Democrat Joe Biden on Friday surpassed the threshold of 270 electoral college votes to win the 2020 US Presidential elections, the New York Times reported.

Biden, 77, is the oldest candidate ever elected to the White House. Trump, 74, has made as yet unsubstantiated claims of massive voter fraud, and his campaign has launched legal challenges in several states.

Biden spent eight years as vice president to Barack Obama. His victory comes in his third run for the nation’s highest office.

Trump had no immediate reaction to the announcement, but as Biden’s lead grew during vote counts since Tuesday’s election, the Republican president lashed out with unsubstantiated claims of fraud and claimed, falsely, that he had won.

Earlier Saturday, as he headed to his golf course in Virginia, he repeated this, tweeting: “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!”

Trailing in various national polls for much of the lead-up to the November 3 election, Trump threatened to pull off a 2016-esque surprise as he led in a number of key battleground swing states through the election day.   

However, his lead in the states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – all three of which he won en route to the White House in 2016 – slipped away after the counting of the mail-in ballots started. 

Those three states, known as the ‘blue wall’ having backed the Democratic party for the past few decades, collectively hold 46 electoral votes.

Despite counting still ongoing in the states of Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Alaska, the path to 270 will be impossible for Trump without the state of Pennsylvania, Biden’s home state. 

Having trailed by considerable margins before the huge numbers of mail-in ballots were accounted for, Biden secured Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral college votes, with his tally now insurmountable at 273, compared to Trump’s 213. 

However, Biden and the Democratic Party will have to brace for a prolonged legal battle over the results as Trump has cried afoul of the way his lead vanished in swing states. 

Biden will be sworn-in on January 20 in a traditional inauguration day ceremony at the US Capitol building in Washington D. C, after his running mate Kamala Harris is sworn-in on the same day.