Joe Biden wins US presidential election

Joe Biden is to become the next President of the United States of America after beating Donald Trump in the final key battlegrounds of the election, marking the end of a tense but protracted race for the White House.

The Democrat and former Vice President to Barack Obama has now amassed 279 electoral college votes in the 2020 election - taking him over the 270 threshold for victory and putting him officially on the path to the presidency. That compares to Trump’s total of 214 electoral votes thus far.

Victory for Biden comes after clinching Pennsylvania and Nevada, where vote counts have been ongoing after election night failed to deliver a clear winner.

Joe Biden is to become the next President of the United States of America after beating Donald Trump in the final key battlegrounds of the election, marking the end of a tense but protracted race for the White House.

The Democrat and former Vice President to Barack Obama has now amassed 279 electoral college votes in the 2020 election - taking him over the 270 threshold for victory and putting him officially on the path to the presidency. That compares to Trump’s total of 214 electoral votes thus far.

Victory for Biden comes after clinching Pennsylvania and Nevada, where vote counts have been ongoing after election night failed to deliver a clear winner.

Protests have broken out in battleground states after Mr Trump claimed without evidence that the election was being “stolen” from him in an extraordinary speech which has been criticised by both Democrats and Republicans.

The long and often bitter campaign has been dominated by the coronavirus crisis and its effects on Americans and the economy. On Wednesday, the US set a record for daily confirmed Covid-19 cases in a pandemic that has killed more than 233,000 people in the country.