Biden addresses Americans after victory – as it happened

OK, I’m going to wrap things up here, but I’ve just kicked off a new live blog for today over here, so please come and join me:

Here’s where we are at the moment…

• Joe Biden is president-elect of the United States of America after defeating Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
• “I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide but unify,” he said, delivering an acceptance speech from Wilmington, Delaware. “I’m proud of the coalition we put together the broadest and most diverse coalition in history,” he noted. “Democrats, Republicans, independents, progressives, moderates, conservatives, young, old, urban, suburban, rural, gay, straight, transgender, white, Latino, Asian, Native Americans. I mean it.”
• Kamala Harris is the first Black woman and South Asian American woman to be elected vice president. Wearing suffragette white, Harris walked onto the stage to deliver her acceptance speech to a song by Mary J Blige. She spoke about her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris. “When she came here from India, at the age of 19, she maybe didn’t quite imagine this moment. But she believed so deeply in an America where a moment like this is possible,” she said.
• In cities and towns across the US, people took to the streets to celebrate the historic win
• Donald Trump has not formally conceded. The president has insisted, incorrectly, that he is the winner. His lawyers have continued to lob ineffectual lawsuits to challenge the vote count and attempted to sow doubt in the legitimacy of the US election system.
• World leaders have begun congratulating Biden. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, UK prime minister Boris Johnson and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi have all offered congratulations.

It will be interesting to see if anything develops today from this little titbit that CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins dropped overnight.

There’s been a lot of congratulations from world leaders sent to president-elect Joe Biden, not all quite as barbed as those from Iran.

Reuters report Iranian state media quoting president Hassan Rouhani saying that the next US administration should use the opportunity to compensate for president Donald Trump’s mistakes.

“Trump’s damaging policy has been opposed...by the American people. The next US administration should use the opportunity to make up for past mistakes...Iran favours constructive interaction with the world,” Rouhani said.

Here’s a reminder of the moment that Joe Biden found out he had won and was declared president-elect. NBC report that the 77-year-old and his wife were out in the garden when a chorus of applause erupted in their house.

Biden’s grandchildren, watching as his victory was announced on television, rushed to share the news, and his granddaughter Naomi tweeted this picture of the celebration.

Make the White House have dogs again:

The absence of pets in the Trump White House was highlighted recently when Bruce Springsteen released a recording of the poem “The Gray House” by Elayne Griffin Baker, which laments “no loyal man’s best friend, no Socks the family cat”. Here’s the top of the poem:

There’s no art in this White House.

There’s no literature, no poetry, no music.

There are no pets in this White House, no loyal man’s best friend, no Socks the family cat, no kids’ science fairs.

No time when the president takes off his blue suit red tie uniform and becomes human, except when he puts on his white shirt and khaki pants uniform and hides from the American people to play golf.

There are no images of the First Family enjoying themselves together in a moment of relaxation.

No Obamas on the beach in Hawaii moments, or Bushes fishing in Kennebunkport.

No Reagans on horseback, no Kennedys playing touch football on the Cape.

Where’d that country go?

Read the whole thing here.

The news is out...

Trump loses but results show Republican party has Trumpism in its bones, writes Washington bureau chief David Smith:

Donald Trump came to use the line often at his campaign rallies. “Can you imagine if you lose to a guy like this?” he would say of Joe Biden. “It’s unbelievable.”

It’s not so unbelievable now. Despite record turnout, and a tighter than expected race, the US president’s blind faith in the power of positive thinking appears to have collided with the reality of a coronavirus pandemic, a chaotic campaign and the uprising of a democratic and Democratic resistance. He is the first incumbent to lose a bid for re-election since George H W Bush in 1992.

More successful incumbents have made elections about their challengers rather than themselves. But Trump could neither escape the pandemic and its economic fallout nor find a way to define Biden. With more than 225,000 Americans dead after contracting the virus, his closing rallies were held largely in midwestern states enduring record infections, hospitalisations and deaths.

The election was always going to be a referendum on Trump in general and his handling of the virus in particular.

As Trump shot himself in the foot almost daily with crass behaviour and denials of scientific reality, Biden was able to sit back and watch the implosion. His own campaign schedule was lighter, observed public health guidelines and was always sure to keep a laser focus on the pandemic.

In February, with the economy humming, Trump had some reasons to be confident of re-election. Having filed the paperwork to run on inauguration day, his re-election campaign had built a formidable war chest and data operation. He survived an impeachment trial that led some critics to accuse Democrats of overreach. The president stood in the White House and brandished a newspaper front page that declared “Trump acquitted” – but tectonic plates were shifting beneath his feet.

Read further:

It’s not even midnight on the west coast – still dancing to be done (although this specific party might be over?):

If you’re just waking up in Europe, you will have probably heard the news of Biden’s victory last night. But you might not have caught the victory speeches that Biden and running mate Kamala Harris delivered in Wilmington, Delaware.

