The 2020 U.S. presidential election is still under way and may be for a little while yet. Here’s what you need to know about how to find the live results, and who won out of Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
How will I know who’s won?
Firstly, and we can’t believe we have to say this, but don’t just take the word of a presidential candidate.
As of the time of writing, there’s no candidate who has won the U.S. presidential election — yet. And no news network has called it for any president either.
As a quick reminder: media organisations cover the election by projecting winners in states based on calculations based on incomplete polling data. Once they project enough states to add up to 270 electoral votes, they will then ‘call’ the election for them.
The actual election count by each state’s electoral officials will likely take weeks to finalise, especially considering potential legal challenges. But we will already know who has won before then.
With key battlegrounds states being called or close to it, it’s expected most major news outlets will call the election for a candidate in the next day or so.
Where can I see the U.S. election live results?
Numerous news publications are running their own election trackers, which tabulate the results from each state.
In Australia, the ABC’s Antony Green is running his own count. And he’s not gun-shy about calling states earlier, either.
Other reputable places include Association Press, CNN and Fox News (who have a very well respected elections team, despite the partisan nature of the rest of the network).
Very handily, the New York Times has gone a bit meta and assembled its own tracker of other publications’ state tracker. This allows you to see each publication’s electoral vote projection, and results in key battleground states.