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The US presidential election was hanging in the balance on Wednesday as Democrat Joe Biden was projected to win one of two critical Midwest states that could tip the race in his favor even as President Donald Trump affirmed the vote. victory and made unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud.
Biden was declared the winner of Wisconsin by various US media outlets shortly before 7:30 pm Irish time, while extending his narrow lead at Michigan. The Republican president won the two pivotal battlefield states in 2016.
Along with Nevada, another state where Biden had a slight edge and there were still votes to count, those states would give Biden the 270 Electoral College votes needed state by state to win the White House. But Trump still had a path to victory with those officially undecided states.
In a conference call duel with reporters, campaign officials insisted that their candidate prevail. “If we count all the legal ballots, we win,” said Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien, which could set the stage for a post-election litigation over the counting of mail-in ballots.
Biden’s campaign manager Jennifer O’Malley Dillon told reporters that the former vice president was on track to win the election, while senior legal adviser Bob Bauer said there was no reason for Trump to invalidate the legally cast votes.
“We are going to defend this vote, the vote for which Joe Biden has been elected to the presidency,” Bauer said, adding that the campaign’s legal team was prepared for any challenge.
Shortly after 6 p.m. Irish time, Biden led 227 to 213 over Trump in the Electoral College vote tally, aiming for the necessary 270 electoral votes.
Twitter posts
Biden was expected to deliver a speech later Wednesday.
Trump continued to make unsubstantiated attacks on the vote-counting process on Twitter Wednesday, hours after he ran into the White House and declared victory in an election that was far from decided. Both Facebook and Twitter flagged various posts by the president for promoting misleading claims.
“We were preparing to win this election. Frankly, we won this election, ”Trump said before launching an extraordinary attack on the electoral process by a sitting president.
“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. ”
We are in 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 are closed!
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
November 4, 2020
Keep the faith, guys. We will win this.
– Joe Biden (@JoeBiden)
November 4, 2020
In a previous tweet, he said: “Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key states, in almost every case controlled and controlled by the Democrats. Then one by one, they began to magically disappear as the surprise dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the “pollsters” got it completely and historically wrong! “
Trump did not provide evidence to support his fraud claim and did not explain how he would fight the results in the Supreme Court, which does not hear direct challenges. Voting concluded as scheduled Tuesday night, but many states typically take days to finish counting the ballots.
Earlier, Biden said he was optimistic about the election outcome and urged his supporters to be patient.
“We think we’ve won Arizona, we just called it up for Minnesota and we’re still in the game in Michigan,” he said as the focus shifted to key states on the battlefield.
“We feel good about Wisconsin and Michigan and we are going to win Pennsylvania. “
LIVE: Follow the results of the US elections as the drama unfolds
In the popular nationwide vote, Biden was comfortably ahead of Trump on Wednesday, with 2.6 million more votes.
Trump won the 2016 election over Democrat Hillary Clinton after winning crucial states on the battlefield despite garnering about 3 million more votes across the country.
Biden’s hopes of a decisive early victory were dashed Tuesday night when Trump won the battlefields of Florida, Ohio and Texas.
Biden led the states of Arizona, a state with a high Latino population, which would make him the second Democratic presidential candidate to win the state in 72 years.
Trump won the state in 2016. The election will now be largely reduced to the trio of “blue wall” states that unexpectedly sent Trump to the White House in 2016: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
In Pennsylvania, where Trump led Wednesday with more than half a million votes, officials said they were slowly making their way through millions of mail-in ballots, likely to benefit Biden.
Across the state, the vote count progressed more slowly in Democratic-leaning counties. In the counties that endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, there were about twice as many ballots left to count than in the counties won that year by Trump.
“The delay we are seeing is a sign that the system is working,” Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf said at a news conference. Michigan officials said Wednesday they expected the state to complete its count by the end of the day.
Among other undecided states, Nevada does not expect to update its vote count until Thursday, state officials said. Two southern states, Georgia and North Carolina, also remain at stake. Trump had an advantage in both.
Texas and Florida
Texas’ 38-vote electoral college award will remain in the hands of Republicans despite Democratic hopes of winning the state for the first time since 1976.
A wave of support from Hispanic voters also gave Trump a decisive victory in Florida Tuesday night, helping him secure the state that has long been seen as a leading battleground.
Trump, who also won the state four years ago, topped his 2016 margins with Florida Hispanics, who make up 19 percent of the state’s voters. Much of the change occurred in Miami-Dade, the county that contains the largest Cuban and Venezuelan communities in Florida.
The Biden campaign had sent former President Barack Obama to Miami on the eve of the election to try to rally supporters.
– Additional Reuters reports
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