“The people of this nation have spoken. They’ve delivered us a convincing victory. A clear victory,” Biden told the crowd of supporters in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.

The Guardian’s Daniel Strauss was there. From his report:

“I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide but to unify,” Biden said.

The incoming 46th president acknowledged the current era of hyper-partisan politics and tense race relations across the country. “Let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end – here and now,” he said.

“It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric. To lower the temperature. To see each other again. To listen to each other again,” Biden added.

“To make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy. We are not enemies. We are Americans. The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season — a time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow. And a time to heal. This is the time to heal in America,” Biden said.

And he acknowledged the historic nature of his campaign, and the supporters that buoyed it even when it struggled to stay afloat.

Read further:

In a call for sympathy across lines of division, Dave Chappelle used his monologue as host of Saturday Night Live last night to speak to victory, defeat and the human condition.

This is how the Trump campaign ends, not with a bang, but with a hastily thrown together press conference in the parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping in northeast Philadelphia, across the street from a crematorium and just down the block from Fantasy Island adult book store.

How that unassuming setting came to serve as the backdrop for Rudy Giuliani’s latest – and perhaps last – attempt to undermine the election with specious allegations of voter fraud was one of the great mysteries of the presidential campaign (right up there with who stole Tucker Carlson’s mail and when Giuliani is going to let journalists from a non-Murdoch publication examine Hunter Biden’s supposed hard drive).

Many assumed that the Trump campaign had simply made a mistake and booked the landscaping business instead of the luxury hotel – a theory whose plausibility was supported by the fact that Trump initially tweeted, “Lawyers News Conference Four Seasons, Philadelphia. 11:00 am,” before deleting the message and clarifying that he meant the landscaping business (established 1992). It is not entirely out of character for those connected to Trump to make a mistake and just go with it, after all (remember covfefe?).

But according to the New York Times, the campaign always intended to hold the press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping (a minority- and woman-owned business safety certified with the state of Pennsylvania). Previous Trump campaign press conferences held in downtown Philadelphia had been drowned out by crowds of rowdy Biden supporters chanting and playing music, according to the report, and they wanted a friendlier environment.

And so it was that Giuliani was standing in front of a dozen or so Trump lawn signs taped to the garage door of a commercial landscaping company whose biggest clients include the Philadelphia International Airport and the Northeast Philadelphia Airport when he learned that the AP and all the networks had called the race for Joe Biden.

“I called to ask about needing a big load of fresh manure,” wrote one Yelp reviewer on Saturday. “They said they had a new load coming in later this morning.”

Among those to congratulate Joe Biden – was the CEO of Amtrak.

The president-elect loves the train service - he rode it every day for 36 years from his home in Delaware to Washington DC. He’s gotten to know many of the workers on that route by name. “Every cafe car attendant up and down that corridor knows him,” Gregg Weaver, a retired Amtrak conductor, told the New York Times recently.

The Wilmington Amtrak station is named after Biden.

“Amtrak looks forward to working with President-elect Biden and Congress,” said Amtrak CEO Bill Flynn.

“To get the economy moving and help Amtrak and our employees through this unprecedented situation, Congress must act now on pandemic relief and economic stimulus funding which enables Amtrak to recall furloughed employees,” Flynn said.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Amtrak has furloughed over 2,000 workers.

Flynn also mentioned climate change. “Expanded Amtrak service is essential to decarbonizing our transportation network ... With cars and trucks responsible for nearly 82% of [transportation] emissions, we need passenger rail alternatives throughout the nation.”

After major news outlets on Saturday announced that Joe Biden had secured the US presidency, a small group of people in Berkeley, California, gathered to celebrate in front of the childhood home of the new vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris.

Harris was born in neighboring Oakland and lived in Berkeley, where her parents studied at the University of California, Berkeley, until she was 12 years old. She has frequently cited her experiences growing up here as foundational in her political career, including being bussed into wealthier white schools as part of an integration program.

Abby Friedman and Dan Schifrin live near Harris’s former home, and on Saturday brought their seven-year-old daughter Elia to see the home where the first female vice-president grew up. They looked on as their daughter, wearing a neon “resist” hat, wrote “we did it!” in chalk on the sidewalk.

“She’s been on a reading tear, reading biographies of Rosa Parks and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And so she feels it. She feels that Kamala Harris is part of a lineage and she wants to be part of that lineage too,” Schifrin said about his daughter.

Leslie Fields-Morris, 54, said she and her friends wandered over to Harris’s house from brunch, where they were celebrating the Biden-Harris victory. They grew up in Oakland and are excited to celebrate a fellow African American woman making it to the White House.

“We are just so proud, seeing an average girl from Oakland running the world,” she said.

Read more:

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reports that Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, has approached Trump about conceding.

