ATLANTA — Joe Biden further solidified his lead as president elect by winning Georgia and its 16 electoral votes.

The Peach State was one of the few remaining states where votes were still being tallied Saturday when Biden was elected the next president. When counting was done, Georgians did something they haven’t done in nearly three decades. They backed a Democrat for President of the United States.

hours after most polls closed Tuesday across the Peach State, the final count tallied in favor of Democrat Joe Biden and for President Donald Trump — a margin of only votes separating the two.

The counting continued for days, Georgia becoming a nationally watched state as votes slowly came in from metro Atlanta counties that are Democrat strongholds. Trump won the state by 5 percentage points in 2016, but the changing political suburbs of Atlanta gave Biden the winning advantage.

An unexpected battleground, Republicans had to go on defense in the presidential race and both U.S. Senate seats in play. Trump held multiple rallies in rural towns and courted Black voters in urban areas.

But as Democrats eyed an opening with increased enthusiasm since 2016, the national party made Georgia a target. Biden, Kamala Harris and Barack Obama all rallied in the Peach State during the final weeks before Election Day.

Biden said it himself at about 1 a.m. Wednesday.

“We’re still in the game in Georgia,” he told supporters during a speech in Wilmington, Delaware. “Although that’s not what we expected.”

Early Thursday morning, after a dump of votes from left-leaning Clayton County, Biden overtook Trump in the race by just more than 1,000 votes. Until the last vote was counted, his lead grew slowly. Once all the military and overseas as well as provisional ballots were tallied, it was final.

In supporting Biden, Georgia sided with a Democrat in the race for the White House for the first time since 1992. The slow but steady counting of Georgia ballots drew suspense as it became one of the last battlegrounds still in play.

The result meant the state’s 16 electoral votes went to Biden after he made up the nearly 300,000 vote deficit he faced in Georgia Tuesday night — relying heavily on mail-in ballot counts.

But the narrow margin had Georgia’s chief elections official Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger declaring there would likely be a recount. In Georgia, the losing candidate may request a recount if the margin of deficit is within .5% of the total number of ballots cast.

Trump requested a recount in .