Joe Biden’s lead in the polls over Donald Trump, reaches 7 million

In the nationwide popular vote, President-elect Joe Biden’s lead over President Donald Trump is now more than 7 million votes and could continue to rise as many states continue to count votes.

The lead of Biden over Trump is the second-highest since 2000 and is around two and a half times greater than the popular vote lead of Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016.

Biden had received about 81.2 million votes as of Friday morning, the most votes a candidate has won in U.S. history, and Trump had won about 74.2 million.

The vote count of Biden makes him the second-highest earner of votes in American history.

Despite the definitive win of Biden and the start of the formal presidential transition process by the Trump administration, the President has declined to recognize the race and continues to make false allegations about widespread voter fraud.

Biden won 306 votes in the race, while Trump had 232. To become president, two hundred and seventy electoral votes are required.

This year, Americans voted to defend themselves from the coronavirus pandemic by mail in record numbers, and experts had cautioned that as a result, there would be a long vote count that would possibly not be settled until days or weeks after Election Day.