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“The numbers tell us a clear and compelling story. We are going to win this race,” Biden said in a brief statement Friday night calling for calm and patience at a time of high political tension as vote counters at the Crucial states – Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona – worked through mountains of mostly mail-in ballots.
Biden had already moved from a campaign tone and expressed the need for unity and healing, as he seeks to lay the groundwork for a presidency that will unfold after a tumultuous political period and that will have to address a pandemic that is becoming alarmingly more serious. everyday.
By contrast, Trump, who did not appear to have come to terms with his seemingly imminent defeat before the race was called and was seen arriving at his golf course in Virginia on Saturday, had been launching new and unsubstantiated accusations of massive electoral fraud and irregularities. in a way that suggests that the transition from power could be a bitter process.
“I WON THIS ELECTION, BY FAR!” the president tweeted in contradiction to the rising vote count favoring Biden shortly before CNN screened the race. Since the last polls closed on Tuesday, Twitter has applied warning labels to more than a third of Trump’s tweets, marking some of his posts on Saturday as misleading.
The Democratic nominee extended his leads in Georgia and Nevada and held off the president’s challenge in Arizona as the vote count continued on Saturday, but Pennsylvania pushed him to the top to get the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
In the latest batch of results from the Keystone state, Biden widened his lead over Trump, which is now more than 34,000.
Biden leads Trump by more than 22,000 votes in Nevada and is ahead of more than 7,000 in Georgia. Trump is slashing the Democrat’s lead in Arizona, which has dropped to 20,573 votes with 97% reported, but it’s unclear if his margins are wide enough to overtake his rival in the state with 235,000 votes yet to be counted.
Biden’s late-night appearance in Wilmington, Delaware on Friday contrasts with Trump’s complaint-filled speech the night before, in which the president spewed out false claims that the election is being stolen and vowed to keep fighting in the courts. Claiming a mandate to ease the nation’s angry divisions, the former vice president, who ran unsuccessfully for president in the 1988 campaign, vowed that life in the United States under the Biden administration would be less harrowing and bitter, and as far as it goes. worst. A day still due to Covid-19 infections, more than 125,000, he offered his condolences to those who have lost their loved ones.
“We have to remember: the purpose of our policy is not an all-out, relentless and endless war. No. The purpose of our policy, the nation’s job, is not to fan the flames of conflict, but to solve problems,” Biden said. “To guarantee justice. To give everyone a fair chance. To improve the lives of our people.”
Trump has not appeared in public after his press conference full of complaints and lies at the White House on Thursday, and when a battle of wills began to emerge between the president and Biden’s side over the end of the election. Trump said in a tweet that Biden should not “unfairly claim” the office of president and promised legal proceedings to try to hold onto his post. But so far, the Trump campaign has offered conspiracy theories and indictments, but little concrete evidence to back up its claims of election corruption.
Biden takes the lead in traditionally Republican Georgia
The former vice president’s surprising strength in Georgia was due to large turnout from black voters in Fulton County and other Atlanta suburbs, fatigue with Trump in Georgia’s fast-growing suburbs, which have become increasingly younger and younger. various in recent years, and assiduous work. for more than a decade to boost Democratic registration in the state.
“Right now, Georgia remains too close to call. Out of approximately 5 million votes cast, we will have a margin of a few thousand,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said at a news conference on Friday, adding , “With a margin that small, there will be a count in Georgia.”
There is no automatic recount in Georgia, but a candidate can request a recount after the votes are certified if the results are within 0.5%.
Trump’s campaign attorney general Matt Morgan said in a statement earlier Friday: “Georgia is heading for a recount, where we are confident we will find improperly collected ballots and where President Trump will ultimately prevail.”
No Democratic presidential candidate has won the state since Bill Clinton in 1992. Clinton narrowly defeated former President George HW Bush in that state, in part because he and Bush were in a three-way race that included Ross Perot, a candidate. independent to the presidency.
Trump refuses to back down
As the drama unfolded across the country, the president’s allies launched legal challenges and raised conspiracy theories as Trump tweeted “Stop the count!”
On Thursday night, Trump effectively sent a signal that he has no intention of leaving power without a fight. The White House meeting room speech, in which Trump falsely claimed that votes cast before and during the election, but counted after Election Day, are illegal votes, could end up being one of the most presidential statements. dangerous in America. history.
The president also 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 is why. which favored the Democrats, after Election Day. votes, which tended to favor Republicans.
Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney tweeted Friday that Trump’s comments on a rigged election “hurt the cause of freedom here and around the world,” going further than the rest of the Senate Republican conference, where some of Major Republicans have continued to defend Trump’s unfounded claims. electoral fraud.
As the president spoke Thursday night, the daily count of new coronavirus infections in the US hit 114,876, summarizing how Trump’s political obsessions have fueled his neglect of a crisis that has killed more than 236,000. Americans.
Road to 270
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 proven less likely to use them.
CNN projects that Biden will win at least three of Maine’s four electoral votes, plus Pennsylvania, 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.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
