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Democrat Joe Biden came close to winning the U.S. presidency on Friday, as he expanded his narrow leads over President Donald Trump in battlefield states of Pennsylvania and Georgia three days after the polls closed.
Biden has a 253-214 lead in the state-by-state Electoral College vote determining the winner, according to Edison Research. Winning Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes would put the former vice president over the 270 he needs to secure the presidency.
Biden would also win the election if he wins two of the other three key states in which he held narrow leads on Friday: Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. Like Pennsylvania, all three were still processing ballots on Friday.
As Biden approached victory, he was expected to address the nation on Friday night, according to two people familiar with his plans. That may be a victory speech, given that his advisers say Biden appears on the verge of winning.
Trump, meanwhile, showed little sign that he was willing to back down, making clear in a statement Friday that he would continue to press his unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.
“From the beginning we have said that all legal ballots should be counted and all illegal ballots should not be counted, yet we have encountered resistance to this basic principle from Democrats at all times,” he said in a statement released by his campaign. .
“We will continue this process in all aspects of the law to ensure that the American people have confidence in our government,” Trump said.
The statement came a day after Trump launched an extraordinary attack on the democratic process by a sitting president, who appeared at the White House Thursday night to falsely claim that he was “stealing” the election.
In both Pennsylvania and Georgia, Biden surpassed Trump when officials processed thousands of mail-in ballots that were cast in urban Democratic strongholds, including Philadelphia and Atlanta.
The rise in vote-by-mail has slowed down the counting process in many states, a new reminder of the pandemic that will continue to be the next president’s most formidable challenge.
Hundreds of Democrats gathered in front of the central Philadelphia vote counting site, dressed in yellow T-shirts that read “Count Every Vote.” In Detroit, a crowd of Trump supporters, some armed, protested in front of the counting site, waving flags and shouting “Fight!”
A sense of sad resignation settled in the White House on Friday, where the president was monitoring television and speaking to advisers on the phone. An adviser said it was clear the race was leaning against Trump, but that Trump was not ready to admit defeat.
His campaign pursues a series of lawsuits in battle states, but legal experts described them as unlikely to alter the outcome of the elections.
Campaign General Counsel Matt Morgan said in a statement Friday that the elections in Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania suffered from irregularities and that Trump would ultimately prevail in Arizona.
He also said the campaign hoped to get a recount in Georgia, as it has said it will in Wisconsin, where Biden won by more than 20,000 votes. Such a wide margin has never been overridden by a recount, according to Edison Research.
Election officials across the country have said they are not aware of any significant wrongdoing. Georgia officials said Friday they expect a recount, which a candidate can apply for if the final margin is less than 0.5%, as it currently is.
Biden expressed confidence Thursday that he would win and asked for patience. In response to the idea that Trump might not budge, Biden’s spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement Friday: “The United States government is perfectly capable of escorting intruders out of the White House.”
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