Biden defeats Trump for White House, says 'time to heal'

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump to become the 46th president of the United States on Saturday and offered himself to the nation as a leader who “seeks not to divide, but to unify" a country gripped by a historic pandemic and a confluence of economic and social turmoil.

“I sought this office to restore the soul of America,” Biden said in a prime-time victory speech not far from his Delaware home, “and to make America respected around the world again and to unite us here at home."

Biden crossed the winning threshold of 270 Electoral College votes with a win in Pennsylvania. His victory came after more than three days of uncertainty as election officials sorted through a surge of mail-in votes that delayed processing.

Trump refused to concede, threatening further legal action on ballot counting. But Biden used his acceptance speech as an olive branch to those who did not vote for him, telling Trump voters that he understood their disappointment but adding, “Let’s give each other a chance.”

“It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, to lower the temperature, to see each other again, to listen to each other again, to make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy," he said. “We are not enemies. We are Americans.”

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2020 Latest: Trump, GOP sue in Arizona over ballot handling

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the presidential campaign (all times local):

10:40 p.m,

The Trump campaign and Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit Saturday in Arizona that seeks the manual inspection of potentially thousands of in-person Election Day ballots in metro Phoenix that they allege were mishandled by poll workers and resulted in some ballot selections to be disregarded.

The legal challenge against Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs centers on instances in which people are believed to have voted for more candidates than permitted.

When tabulators detect such an “overvote,” poll workers should give voters a choice to fix the problem, but the workers instead either pressed or told voters to press a button on the machine to override the error, leaving the devices to disregard the problematic ballot selections, according to the lawsuit.

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Joe Biden: Stumbles, tragedies and, now, delayed triumph

Days before he left the White House in 2017, President Barack Obama surprised Joe Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, declaring his septuagenarian, white-haired lieutenant “the best vice president America’s ever had,” a “lion of American history.”

The tribute marked the presumed end of a long public life that put Biden in the orbit of the Oval Office for 45 years — yet, through a combination of family and personal tragedy, his own political missteps and sheer bad timing, had never allowed him to sit behind the Resolute Desk himself.

It turns out the pinnacle would not elude Biden after all. His moment just hadn't yet arrived.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., 77, was elected Saturday as the 46th president of the United States, defeating President Donald Trump in an election that played out against the backdrop of a pandemic, its economic fallout and a national reckoning on racism. He becomes the oldest president-elect and brings with him a history-making vice president-elect in Kamala Harris, the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to win the nation's second-highest office.

There are no sure paths to a post held by only 44 men in more than two centuries, but Biden’s is among the most unlikely — even for a man who had aspired to the job for more than three decades, twice running unsuccessfully as a sitting senator and passing on a third bid to try to succeed Obama four years ago.

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Harris pays tribute to Black women in 1st speech as VP-elect

Vice president-elect Kamala Harris on Saturday paid tribute to the women, particularly Black women, whose shoulders she stands on as she shatters barriers that have kept mostly white men entrenched at the highest levels of American politics for more than two centuries.

"Tonight I reflect on their struggle, their determination and the strength of their vision to see what can be unburdened by what has been," Harris said, wearing a white suit in tribute to women's suffrage. She called it a testament to President-elect Joe Biden's character that "he had the audacity to break one of the most substantial barriers that exists in our country, and select a woman and his vice president."

“While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last,” Harris said in her first post-election address to the nation.

The 56-year-old California senator, also the first person of South Asian descent elected to the vice presidency, represents the multiculturalism that defines America but is largely absent from Washington's power centers. Her Black identity has allowed her to speak in personal terms in a year of reckoning over police brutality and systemic racism. As the highest-ranking woman ever elected in American government, her victory gives hope to women who were devastated by Hillary Clinton's defeat four years ago.

Harris told little children to "dream with ambition, lead with conviction, and see yourselves in a way that others may not simply because they're never seen it before." After Biden's speech, she was joined on stage by her family, including her two grandnieces who wore white dresses.

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EXPLAINER: Why AP called the 2020 election for Joe Biden

WHY AP CALLED THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION FOR BIDEN:

As Election Day ground on into “election week,” it became increasingly clear that Democrat Joe Biden would oust President Donald Trump from the White House. Late-counted ballots in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Georgia continued to keep Biden in the lead and offered him multiple paths to victory.

The questions, rather, were these — where he would win, when it would happen and by how much.

On Saturday, Biden captured the presidency when The Associated Press declared him the victor in his native Pennsylvania at 11:25 a.m. EST. That got him the state’s 20 electoral votes, which pushed him over the 270 electoral-vote threshold needed to prevail.

It was the final piece to fall into place after the former vice president carved a path to the White House by recapturing Democrats' “blue wall,” a trio of Great Lakes states — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan — that Trump narrowly won in 2016. Those states had long served as a bulwark against Republican presidential candidates.