So far, Trump has refused to formally concede. His campaign is engaged in ongoing litigation over vote counts, and he and his supporters have been baselessly alleging fraud.

With Kamala Harris officially headed to the White House, a fresh political battle in her home state of California looms: who will fill her US Senate seat?

California law allows the governor to appoint a replacement to serve the remainder of Harris’s term, and speculation over whom Gavin Newsom will nominate has been swirling for months.

A range of politicians have been pitching themselves for the position – Newsom this summer joked with a reporter who asked if candidates had approached him: “You may be the only one who hasn’t – unless you just did.”

Top contenders include Alex Padilla, California’s secretary of state, and Xavier Becerra, the state’s attorney general, either of whom would be the first Latino senator from California if appointed. Representatives Karen Bass of Los Angeles, who was a contender for the vice-presidential nomination, and Ro Khanna, who represents the Silicon Valley area, have also been singled out as strong candidates by political strategists.

“This is going to be a huge, huge challenge for the governor because he’s got an embarrassment of riches,” said Nathan Barankin, Harris’s former chief of staff.

Read more:

In Phoenix, Arizona, even as Trump supporters continued to gather in protest outside the state capitol building, others came out to celebrate Biden’s victory.

José Martínez, 50 – whose niece Xiomara Martínez died of Covid-19 in July – said he and his family “are very happy” to see Biden elected president.

“Our feelings this week have been on the surface,” he said. “We have been affected by this administration because I have two children who are Daca and one of them is trans. So knowing that there is hope for them fills my heart with great faith.”

His 19-year-old son, Enrique, voted for the first time this year. “Four years ago the first thing [Enrique] told me was to run away, to hide because they were going to chase us. He was crying all day. He did not imagine that four years later he was going to be part of this change.”

Regardless of whether Biden is able to ultimately maintain his lead in Arizona, a decade of Latino-led, progressive activism in Maricopa county has clearly paid off this year.

Donald Trump has refused to concede, and his campaign has filed yet another lawsuit – this time in Maricopa county, Arizona.

The lawsuit alleged that poll workers told some voters to press a button after a machine detected an “overvote” (when more than one candidate for an office was selected) that invalidated their votes. The campaign seeks to manually review those ballots, saying they could be “decisive” in the state.

“This is just a stalling tactic to delay the official canvass,” said the Arizona secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, in a statement. “They are grasping at straws.”

Biden holds a narrowing lead in Arizona, a traditionally Republican stronghold. He does not need to win the state’s 11 electoral votes to win the presidency.

People were also happy to hear Biden name-drop scientists.

If you’re wondering why that is, here’s a video I did a while back on all the ways Donald Trump has undermined science and scientists amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Activists are remarking on the significance of Joe Biden mentioning disability in his speech.

“We must make the promise of the country real for everybody – no matter their race, their ethnicity, their faith, their identity, or their disability,” the president-elect said.

As Sherrilyn Ifill, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, pointed out – Kamala Harris, the first Black and South Asian American woman to be elected vice-president - delivered her victory speech 150 years after the passage of the 15th amendment, which asserted that the right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude”.

In Washington DC massive crowds have continued to celebrate.

Or as one Fox News reporter put it …

Biden will be the second Catholic person to be president.

As he concluded his speech, Biden recited a devotional hymn called On Eagle’s Wings.

“In the last days of the campaign, I’ve been thinking about a hymn that means a lot to me and to my family, particularly my deceased son Beau.” he said. “It captures the faith that sustains me and which I believe sustains America.”

Joe Biden mentioned the diverse coalition of Americans who came together to elect him president:

“I’m proud of the coalition we put together the broadest and most diverse coalition in history,” he said. “Democrats, Republicans, independents, progressives, moderates, conservatives, young, old, urban, suburban, rural, gay, straight, transgender, white, Latino, Asian, Native Americans. I mean it.”

He noted that he couldn’t have gotten to where he is without the votes of Black Americans. “Especially at those moments when this campaign was at its lowest ebb,” he said, “the African American community stood up again for me.”

In key swing states including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia, Black voters were crucial to Democrats’ victory.

Read more from my colleague Kenya Evelyn:

Neither Kamala Harris nor Joe Biden mentioned Donald Trump in their speeches, other than to acknowledge his supporters.

Instead, they focused on the challenges ahead, including tackling the coronavirus pandemic. On Monday I will name a group of leading scientists and experts as transition advisers,” he said. “I will spare no effort, none, or any commitment to turn around this pandemic.”

“Let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end here and now,” Biden said, bookending Donald Trump’s inaugural “American carnage” speech.

Emphasizing a message of unity, Biden said Democrats and Republicans can decide to work together. “If we can decide not to cooperate, then we can decide to cooperate,” he said. “And I believe this is part of the mandate of the American people, they call on us to cooperate.”

