[ad_1]
Pennsylvania, the state that could push Biden over the 270-vote threshold needed to win the presidency, could complete most of its pending counts by Thursday or Friday, officials said. The former vice president only trails Trump by just under 65,000 votes in Keystone state, having fallen behind by one point by more than half a million ballots in the hours after polls close. Tens of thousands of votes remain to be counted, most of them from heavily Democratic areas, including Philadelphia.
In Georgia, another state that Trump can’t afford to lose with his 16 electoral votes, Biden’s mail-in ballot advantage has brought him less than 4,000 votes from the president, as the results came from Fulton County around Atlanta with 98% of the state. Reported vote count.
Trump cannot find a route to 270 electoral votes without Georgia and Pennsylvania, so his chances of securing re-election will depend on developments in the two states in the next few hours.
But on Thursday night, Trump did indeed send a signal that he has no intention of leaving power without a fight if he ends up losing the election.
The president’s speech from the White House meeting room could end up being one of the most dangerous presidential remarks in American history. In it, Trump falsely claimed that votes cast before and during elections, but counted after Election Day, are illegal votes.
Trump made ridiculous claims that his leads on Election Night were lowered because Democratic officials keep finding ballots, when in reality the counts have been lowered because election officials in many states counted vote-by-mail ballots, which favored to the Democrats, after the Election Day voting. which tended to favor the Republicans.
As the president spoke, the daily count of new coronavirus infections in the US hit 114,876, the worst daily count in history, summarizing how Trump’s political obsessions have fueled his neglect of a crisis that has killed more. than 234,000 Americans.
Biden asks for calm
Biden emerged in Wilmington, Delaware, for a short speech intended to project optimism, urge patience in counting votes and seemingly create a picture of a pending presidency.
“In the United States, the vote is sacred. This is how the people of this nation express their will,” he said, asking for calm and patience as the vote counting process unfolds.
The president’s team, by contrast, had earlier optimistically insisted that the president would win Pennsylvania with some space to spare. “Donald Trump is alive and well,” said Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien.
But a Trump adviser told CNN’s Jim Acosta that Biden’s growing momentum in the Commonwealth is causing growing concern in the campaign, admitting the margin would be “narrow.” The adviser stressed that Trump’s future depends on Pennsylvania.
“Pennsylvania matters,” the person said, before adding, “everyone matters,” admitting that the president really can’t afford for any of these remaining states to get away.
It has long been known that Biden would benefit from a late spike in vote-by-mail that was preferred by Democrats amid the pandemic. The president spent months on the campaign trail, falsely criticizing mail ballots as prone to fraud, one of the reasons Republican voters have been shown to be far less likely to use them.
In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday afternoon, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said “the counties are working furiously” and “we seem to be ahead of schedule.” In several interviews on CNN, Democratic Senator Bob Casey said he believed Biden would eventually prevail in the state by up to 100,000 votes.
The story was reversed in Arizona, where multiple voting tranches from Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, cut Biden’s lead to just under 68,000 votes, and Trump’s team insisted the president will ultimately prevail and keep his claims alive. hopes of reaching 270.
There is also close competition in Nevada, where Biden’s lead increased to nearly 12,000 votes at noon Thursday. Democrats had the state down as a likely victory, but it’s closer than expected. The bottom line will again come down to mail-in votes, which could favor Biden, as there are thousands of outstanding people in Clark County, located around Las Vegas and generally in Democratic territory.
If Biden has the upper hand in Arizona and Nevada, he will get 270 electoral votes and become the next president, regardless of what happens in Pennsylvania and Georgia.
CNN projects that Biden will win at least three of Maine’s four electoral votes, plus Wisconsin, Michigan, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Virginia, California, Oregon, Washington State, Illinois, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Colorado, Connecticut , New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Delaware, Washington, DC, Maryland, Massachusetts, and one of Nebraska’s five electoral votes. Nebraska and Maine award two electoral votes to their state winners and divide their other electoral votes by electoral districts.
CNN projects Trump to win Montana, Texas, Iowa, Idaho, Ohio, Mississippi, Wyoming, Missouri, Kansas, Utah, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Virginia West, Florida and Tennessee and four of Nebraska’s five electoral votes.
Trump Mounts Aggressive Legal Strategy to Challenge Results
Trump’s team, seeking to keep his narrow path to victory alive, has launched a series of sometimes contradictory and scattered legal challenges, offering no evidence of wrongdoing, demanding that vote counting continue in states where he is behind and wanting them to close on those in which he is behind. Guides.
“STOP THE COUNT,” Trump tweeted Thursday morning, despite the fact that taking such action would freeze the contest and give his opponent an advantage and the fact that pursuing his lawsuit would be akin to disenfranchisement vote of the voters, with tens of thousands of votes cast legally. still being counted.
As part of its legal strategy, the Trump campaign plans to ask the Supreme Court to intervene in a case challenging a Supreme Court decision that allowed Pennsylvania ballots to be counted after Election Day. The justices had refused to expedite the appeal before the elections and are considering taking the case.
Trump and his campaign team also sought to raise questions about how Biden achieved a late victory in the vital state of Wisconsin, where the Democrat stood up thanks to mail-in votes and the first to be counted after most ballots cast. person on election day.
The Trump campaign said Wednesday that it will demand a recount in Wisconsin while raising legal challenges in Michigan and Georgia.
The campaign’s state-by-state approach revealed glaring inconsistencies in its strategy: It appears to be trying to stop the counting of votes in states where Biden is behind, such as Pennsylvania and Georgia, while requiring that all votes be counted in the states. where he thinks the president has a chance to catch up with Biden, like Arizona and Nevada.
Biden’s campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, called the lawsuits “without merit” and emphasized that “our data shows that Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States.”
Trump offered half-hearted endorsement of his team’s legal strategy in phone calls with some of his allies on Wednesday, sounding resigned that the plan fell short and questioning why his team had not successfully defied voting rules before elections, even when he was still willing to carry it out, CNN reported.
A court in Pennsylvania said Thursday that Trump campaign watchers may be closer to see the ballot processing in Philadelphia, a relatively inconsequential ruling that Trump campaign associates quickly touted as a massive victory as it the votes there that could decide the state are still counted.
No court has found irregularities in the vote-counting process in Philadelphia.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
CNN’s Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.
[ad_2]