On Tuesday night, former Vice President Joe Biden won Illinois — and its 20 electoral college votes —- for the 2020 presidential race, which remains too close to call.

The Associated Press called Illinois for the candidate as soon as polls closed on Tuesday night despite a lack of confirmed vote counts based on an analysis of early voting statistics, predicting that the state would remain a Democratic stronghold as it has since 1988. As of Wednesday night, with 81 percent of votes reported, Biden won 55.2 percent of votes compared to Trump’s 42.9 percent.

In Cook County, Biden received 72.3 percent of the vote. The county, which is home to Chicago, Evanston and multiple other suburbs, is the most densely populated county in the state. Other notable races last night included the reelection of Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), as well as U.S. Rep Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston) and State Reps. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz (D-Glenview) and Robyn Gabel (D-Evanston).

Nationally, the presidential race remains undecided, with Biden just a handful of electoral college votes away from a win against Trump. Because of increased levels of mail-in voting due to COVID-19, election results have been delayed and a winner may not be called until later in the week.

As states count mail-in ballots, President Donald Trump has also attempted to delegitimize the votes, filing lawsuits in multiple key swing states challenging vote counts or attempting to stop counting. As of Wednesday night, Alaska, Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia still remain uncalled by the Associated Press.

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Twitter: @jacobnfulton

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