Nov. 13 (UPI) — President-elect Joe Biden was projected to win Arizona and Georgia — the first Democrat to do so in decades — while North Carolina was called in President Donald Trump’s favor Friday.
With nearly all votes counted, Biden won 49.4% of the more than 3.4 million votes Arizonans cast in the general election to Trump’s 49.08%, according to Arizona’s Secretary of State’s office.
ABC News, NBC News and CNN late Thursday projected the former vice president to win the state’s 11 electoral votes.
The outlets on Friday also called Georgia’s 16 electoral votes for Biden. The Secretary of State’s office said Biden had 49.52% of the votes to Trump’s 49.24%, with almost all of the votes counted.
It was the first time a Democratic presidential candidate has won Arizona and Georgia, since 1996 and 1992, respectively.
The calls increased Biden’s electoral vote total to 306, further securing his win of the presidency.
Trump, meanwhile, picked up North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes Friday, giving him 232 total votes with all states called.
With almost all the votes counted, Trump led with 49.93% of the vote and Biden had 48.59%, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
Trump has yet to concede defeat and has filed several lawsuits in states and counties requesting recounts and to prevent results from being certified, citing widely discredited claims of voter fraud and tabulation errors.
On Thursday, elections experts said the 2020 election was the “most secure” in U.S. history as they found “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised.”
Trump’s campaign has complained, without evidence, that Maricopa County, Ariz., incorrectly rejected ballots cast by in-person voters. On Friday, the campaign dropped its involvement in the lawsuit after Biden secured an unsurpassable number of votes.
The win by Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in Arizona is the first for a Democratic ticket in the state since former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore took the state in 1996.
“We did it, Arizona!” Democratic Party Chairwoman Felecia Rotellini tweeted late Thursday as news organizations confirmed their projections.
