Updated: November 4, 2020 9:31:14 pm
Workers count the ballots at the Central Count Facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on November 3, 2020. Joe Biden is well ahead of the 2016 Hillary Clinton margins in Waukesha and Dane counties in Wisconsin. (Chang W. Lee / The New York Times)
Joe Biden started election night with a lot of roads to 270 electoral votes, but by Wednesday morning President Donald Trump had won Florida, Ohio and Texas and was a surprising distance from winning North Carolina.
But while the number of winning scenarios for Biden declined Tuesday, it was the former vice president, not the president, who was on the offensive early Wednesday in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, claims the once-reliable “blue wall,” thanks to his great pre-election effort to encourage mail-in voting and early voting.
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At around 9:10 am ET Wednesday, Biden was leading in Wisconsin and Michigan, and he had the advantage in enough states that if he won them, it would give him 270 electoral votes.
Biden had lagged behind in all three “blue wall” states – in Pennsylvania by about 700,000 votes – when many Americans went to bed on election night. But many ballots remained to be counted, and the absentee vote in particular was expected to favor Biden because many Democratic voters used the vote by mail during the coronavirus pandemic.
Even though victory was far from certain Wednesday morning, those states began to come to life for him, one by one, like lights flickering again under power from a backup generator.
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Overnight, Biden took a narrow lead in Wisconsin after absentee votes from Milwaukee and Green Bay were counted. By morning, he had erased Trump’s lead in Michigan, with far more votes to be counted in Wayne County, which is very Democratic, which includes Detroit. And Pennsylvania officials predicted a similar scenario in their state.
These are the main scenarios that remain for Biden, as well as Trump, to win the 2020 election. Biden’s scenarios assume that Nevada wins, a blue state in which he is far ahead.
One path involves Biden winning in both Arizona and Georgia, according to the Sun Belt states, where he appears competitive with tens of thousands of votes to be counted.
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Biden has the upper hand in Arizona, and a win there would take some of the pressure off him to be completely reliant on the blue wall states. You can afford to lose Pennsylvania if you win Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin.
If Biden wins in Georgia and Arizona, he can reach 270 electoral votes while losing Pennsylvania and Michigan or Wisconsin.
Or he could become president simply by taking back Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
In Georgia, where Trump has a small lead with about 92% of the votes counted, a leak at a processing center in the central part of the state delayed the tabulation of some ballots for Atlanta and its suburban counties, which are considered Democratic strongholds. . .
About 20% of the vote remained unreported as of 6 a.m. Wednesday in DeKalb County, a heavily Democratic suburb of Atlanta.
“Joe Biden’s path has not changed to a great extent since he entered this race,” Guy Cecil, president of Priorities USA, a Democratic super PAC leader, said early Wednesday. “There are still at least five competitive states that give 270 multiple paths. It may take a couple of days to count the votes, and we may have to fight the Trump campaign in court, but Joe Biden is still the favorite.” .
Biden, who appeared briefly before supporters in Wilmington, Delaware, early Wednesday morning, said he “felt great about Wisconsin and Michigan” and predicted a victory in Pennsylvania, a central battlefield that is known for its slow count of votes.
“We believe we are on our way to winning this election,” he said.
Trump’s victories in Florida, Ohio and Texas did not create a new path for him, but closed new shortcuts by which Biden could have won the victory on Election Day. In remarks made Wednesday morning from the White House, the president was adamant that he would stick with Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, all states with significant percentages of ballots to be counted.
“We don’t need all of them” to win, he said.
His last chance to turn around is Nevada, another close race, but one in which the majority of uncounted votes are expected to favor Biden.
If not, Trump’s path to winning a second term hinges on staying on the battlefield of the Great Lakes states he won in 2016 and retaining Georgia.
“Trump’s path is exactly the same as it was in 2016,” said Alex Conant, a veteran Republican strategist of Senator Marco Rubio’s campaigns. “It needs to outperform some traditional blue states. Trump wins when voters that Democrats take for granted no longer vote reliably for Democrats. “
In Wisconsin, Biden was well ahead of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 margins in Waukesha County, a suburb of Milwaukee, and Dane County, home to the liberal city of Madison. Milwaukee’s turnout appeared to be lower than in 2016, a worrying possibility for Biden given the city’s heavily Democratic lean.
Still, Democrats were confident that the final vote count would favor Biden.
“I think if you look at what’s counted and what’s not, Biden will almost certainly win Wisconsin,” said Sachin Chheda, a Democratic strategist in Milwaukee.
And then there is Nebraska, one of the two states, along with Maine, that divided their electoral votes by congressional district. Biden won the second congressional district in the state, which includes Omaha. The chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, Jane Kleeb, declared victory early Wednesday morning.
“Omaha is now Joe-maha,” he said.
Because Biden won that one electoral vote from Nebraska, he could secure the presidency by winning Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin, regardless of the outcome in Pennsylvania.
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