Daniel Strauss reports from Wilmington, Delaware:

President-elect Joe Biden declared victory in front of a crowd of supporters Saturday night in his hometown of Wilmington.

“The people of this nation have spoken. They’ve delivered us a convincing victory. A clear victory,” Biden said.

Echoing the introductory speech by his running-mate and cice-President elect Kamala Harris, Biden pledges to be a president for all Americans, including the 70 million people who voted to re-elect Donald Trump.

“I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide but to unify,” Biden said.

He went on to thank his family and wise wife and mark having the honor of working with the first African American vice president who is also of Indian descent.

“Don’t tell me it’s not possible in the United States of America,” Biden said, sparking cheers from the crowds and honks from cars.

“I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide but unify,” Biden said.

Addressing Trump supporters, Biden said he understood the disappointment. He’s lost before. But now, “Let’s give each other a chance,” he said.

A century after women won the right to vote, Kamala Harris, wearing suffragette white, spoke about her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris. “When she came here from India, at the age of 19, she maybe didn’t quite imagine this moment. But she believed so deeply in an America where a moment like this is possible,” she said.

So I am thinking about her and about the generations of women - Black women, Asian, white, Latina, Native American women – who throughout our nation’s history have paved the way for this moment tonight.”

“While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last,” she added.

Harris, the first Black woman and first South Asian American woman to become vice president-elect, began her victory speech by quoting the late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, who said, “Democracy is not a state, it’s an act.”

“Protecting our democracy takes struggle, takes sacrifice,” she said. “But there’s joy in it.”

She continued: “We the people have the power to build a better future. And when our very democracy was on the ballot in this election and the very soul of America was at stake and the world watching, you ushered in a new day for America.”

Jonathan Nez, president of the Navajo Nation, was among those to congratulate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. “Our voices were heard and now we have to come together, heal, and move forward,” Nez said.

Indigenous people in Arizona overwhelmingly supported Biden for president. About 97% of voters in the state’s three counties that overlap with the Hopi Tribe and Navajo Nation picked Biden, according to the Navajo Times.

Biden has maintained a narrow lead over Trump in Arizona.

Joe Biden’s lead in Georgia has now climbed to more than 9,000 votes.

Regardless of who wins the presidential race in Georgia, Biden has secured enough electoral college votes to win the presidency. The race in Georgia is so close that election officials have already announced a recount - but if Biden does retain his lead there, he’ll be the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state in nearly three decades.

Mexico’s president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he would not congratulate Joe Biden yet, saying, “We want to wait for the matter of the election to be legally resolved.”

Waiting is “politically prudent,” he said, adding that Trump has been respectful toward Mexico.

While Amlo describes himself as a leftist, and Trump is unquestionably right-wing, the two men do have some things in common. Further reading:

Former US national security adviser Susan Rice, Atlanta’s mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, and CNN correspondent Abby Phillips, all react with pride at Kamala Harris’ historic win.

Watch:

Here’s the scene in Wilmington, Delaware - where supporters are celebrating, and awaiting a speech from Joe Biden:

Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh – blogging from Oakland. You can also reach out @maanvissingh.

I’ll be bringing you live updates for the next few hours. We’re expecting Joe Biden to deliver remarks in an hour.

More reaction coming in from world leaders, including the Prime Minister of India.

There are a lot of “firsts” and “historics” going around with this election, but you may have missed this neat observation from my colleague and Guardian US senior political reporter, Lauren Gambino.

Fiji’s prime minister got in first, gambling on congratulating Joe Biden before the presidential election had been called, slipping in a plea for action on climate change.

But once the result was official, congratulations came pouring in from around the world. Donald Trump’s allies, critics and reluctant partners had all been following the vote counting, weighing up the impact of a radical change of direction expected from Washington under Biden.

Many of those congratulating the new president-elect and his running mate Kamala Harris took the opportunity to bolster ties by underlining their connection to America. Among the first was Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau. He said: “We share a relationship that’s unique on the world stage. I’m really looking forward to working together and building on that with you both.”

Boris Johnson, who has been a close ally of Trump, took a little longer, but about an hour after the election was called put out a message reminding Biden of the “special relationship” that usually means so much more to London than Washington. He said: “America is our closest ally and I look forward to working closely together on our shared priorities.”

From Dublin the congratulations came with a nod to Biden’s Irish heritage, with his interest in the country particularly important at a time of fears that the Good Friday agreement could be threatened by Brexit.

“I want to congratulate the new president elect of the US. Joe Biden has been a true friend of this nation throughout his life and I look forward to working with him in the years ahead,” wrote the Irish prime minister Micheál Martin.

The front page of tomorrow’s Observer.

Georgia’s Secretary of State has tweeted that that county of Fulton had “discovered an issue involving reporting from their work” on Friday.

Brad Raffensperger said officials will rescan the “work”, which I assume he means ballots, although the tweet is fairly vague.

