Here are the critical races that led to Biden's victory over Trump: analysis

The highly anticipated 2020 presidential election ultimately led to an upsetting defeat for President Donald Trump. During his campaign rallies in the weeks leading up to the election, Trump laid the ground work for claiming election fraud, repeatedly telling his supporters that an election loss could only be the result of the Democrats cheating and rigging the election. But despite Trump's dangerous falsehoods, the numbers don't lie.

According to an analysis released by the American Communities Project (ACP), critical gains and losses for Trump and President-elect Joe Biden ultimately shaped the outcome of the election. While Trump did manage to have substantial turnout from Hispanics and Americans living in aging farmland communities, Biden dominated in urban areas, exurbs, military posts, college towns, and even middle suburbs which likely titled the election count in his favor.

The largest change that proved favorable for Democrats was the significant boost in the nation's large urban areas. For example, Trump managed to maintain his stronghold in rural Georgia, but even that edge was not enough to combat the boost Biden received in the state's biggest counties around Atlanta. The massive voter turnout in Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, Clayton, and Dekalb counties had a significant impact on Democrats turning Georgia blue (pending a hand recount).

While Trump also maintained a hold on the blue-collar, Middle Suburbs, he did lose approximately 2 percentage points. Biden ultimately benefited from votes Exurbs:

"Those are big shifts and they are very important to the GOP because the Exurbs tend to hold a lot of votes about 11% of voting age pop is there. Republican candidates need big margins out of those Exurb counties to help offset the Democrats big wins in the Urban Suburbs and Big Cities. (We will look closer at the Big Cities in subsequent posts. They currently show some erosion for the Democrats, but those results are not all in yet.)"

Although Trump is calling for recounts in select states and launching legal attacks in others, his efforts will not be enough to overturn the election due to the wide margin between him and Biden.