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Analysis: Biden claims a mandate that will quickly be tested

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden’s bet on the 2020 race was a simple one: that a nation riven by deep partisanship was ready for a reset.

He knew he wouldn’t be the most electric candidate or the most compelling speaker. He knew that he was running as an old, white man in a party that is growing younger and more diverse. He knew that to win, he would need both the energy of liberals and the support of centrists, slices of the electorate with little in common beyond a shared disdain for President Donald Trump.

Biden ultimately emerged victorious, a moment of both celebration and relief for his supporters. But the results sent mixed messages about the nation's eagerness to turn the page on one of the most polarized periods in modern American history.

Biden carried some of the key battleground states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, by narrow margins. He won more votes nationwide than any presidential candidate — more than 74 million and counting — but Trump's popular vote total also topped previous records, reflecting the president's hold not only on his core supporters but the Republican Party at large.

With victory in hand, Biden has claimed a mandate. Whether he actually has one will soon be put to the test.

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How Biden navigated pandemic politics to win the White House

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Joe Biden was fresh off winning the Michigan primary and effectively capturing the Democratic presidential nomination, a prize he'd sought for the better part of three decades. Instead of plotting a strategy to build momentum, he was contemplating an abrupt halt.

He gathered his senior team in a conference room on the 19th floor of his campaign's Philadelphia headquarters, the type of in-person meeting that would soon be deemed a public health risk. A former surgeon general and Food and Drug Administration commissioner joined on speakerphone.

As the coronavirus began to explode across the United States that March, Biden asked a question that would ultimately guide the campaign's thinking for months: “What should I be modeling?”

The health experts recommended the 77-year-old Biden step away from campaigning as soon as possible, both for his safety and that of staff and supporters. Biden agreed. He decided that he and every staff member would work from home starting that weekend. All field offices would be closed.

He wouldn't return to in-person campaigning for 174 days.

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What's next? Saturday's election verdict isn't last step

WASHINGTON (AP) — Saturday's election verdict isn’t the last step in selecting an American president. Under a system that’s been tweaked over two centuries, there is still a weekslong timeline during which the 538-member Electoral College picks the president.

A look at the key steps:

— When American citizens vote for a presidential candidate, they really are voting for electors in their state. Those electors in most cases are committed to support the voters' candidate of choice. The number of electors is equal to the number of electoral votes held by each state. State laws vary on how electors are selected but, generally, a slate of electors for each party's candidate is chosen at state party conventions or by a vote of a party’s central committee.

— After Election Day, states count and certify the results of the popular vote. When completed, each governor is required by law to prepare “as soon as practicable” documents known as “Certificates of Ascertainment” of the vote. The certificates list the electors' names and the number of votes cast for the winner and loser. The certificate, carrying the seal of each state, is sent to the archivist of the United States.

— Dec. 8 is the deadline for resolving election disputes at the state level. All state recounts and court contests over presidential election results are to be completed by this date.

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No. 4 Notre Dame sacks No. 1 Clemson 47-40 in overtime

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Kyren Williams had a 3-yard touchdown run in the second overtime and No. 4 Notre Dame shut down top-ranked Clemson with a couple of sacks to seal a 47-40 victory Saturday night, the Fighting Irish's first victory over a No. 1 in 27 years.

Clemson had won 36 straight games and had not lost to an Atlantic Coast Conference team since 2017. The Fighting Irish (7-0, 6-0), playing in the ACC only because of the pandemic, snapped both streaks and sparked fans to storm the field in a celebration that most definitely did not meet the CDC's social-distancing guidelines.

After Williams gave Norte Dame the lead on the first possession of the second OT, the Irish pushed Clemson back with back-to-back sacks on DJ Uaigalelei by Adetokumbo Ogundeji and Daelin Hayes on the Tigers first two plays.

The big freshman quarterback completed to passes after the second-and-39, but the final one was way short of the line to gain and a couple of laterals didn't help.

The Fighting Irish have won 13 straight games, snapped an 11-game losing streak against top-five teams and beat a No. 1 for the first time since taking down Florida State in 1993 at Notre Dame Stadium.

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Suu Kyi party set to win Myanmar vote with little opposition

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Voting was underway in Myanmar’s elections on Sunday, with the party of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi heavily favored to retain power it had wrestled from the powerful military five years ago.

More than 90 parties are competing for seats in the lower and upper houses of Parliament, while there are also elections at the state and regional levels.

With the opposition in disarray, Suu Kyi remains Myanmar’s most popular politician. But her government has fallen short of expectations, with economic growth doing little to alleviate widespread poverty and a failure to ease tensions among the country’s fractious ethnic groups.

There are more than 37 million people eligible to vote, including 5 million first-timers. Fear of the coronavirus and safety measures put in place to contain it may hurt voter turnout. Traditional campaigning was severely limited by social distancing and quarantines in some areas.

Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, won the last elections in 2015 in a landslide, ending more than five decades of military-directed rule in the country.