The post will no doubt attract a lot of attention. Fulton voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden – more than 72% – and Donald Trump and his allies have been attempting to discredit those votes by making accusations of fraud while providing no evidence.

What is clear from Raffensperger tweet is that he is not alleging any foul play.

Biden is ahead in Georgia by a few thousand votes and election officials have already announced a recount. With his Pennsylvania win, Biden does not need Georgia for the presidency, which is why his win was called before the state is decided.

The Guardian’s Libby Brooks reports from Glasgow:

Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon has congratulated President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris following the US Presidential election.

Sturgeon - a long-standing critic of Donald Trump - said:

“I warmly congratulate President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on their success. Theirs is a historic victory that will be welcomed by progressives across the globe. Women and people of colour in particular will feel inspired by the historic nature of Vice President-elect Harris’ achievement.

“I welcome the commitment that was so evident in the Biden/Harris campaign to leadership and multilateral cooperation on the many challenges faced by countries across the world, from COVID-19 to climate change.

“Scotland and America share deep and longstanding bonds of friendship, and I look forward to these being renewed and strengthened in the years ahead.”

A glum-looking Donald Trump returning to the White House today after finding out he lost the election.

Our senior political reporter for Guardian US, Daniel Strauss, is in Wilmington, Delaware ahead of Joe Biden’s rally tonight.

The drive-in event is being held in the president-elect’s hometown and is expected to be a victory speech, with calls for unity. It is scheduled to begin at 8pm Eastern Time (two and a half hours from now).

It appears that Donald Trump’s personal attorney and one of his most loyal allies, Rudy Giuliani, found out that the election was lost during a press conference earlier today.

Reporters told Giuliani US broadcast news networks had just reported a Biden victory, which he immediately dismissed.

Donald Trump appears to have logged back on to the White House wifi and has started tweeting again.

He begins by falsely repeating that he “won the election”, as well as other allegations of fraud without evidence.

He goes on to say that he received more votes than any other sitting president, which is true. However, he overestimated his vote count by a few hundred thousand, according to our tally, and refers to his votes as “legal votes”, which suggests - again without evidence - that some of Joe Biden’s are not.

Joe Biden’s granddaughter, Naomi Biden, just tweeted a photo of the family hugging the president-elect. She dated it today.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, an actress who played a female vice president for the TV show, Veep, is celebrating how fiction has become reality.

The prime minister of Australia, one of the US’ closest allies, has offered his congratulations to the president-elect and vice-president elect.

Scott Morrison, a conservative who has built a strong relationship with Donald Trump during his term, said Australia wished the incoming administration “every success in office”.

“The Australia-US alliance is deep and enduring, and built on shared values. I look forward to working with you closely as we face the world’s many challenges together.”

Joe Biden won more votes than any other presidential candidate in US history, approaching 75 million. However, Donald Trump also beat previous records.

So how did Biden and the vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, take the White House?

This visual guide will take you through some of the key states and demographics that show how the election was won.

Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 US presidential election has been celebrated by athletes across America.

Trump has been involved in several clashes with high-profile athletes, such as NBA superstar LeBron James and World Cup winner Megan Rapinoe, during his presidency and the former was quick to react to the news that Joe Biden will take power in January.

James tweeted a video of himself smoking a victory cigar alongside a link to More Than A Vote, a campaign he has headlined to harness the power of black voters. The 16-time All-Star also posted a photo of one of the most famous moments of his glittering career, when he pulled off a spectacular block of Andre Iguodala during the 2016 NBA finals.

However, in Saturday’s tweet he had superimposed Biden’s head on his body with Trump as Iguodala. “Your pettiness level is through the roof and I’m here for it,” wrote WNBA star A’ja Wilson in response.

James, one of the most famous athletes in America, has repeatedly tangled with the president. James has been critical of Trump throughout his term in office. In September 2017, James called Trump a “bum” for rescinding his invitation to the Golden State Warriors to celebrate their NBA championship with a visit to the White House.

Meanwhile, shortly after Saturday’s result came in Rapinoe tweeted a thank you to “Black Women”, who voted overwhelmingly for Biden in this year’s election. Rapinoe was one of the first white athletes to kneel during the US national anthem and has called Trump sexist and misogynistic. Before the 2019 World Cup she said she would not go to the White House celebrations if the US lifted the trophy, a promise she kept.

The Guardian’s Tom Phillips reports from Rio de Janeiro:

Latin American leaders, including the presidents of Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Uruguay, have started offering their congratulations to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

But so far there has been a deafening silence from Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who was one of Trump’s most fervent international supporters and had been openly rooting for his reelection.

Sources with Brazil’s presidential palace told the Estado de São Paulo newspaper Bolsonaro was waiting for a “concrete situation” before making any comment.

