The U.S. presidential election of 2020 was the 59th quadrennial U.S. presidential election, and was held to fill a term lasting from January 20, 2021 to January 20, 2025. By November 7, all major media organizations had projected that former vice president Joe Biden, the candidate of the Democratic Party, had defeated incumbent Republican president Donald Trump in the election. Based on the winner of the popular vote in each state, the Electoral College cast votes on December 14, and Congress counted the electoral votes and formally declared Biden as the election winner in a joint session on January 6, 2021. In the months after the election, Trump challenged the results of the election, but on January 7, following congressional certification of the electoral vote and the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, Trump acknowledged that "a new administration will be inaugurated."