden (D)306
Donald Trump (R)232
Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Biden/Harris, and red denotes states won by Trump/Pence. Numbers indicate electoral votes allotted to the winner of each state or district.
Senate elections
Overall controlDemocratic gain
Seats contested35 of 100 seats
(33 seats of Class II + 2 special elections)
Net seat changeDemocratic +3
Map of the 2020 Senate races
(Georgia held two Senate elections)
     Democratic hold      Republican hold
     Democratic gain      Republican gain
     No election
House elections
Overall controlDemocratic hold
Seats contestedAll 435 voting-members
All six non-voting delegates
Popular vote marginDemocratic +3.1%
Net seat changeRepublican +13
Map of the 2020 House of Representatives elections
     Democratic hold      Republican hold
     Democratic gain      Republican gain
Gubernatorial elections
Seats contested13 (11 states, two territories)
Net seat changeRepublican +1
Map of the 2020 gubernatorial races
     Democratic hold      Republican hold
     Republican gain
     New Progressive hold      Nonpartisan
     No election

Biden became his party's nominee after defeating numerous challengers in the Democratic primaries, while Trump faced token opposition in the Republican primaries. In the congressional elections, Democrats lost seats in the House of Representatives but retained their majority in the chamber by a narrow margin. Democrats made a net gain of three seats in the Senate for a total of 50 seats, taking control of the chamber as newly elected vice-president Kamala Harris could cast tie-breaking votes. Contests for the six non-voting congressional delegates from the District of Columbia and the permanently inhabited U.S. territories were also held during the 2020 elections.

Regularly-scheduled elections were held in 86 of the 99 state legislative chambers, and 11 states held their gubernatorial elections. Only one state governorship and two legislative chambers changed partisan control, as Republicans won the gubernatorial race in Montana and gained control of both legislative chambers in New Hampshire. Various other state executive and judicial elections, as well as numerous referendums, tribal elections, mayoral elections, and other local elections, also took place in 2020. The 2020 elections were the last major set of elections to impact the redistricting cycle that will take place following the 2020 census. Significant issues for voters included the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, as well as health care, the economy, racial unrest and climate change. Social distancing guidelines resulted in unprecedented levels of postal voting and early voting. Voter turnout greatly exceeded recent elections; one projection has turnout by voting eligible population being higher than any election since 1900.

After Biden won the election, Trump and other Republicans refused to concede, making baseless and disproven claims of widespread voter fraud, despite U.S. election security officials saying that the election was "the most secure in American history". These attempts to overturn the election resulted in a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol, which led to Trump being impeached for the second time and deplatformed across several major social media platforms.

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