Foreign policy experts believe Biden’s victory will force Bolsonaro to replace his pro-Trump foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo, who has described the outgoing US president as a Godly “saviour” of western civilisation.

Hello, Oliver Holmes here, logging on to run the Guardian live blog following a peaceful transfer of power with my colleague, Joan E Greve.

It is just after 4pm US Eastern Time, 1pm US Pacific Time, and 9pm UK time.

Joe Biden has won the White House, and Donald Trump refuses to concede.

Our reporters across the US – and the world – will be keeping you updated with the latest.

The Guardian’s Nina Lakhani reports from Harlem, New York City:

A couple hundred people are celebrating Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ victory at Frederick Douglass square on the northwest corner of Central Park.

Mavis Edgehill, 90, is here with her son Bill, 63, to celebrate the moment. “Trump is out, Biden is in,” she said. “We’re so happy, we had to come and celebrate. We couldn’t have taken four more years of his division. He’s instigated racism, and divided the people. We hope Joe Biden and Kamala Harris can bring people together as one.”

Stacy Steele, 50, a charity worker from Jamaica who’s been in the US for 35 years, said, “It’s very nice to see a vice president of Jamaican and south Asian descent. She didn’t fall into this; she earned it. She’s an intelligent, savvy, empathetic woman.”

Stacy added, “I don’t believe the bigotry that Trump emboldened is what anyone wants for children and grandchildren.”

The noise is quite something as people bang saucepans and drivers honk and cheer as they drive past. The party in Harlem is just getting started.

It’s important to remember this was the third presidential bid for Joe Biden, who first ran for the office in 1987.

Now, 33 years after he launched his first bid for the White House and 12 years after he became vice president, Biden is a president-elect.

Joe Biden’s win means the White House will once again be home to a first pet – or in this case two. The Biden family includes two German shepherds: Major, a young rescue dog, and Champ, who lived in the vice presidential residence during Barack Obama’s administration.

Donald Trump bucked tradition by being the first president since 1897 to not have a pet while in office. He explained why at a February 2019 rally in Texas.

“I wouldn’t mind having one, honestly, but I don’t have any time,” Trump said. “How would I look walking a dog on the White House lawn?”

While we will likely never have an answer to that question, we do know a little bit about the two new presidential pets.

Champ has been in the Biden family since late 2008. Jill Biden promised Joe that they would get a dog after the election and, according to Politico, “would tape pictures of different dogs on the back of the seat in front of Biden on his campaign plane.”

The Bidens adopted Major, a German Shepherd, in November 2018 from the Delaware Humane Association (DHA) after fostering him for about eight months.

In February, New Hampshire’s Union Leader asked the Democratic candidates why their pets were important to them.

“Dogs remind you to live in the present,” Biden said. “They love unconditionally and they savor every moment with you. When I’m with Champ and Major, I get to live in the “now” for a moment with them, enjoy the simple act of throwing a ball around or taking a walk.”

Biden also guessed the pup pair would be happy at the White House.

Donald Trump is back at the White House now, after completing a round of golf as Joe Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election.

As the lame-duck president returned, the White House was surrounded by exuberant crowds, enjoying Washington’s biggest party for years.

Black Lives Matter Plaza is filled and so are the streets leading up to it. It is a far bigger crowd than even the summer protests that gave their name to this section of 16th Street leading up to the front door of the White House.

And there is no comparison in the mood, of course. I talked to about 10 people and nine of them used the word “elated” and half of them said they were experiencing emotions they had not felt in four years, as if a dam had been broken.

“For the first time in four years I feel like I can breathe,” Wendy Ellis said. When the result was called, she heard the cheer go up in the street outside her apartment and rushed out to join the flow of people making their way down towards the White House, joining a crowd relishing Trump’s eviction from the building.

“I hope he embarrasses himself and they have to send in the guards and drag him out kicking and screaming. That would be quite a scene,” Egbert Ospina said, before adding with more of a note of caution.

“I feel that maybe we are singing the Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead song and celebrating a bit too early.”

At one point the crowd began singing YMCA, the Village People hit that was the mainstay of Trump election rallies.

It was a mass outpouring of Schadenfreude, like the many placards emblazoned with the president’s least favourite word: “loser”.

Tunde Akinnade thought it would be no problem levering Trump out of the White House. “He has been voted out clearly, and he will leave with his tail between his legs and he will be gone.”

Along with Barack Obama, other former US presidents offered their congratulations to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris after they were declared the winners of the presidential election.

From Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter:

From Bill Clinton:

George W Bush, the most recent Republican president before Donald Trump, has not yet issued a statement.

The Guardian’s Sam Levin reports from Los Angeles:

Spontaneous celebrations have broken out across Los Angeles, where the vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, lives when she’s not in DC.

At one gas station in the Los Feliz neighborhood, Angelenos danced on top of cars as passing cars honked and cheered.

