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A key state on the battlefield in the 2020 presidential election is expected to affirm the victory of Democrat Joe Biden over President Donald Trump, marking another setback for Trump’s efforts to stay in power.
Georgia’s top election official, a Republican, has said a labor-intensive manual recount likely won’t erode Biden’s initial 14,000-vote margin enough to give Trump a victory in the state.
That would leave Trump with fewer and fewer options as he tries to overturn the results of an election in which he got 5.8 million fewer votes than Biden nationwide.
To stay in office, Trump would have to overturn the results in at least three large states to change the Electoral College results state-by-state that determines the winner.
Biden has garnered 306 electoral college votes to Trump’s 232.
Trump’s campaign has had little success so far.
In Wisconsin, election officials say an ongoing partial recount in the state’s largest Democratic-leaning counties will likely only add to Biden’s 20,000-vote margin.
The Trump campaign may request another recount in Georgia after that state certifies its vote count, which is expected tomorrow.
In Michigan and Pennsylvania, Trump’s lawyers have met with a string of defeats, arguing that those states should declare Trump the winner, despite unofficial results showing Biden ahead by 158,000 votes and 83,000. votes, respectively.
Those legal motions, peppered with factual errors, have been dismissed by the Biden campaign as “theatrical” not based on solid law.
Several prominent law firms withdrew from the operation, leaving Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani at the forefront of the efforts.
State and federal election officials, as well as outside experts, say Trump’s argument that the election was stolen from him by widespread election fraud is factually unfounded.
However, it appears to be affecting public confidence in American democracy. A Reuters / Ipsos opinion poll released yesterday found that roughly half of Republicans believe Trump “rightfully won” the election.
Arizona’s top election official, Katie Hobbs, said she and her family had received violent threats. Hobbs, a Democrat, called on Trump to stop questioning the result.
Trump himself has no public events scheduled for today. He has largely remained in the White House and has been out of the public eye since the election.
So far, his administration has refused to recognize Biden as the winner, delaying funding and security clearances to ease the transition from one president to another ahead of the January 20 inauguration.
Biden said yesterday that the delay prevents his team from planning new efforts to combat a third wave of coronavirus infections, which is putting enormous pressure on the US healthcare system.
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