Wilmington, Delaware / Washington: President Donald Trump falsely claimed victory over his Democratic rival Joe Biden on Wednesday with millions of votes still to be counted in a race for the White House that will not be decided until a handful of states complete the counting of votes in the next few hours o days.
Shortly after Biden said he was confident of winning the contest once the votes were counted, Trump appeared at the White House to declare victory and said his lawyers would take his case to the United States Supreme Court, without specifying what they would claim. .
“We were preparing to win this election. Frankly, we won this election, ”Trump said. “This is a huge fraud in our nation. We want the law to be used appropriately. So we will go to the Supreme Court of the United States. We want the voting to stop. “
Polls have closed and voting has stopped across the country, but election laws in U.S. states require all votes to be counted, and many states typically take days to finish counting legal ballots. More votes could be counted this year than in the past as people voted early by mail and in person due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Earlier in the evening, Trump won the battlefields of Florida, Ohio and Texas, dashing Biden’s hopes of a decisive early victory, but Biden said he was confident he was on his way to winning the White House by taking three key states. by Rust Belt.
Biden, 77, was looking at the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania that sent Trump, 74, to the White House in 2016 for victories once those states finish counting votes in the next few hours o days. Trump was ahead in all three states in partial counts, and Democratic mail ballots have yet to be counted.
“We feel good about where we are,” Biden said in his home state of Delaware, shouting over a roar of supporters in cars honking their horns in approval. “We believe that we are on the way to winning this election.”
Winning those three states would be enough to give Biden an Electoral College victory. Fox News projected that Biden would win Arizona, another state that voted for Trump in 2016, giving him more options to reach 270 votes in the Electoral College.
Biden leads 220-213 over Trump in the fight for 270 votes in the electoral college, according to Edison Research.
Even without Pennsylvania, Biden’s victories in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin, along with his projected victory in a Congressional district in Nebraska, which distributes electoral votes by district, would place him in the White House, as long as he also has the states. in which Trump lost in 2016.
Biden also leads in Nevada, a state that Trump lost in 2016, while Trump leads in Georgia, a state he easily dominated in 2016, but the votes are still being counted.
‘We are BIG’
“We are in a BIG time, but they are trying to STEAL the election. We will never let them do it. No votes can be cast after the polls close! “Trump said on Twitter before his appearance at the White House, that he was quick to label the tweet as possibly misleading.
“It is not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare the winner of this election. It’s the voters’ place, ”Biden said on Twitter in response to the president.
Trump has repeatedly and without evidence suggested that an increase in vote-by-mail will lead to an increase in fraud, although election experts say fraud is rare and ballots by mail are a long-standing feature of American elections.
In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf said the state had yet to count more than a million mail ballots. He called Trump’s comments a partisan attack. According to Edison Research, more than 2.4 million early votes were cast in the state, of which nearly 1.6 million were from Democrats and approximately 555,000 from Republicans.
Supporters of both candidates called the election a referendum on Trump and his tumultuous first term. The winner will lead a nation strained by a pandemic that has killed more than 231,000 people and left millions more without jobs, racial tensions and political polarization that has only worsened during a virulent campaign.
Trump monitored the election results with members of his family in the living room of the White House residence. Walking in and out of the room were First Lady Melania Trump, her son-in-law Jared Kushner and their daughter Ivanka, among others. “It’s calm, creepy,” said a source familiar with the scene.
Voters also had to decide which political party will control the United States Congress for the next two years, and the Democratic push to gain control of the Senate appeared to fall short. Democrats won just one Republican-held seat, while six other races remained undecided: Alaska, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina and two in Georgia.
A person holds up an “I Voted” sticker as people vote in the US Presidential Election On the first day of California’s extended in-person voting, amid the global outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19 ), at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Angeles, California, USA, October 30, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Lucy Nicholson / File Photo
Latin problem for Biden
Trump’s strong performance in Florida, a state he must win for re-election, was fueled by his best numbers with Latinos. Their participation in the votes in counties with large Latino populations was higher than in the 2016 election.
For months there were complaints from Latino Democratic activists that Biden was ignoring Hispanic voters and lavishing attention instead on black voters in large Midwestern cities. Opinion polls in key states showed that Biden performed poorly with Latinos in the weeks leading up to the election.
In the Miami area, Latinos are predominantly Cuban-American, where generations of families have fled the communist government in Cuba. Trump’s message that Biden is a socialist seemed to work with them and with the Venezuelans there despite Biden’s denials.
Edison’s national exit poll showed that while Biden led Trump among non-white voters, Trump received a slightly higher proportion of non-white votes than in 2016. The poll showed that approximately 11% of African Americans, 31 % of Hispanics and 30% of Asians Americans voted for Trump, 3 percentage points more than in 2016 in all three groups.
US stock futures rose early Wednesday as Trump’s performance improved, but were volatile, lasting 0.5% at 3:50 am ET (0850 GMT).
Voters, many wearing masks and maintaining social distancing to protect against the spread of the coronavirus, flocked to polling places across the country during the day, experiencing long lines in some locations and short waits in many other locations. There were no signs of disruptions or violence at polling places, as some officials feared.
Biden, the former Democratic vice president, placed Trump’s handling of the pandemic at the center of his campaign and had maintained a consistent lead in national opinion polls over the Republican president.
But a third of American voters listed the economy as the issue that mattered most to them when deciding their choice for president, while two in 10 cited COVID-19, according to an Edison Research exit poll on Tuesday.
Trump seeks another term in office after four chaotic years marked by the coronavirus crisis, an economy hit by pandemic stoppages, an impeachment drama, investigations into Russian electoral interference, America’s racial tensions and political controversies in the United States. immigration.
Biden is seeking to win the presidency in his third attempt after a five-decade political career, including eight years as vice president under Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.
Biden has promised a renewed effort to combat the public health crisis, fix the economy, and bridge America’s political divide. This year, the country was also rocked by months of protests against racism and police brutality.
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