During the 2020 Presidential election, we saw more Americans vote than ever before.

According to the Associated Press, this election had the highest voter turnout with close to 148 million votes between the two candidates. It was predicted by many news sources including, but not limited to, CNN, CNBC, Foreign Policy, and The Guardian, that this election would have the highest voter turnout ever. 

What they predicted was correct. The record from 1908 was shattered by 2020’s voter turnout.

With this massive voter turnout, some states flipped for the other party. For example, in 2016 Arizona was a heavy Republican-held state with President Donald J. Trump leading by almost 4 points (percentage difference between candidates), but in the 2020 election President-elect Joe Biden won it by less than 1 percent of the vote. In 4 years, the democratic party swung the state from red to blue by 4 percentage points. That is a massive swing. 

The same is said for Georgia. In the 2016 election, President Trump won by 5 points. Now in the 2020 election, President-elect Biden gained 6 points, if projections hold, to secure himself the state. 

In a record held turnout, a big part of it was newly registered voters. In 2016, the state of Texas had 15 million registered voters, but in the most recent election, it now has 17 million that are registered to vote. That is a huge jump of almost 2 million people, between 2016 and 2020, registered to vote. 

Texas is also now turning into a purple state (State that is split on voting Democrat or Republican) according to The Atlantic and Washington Post. 

Not only did states change, but some Senate seats did too. 

As of now, the projections look that the Republican party will hold the Senate with Mitch McConnell being the majority leader. 

Some states like Iowa and Maine surprised people because the vulnerable incumbent senators won. The Senator of Iowa, Jodi Ernst, won after millions of dollars were funded to her opposition’s campaign, Theresa Greenfield. According to the New York Times, early polls were in favor of Greenfield, but Jodi Ernst slowly gained the lead.

Another important senate race for Democrats was Maine. Republican, Susan Collins won against her opponent from the democratic party, Sara Gideon. Susan Collins won by 9 points. It appears that Republicans will hold the Senate, this was a dramatic loss for the democrats. 

One of the more interesting states in this election has been Pennsylvania. Biden is winning the state, Most, if not all of the democratic votes have been coming from 6 counties from the state, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, Bucks, Philadelphia, and Allegheny county. Those counties count for 55% of Biden’s votes in the state. That is 6 of 67 counties of the state of Pennsylvania. 

An immense number of votes for the democratic party came in my mail. Many votes for the republican party were in person after a majority of President Trump’s campaign was devoted to deferring mail-in ballots. This hurt his chances in states like Pennsylvania where a majority of the vote was mail-in.

Overall this election was completely different from the past because of the major changes to the voting system because of the pandemic and the numbers at which people vote in times of crisis.