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WASHINGTON: The Associated Press has not declared a winner in the trio of “blue wall” states – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – still too close to call.
Voting concluded as scheduled Tuesday night, but many states typically take days to finish counting the ballots. Large numbers of people voted by mail due to the coronavirus pandemic, so the count is likely to take longer than usual.
The three battlefield states are among the few still up for grabs for President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden when the polls closed in the United States.
READ: As results of key states are unclear, Trump declares victory
In Pennsylvania, more than 1.5 million votes remained to be counted. Michigan has more than 1 million uncounted ballots, many of which come from the Democratic stronghold of Detroit.
All three states unexpectedly sent Trump to the White House in 2016.
Trump on Wednesday morning prematurely claimed victory in all three states, with millions of votes still unaccounted for. Biden previously said he was confident of winning the contest.
“We are beating Pennsylvania by a huge amount,” Trump said during an appearance at the White House.
“We’re winning Michigan by – I’ll tell you, I looked at the numbers,” he added.
Biden leads 224 to 213 over Trump in the Electoral College vote tally, according to Edison Research.
Trump and Biden still have potential paths to reach the 270 votes needed to win the White House, as states continue to count mail-in ballots.
Earlier in the day, the American media projected a victory for Biden in Arizona. The projected victory gives Biden multiple paths to the White House. If he clings to Nevada, he could secure the presidency by winning the Midwestern states of Wisconsin and Michigan, where he had big leads in the polls before Election Day, even if he loses Pennsylvania.
Trump’s most likely path is through Pennsylvania; if that state wins, re-election would be secured if he also holds onto the southern states and wins at least one midwestern state.
READ: Biden’s Camp: Trump’s offer to stop vote counting is ‘outrageous’
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In a year disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, many states made voting by mail easier, with millions opting to do so rather than venturing to cast their votes in person, something Trump has spent months claiming would lead to widespread voters. fraud.
That spelled a slowdown in the tabulation of results because votes received by mail often take longer to process than ballots cast at polling places.
The closer the margin is in a state, the more votes it takes for The Associated Press to declare a winner.
There are also roughly 20 states that allow ballots received after Election Day to be counted if they were postmarked on Election Day. That includes Pennsylvania, one of the key featured states.
Democrats had long viewed Pennsylvania as part of their “blue wall,” a trifecta that also includes Wisconsin and Michigan, which for years had served as a bulwark in presidential elections. In 2016, Trump each won by less than one percentage point.
Wisconsin and Michigan also have no declared winners.
Biden, who was born in Scranton, claims the status of a favorite son in the state and has long toyed with the idea that he was the “third senator” from Pennsylvania during his decades representing neighboring Delaware. He has also campaigned extensively in the state from his home in Delaware.