Some drove by waving Biden-Harris signs and American flags, banging pots and pans and tambourines. Others drank champagne, sharing with strangers on the corner. People carried “Madame Vice President” signs and banners saying: “Let’s get to work!”

LA has been the center of anti-Trump protests this week, but the street gatherings this morning were festive.

US polls opened on Tuesday morning, but it was not until Saturday afternoon that we could declare Joe Biden to be the winner of the presidential election.

The Guardian’s video team looked back on the five days of waiting for an answer in America:

The Guardian’s Kari Paul reports from Kamala Harris’s childhood neighborhood in Berkeley, California:

On Saturday morning, after the announcement that Joe Biden had finally secured the US presidency, a small group of celebrants in Berkeley, California gathered in front of the childhood home of the vice president-elect, Kamala Harris.

Harris was born in neighboring Oakland and lived in Berkeley, where her parents studied at UC Berkeley, until she was 12 years old. She has frequently cited her experiences of being bused into wealthier white schools as part of an integration program as foundational in her political career.

Abby Friedman and Dan Schifrin live near Harris’s former home, and brought their seven-year-old daughter Elia to see the home where the first female vice-president grew up. They looked on as their daughter, wearing a neon “resist” hat, wrote “We did it!” in chalk on the sidewalk.

“She’s been she’s been on a reading tear, reading biographies of Rosa Parks and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And so she feels it. She feels that Kamala Harris is part of a lineage and she wants to be part of that lineage too,” Schifrin said of his daughter.

Leslie Fields-Morris, 54, said she and her friends wandered over to Harris’s house from brunch where they were celebrating the Biden-Harris victory. They grew up in Oakland and are excited to celebrate a fellow African American woman making it to the White House.

“We are just so proud, seeing an average girl from Oakland running the world,” she said.

Others stopped to take photos of their children with Harris’s home. Sarah Zimmerman, a local organizer, wrote in chalk on the sidewalk: “When we fight for each other we win.” She said she’s celebrating while recognizing there is a lot more to do once Donald Trump is out of office.

“We’re still fighting,” she said. It’s a relief, but it’s not the end. It’s a really good there’s a lot more to do.”

Donald Trump has wrapped up his round of golf, during which Joe Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election, and is headed back to the White House.

Before leaving his Virginia golf club, the lame-duck president posed for a photo with a bride who was getting married at the club today.

According to a pool report, dozens of onlookers lined the road to Trump’s Virginia club after the race was called.

Some of their signs read “You’re fired” and “Pack your shit and go”.

The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports from Philadelphia:

Philadelphia was ready.

For months, Donald Trump has attacked the city as a place filled with electoral corruption. “Bad things happen in Philadelphia,” he said during the first presidential debate in late September.

On Saturday, the heavily-Democratic city got its revenge. Shortly after election officials reported a tranche of absentee ballots, the Associated Press and networks called the race for Joe Biden. It was the city Trump relentlessly attacked that finally put the race out of reach for him.

And almost immediately, people came pouring out – it felt like a collective exhale here after days of waiting for workers to count ballots. People were applauding in the street, and police closed down Broad Street, a main boulevard near city hall, as people danced in the street.

At the Pennsylvania convention center, there Biden-Harris supporters gathered across the street from Trump supporters. The Trump side blasted AC/DC rock songs while the Biden-Harris side danced and celebrated. People popped champagne in the streets and there were briefly cheers of “lock him up” and “Black lives matter”.

“It was great because we became unified together, everybody was you know, uniting as one. Nobody was separated as people think we are. And Philly is not a bad place and bad things do not happen here,” said Moneek Andrews. “It was like a sigh of relief.”

“We’re in the right place at the right time,” said Rashida Ali, who was born and raised in West Philadelphia and stood outside the convention center with two pot lids she was banging together. “As the descendant of African Americans I’m out here because he tried to suppress the vote.”

Donald Trump has left his golf club in Virginia and is now en route back to the White House, where a large crowd has gathered to celebrate Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election.

One man wearing a Puerto Rican flag was spotted throwing a pack of paper towels over the White House fence, an allusion to Trump throwing paper towels to a crowd outside San Juan after Hurricane Maria.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer shared a video of himself calling Joe Biden and holding up the phone, so the president-elect could hear the crowds cheering in New York.

“Did you hear that?” Schumer said. “That’s Brooklyn.”

In major cities across the country, Americans have taken to the streets to celebrate Biden’s victory in the presidential election.

But for Schumer, the election continues with two Senate runoff races in Georgia, which could determine control of the chamber.

The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports from Philadelphia:

Even after networks called the presidential race for Joe Biden, a group of pro-Trump demonstrators gathered outside of the Pennsylvania convention center and remained unpersuaded that Trump had lost the race.

John, who declined to give his last name, said he was certain Donald Trump had won a second term.

