"democrat"

Biden is expected to make the announcement in coming days, along with choices for other key health posts, including head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Trump and his allies have brought at least 50 legal cases trying to overturn the results in the swing states Biden won — mainly Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Promising "not to divide but unify," Biden reached out directly to Trump supporters, declaring "they're not our enemies, they're Americans."

The work ahead of us will be hard, but I promise you this: I will be a President for all Americans -- whether you voted for me or not, said Biden in a tweet

By Friday morning, Biden overtook Trump in the number of ballots counted in the battleground, a must-win state for Trump that has long been a Republican stronghold

US media organisations called Michigan for Biden where he had a lead of some 120,000 votes.

When last reports came in Biden had received 237 electoral college votes as against 213 of incumbent President Donald Trump of the Republican Party.

Georgia has been a reliably Republican, conservative bastion and a Democrat has not won in the Peach State since Bill Clinton, a fellow Southerner, in 1992.

The Florida race is tightening down to a knife edge; statewide polls shows Biden ahead by an average of 1.4 percentage points -- compared to 4.5 points less than two weeks ago.

As Trump prepared to leave the White House for the first time since returning on October 5 after three nights at Walter Reed Medical Center, he fired off a series of tweets.