Former Vice President Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. Due to COVID-19 and the influx of mail voting across the country, it took more time to process the final results and project winners in Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. While President Trump has alleged unsubstantiated charges of voter fraud and pursued legal challenges to the election results, courts have found no evidence and have dismissed these cases.

The 2020 election took place following a year of political, public health, economic, and social crises. On December 18, 2019, the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald J. Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in relation to his dealings with Ukraine. On February 5, 2020, the Senate voted to acquit him on both charges.

The central campaign issue was the coronavirus pandemic, which hit the United States in early March. On March 13, President Trump declared a national emergency, but left decisions about shutdowns of business operations and stay-at-home directives up to the states. By March 26, the United States had the most confirmed cases in the world, and as of September 1, the United States led the world with over 6 million cases and more than 180,000 COVID-19 deaths. A major economic crash soon followed, and by April nearly 10 million Americans were unemployed, with cases and death rates increasing daily. The Biden campaign pointed to the escalation of COVID-19, the lack of a coordinated testing system as evidence, and the frequent presidential disregard for public health recommendations as evidence that Trump failed Americans. Republicans have argued that actions like the bipartisan stimulus plan that President Trump signed into law showed evidence of presidential leadership. Both sides took different public health approaches on the campaign trail as well. The Biden team featured drive-in rallies and promoted mask wearing to adhere to Center for Disease Control guidelines. Despite having contracted COVID-19 after the first presidential debate, President Trump organized rallies across battleground states featuring packed crowds without masks.

The other major issue of the campaign was the growing movement for racial justice. A series of police shootings against unarmed people of color, notably Breonna Taylor in March and George Floyd in May, inspired millions of Americans to join demonstrations for Black Lives Matter across the country to demand an end to police brutality and racial inequality in healthcare, education, housing, and historical commemorations. The Democratic Party made racial justice and criminal justice reform a central issue, lending support to peaceful protesters across the country. In contrast, Donald Trump vilified protesters as a threat to law and order and warned voters about the dangers of a potential “left-wing Democratic takeover” under a Biden administration.