“I don’t believe the bullshit about what the press says. A bunch of fake ballots got dropped at 4 o’clock in the morning. Trump called it,” he said. “Trump’s president. Not a doubt.”

There’s no evidence of fake ballots being added to totals anywhere in the United States. Election officials continue to count ballots after the close of polls because of a surge in mail in voting. Trump refuses to concede the race and has pledged to continue with lawsuits. Many of the ones he has filed since election day have been legally meritless and dismissed by judges in Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada.

Nonetheless, a supporter who would only give his name as Jake D said he was confident Trump would be declared the winner of the election once counting was complete.

Michael M, who traveled to Philadelphia from Queens in New York City, also said he did not believe the accuracy of the count. He claimed Republicans had not been allowed to get close enough to observe ballot counting. The Trump campaign secured a court order earlier this week too allow their poll observers to get within 6 feet of ballot counters, but there’s no evidence of any wrongdoing when it comes to counting the ballots.

“When the tally gets counted correctly, President Trump should have about 320 electoral votes,” Michael said. “It looks like the birthplace of democracy is where they’re trying to steal it,” he said.

“The only thing I would add is to president Trump, do not surrender.”

The Guardian’s Victoria Bekiempis reports:

On Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, dozens of people were as close as they could get to Trump Tower to celebrate Joe Biden’s win.

One man, who declined to give his name, held a cardboard sign that read “YOU’RE FIRED!!”, an allusion to the Donald Trump’s trademark phrase on “The Apprentice,” the reality television show he hosted.

One man banged a metal pot that was attached to the front of his bike. As more and more approached the intersection of Fifth and 57th Street, which was barricaded preventing closer access to the building, groups erupted into celebratory shouts. Cars honked in the background nearby.

New York University student Colette Poncet, one of the many near Trump Tower, woke to the news that Biden had won.

“I screamed and I woke my roommate up,” said Poncet, who voted for the first time in this election. Poncet described the news as a “big relief,” and was also “very excited, hope is restored.”

Mitt Romney became the first Republican senator to congratulate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on their victory in the presidential election.

“Ann and I extend our congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris,” Romney said in a tweet.

“We know both of them as people of good will and admirable character. We pray that God may bless them in the days and years ahead.”

Romney was the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, when he lost to Barack Obama and Biden.

It’s worth noting that, with Biden’s victory, control of the Senate remains up for grabs. If Democrats can win both of the Georgia runoff races in January, they will flip control of the chamber.

However, the most likely situation is that Biden will begin his presidency with a Republican-controlled Senate.

Lois Beckett reports from Lansing, Michigan:

At a rally of Donald Trump supporters at Michigan’s state Capitol, demonstrators chanted “four more years” and “we won” after CNN, Fox and the AP had called the presidential race for Joe Biden.

“We are a stand your ground state, and we will stand our ground for our great president,” Kevin Skinner, 34, told the crowd, saying that tyranny is at the door. Skinner said he planned to get people to protest every day at the capitol and demand a recount.

Doug Emhoff, the husband of Kamala Harris, shared a photo of himself hugging the vice president-elect to celebrate her victory.

“So proud of you,” Emhoff said.

Emhoff will be America’s first-ever “second gentleman,” as Harris is the first woman to ever be part of a successful presidential ticket.

Emhoff will also be the first vice-presidential spouse who is Jewish.

As the presidential election was called for Joe Biden, Donald Trump was golfing at his Virginia club.

The AP caught a photo of Trump golfing, as he learned he was officially a one-term president:

The Guardian’s Daniel Strauss reports:

Kamala Harris has become vice-president-elect of the US, the first time in history that a woman, and a woman of color, has been elected to such a position in the White House.

Harris, a former California senator who is of Indian and Jamaican heritage, will also be the first woman of mixed race to serve as vice-president. If she became president she would be the first female president, and the second biracial president in American history, after Barack Obama.

Women have run for president or run on major party presidential tickets before, the most recent being Hillary Clinton. Carly Fiorina was named as Texas senator Ted Cruz’s running mate in the 2016 presidential election in that year’s Republican primary before Donald Trump won the party’s nomination.

Sarah Palin was the last woman to run as a vice-presidential nominee on a major party presidential ticket in a general election. Palin, while governor of Alaska, was part of the late Arizona senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.

But Harris is the first woman in American history ever to run on a successful presidential ticket.

The Guardian’s Kari Paul reports from Oakland:

Loud cheers and the banging of pots and pans rang out through the streets of Oakland on Saturday at the news of Joe Biden’s election to president, just blocks away from the hospital where the vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, was born.

It was around 8.30am PT in Oakland when the Associated Press made the call that Biden had secured the final electoral votes to win the presidency, and the city awoke with cheers and honking cars.

Harris, who is the first woman and first woman of color elected vice-president, was born in Oakland in 1964 and grew up in neighboring Berkeley.