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WILMINGTON, DELAWARE / WASHINGTON (REUTERS, BLOOMBERG) – The presidential election was up for grabs Wednesday (November 4), with a handful of states set to decide the outcome in the next few hours or days, even as President Donald Trump falsely claimed the victory and made unfounded accusations of electoral fraud.
President Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden still have possible paths to reach the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House as states continue to count the mail-in ballots that emerged amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Shortly after Biden said he was confident of winning the contest once the votes were counted, Trump appeared at the White House in the early hours 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, in 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. Then we will go to the Supreme Court of the United States. We want the voting to stop. ”
He did not provide evidence to support his claim of fraud. 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 trio of “blue wall” states that unexpectedly sent Trump to the White House in 2016 – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – stayed too close to call.
Biden had a slight lead in Nevada, where officials said they would not resume counting until Thursday.
Two southern states, Georgia and North Carolina, were also still at stake; Trump had an advantage in both.
However, legal experts have said the election outcome could get bogged down in state-by-state litigation over a number of issues, including whether states can include late-arriving ballots that were mailed before Election Day. .
Even before Tuesday, the 2020 campaign saw a record number of lawsuits in dozens of states, as the coronavirus pandemic forced election officials to prepare for an election like no other.
Both campaigns have assembled teams of attorneys in preparation for any dispute.
Before the election, Trump had said he wanted the Senate to confirm his last appointee by the United States Supreme Court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in case the court had to hear an election dispute.
Democrats had criticized the president for giving the impression that he expected Judge Barrett to rule in his favor.
Trump has repeatedly said, without evidence, that widespread voting by mail will lead to fraud, although US election experts say fraud is extremely rare.
In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf said the state had yet to count more than a million mail ballots and called Trump’s comments a partisan attack.
According to Edison Research, the state cast more than 2.4 million early votes, 1.6 million registered Democrats, and approximately 555,000 Republicans.
The next president will lead a nation hit by a pandemic that has killed more than 231,000 people and left millions more out of work, as well as racial tensions and political polarization that have only worsened during a virulent campaign.
A victory for Biden in either of the two would greatly reduce Trump’s chances. Biden’s victory in Arizona – both Fox News and the Associated Press projected that he would win the state – gave him 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 he wins that state, he would secure re-election if he also holds onto the southern states and wins at least one midwestern state.
Biden leads 224 to 213 over Trump in the Electoral College vote tally, according to Edison Research.
‘Outrageous’
Biden’s hopes for a decisive early victory were dashed Tuesday night when Trump won the battlefields of Florida, Ohio and Texas.
But the 77-year-old former vice president said he was confident he could win if he kept the three key Rust Belt states.
“We feel good about where we are,” Biden said in his home state of Delaware, shouting over a blast of supporters in cars honking their horns in approval.
“We believe that we are on the way to winning this election.”
During the final days of the campaign, Trump had suggested that he would claim victory if he moved forward on election night and would seek to stop the counting of additional ballots.
“The president’s statement tonight about trying to shut down the tally of properly cast votes was outrageous, unprecedented and incorrect,” Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement.
Edison’s national exit poll showed that while Biden led Trump among non-white voters, Trump received a slightly higher share of non-white votes than in 2016.
The poll showed that about 11 percent of African Americans, 31 percent of Hispanics, and 30 percent of Asian Americans voted for Trump, 3 percent more than in 2016 in all three groups.
Biden 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.
Global stocks spun in early trading as results rolled in, with a final decision that now looks unlikely for days and the outcome increases the potential for stagnation complicating the possibility of a rapid increase in US government spending. To counteract the effects of the pandemic.
‘It is the place of the voters’
“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, 74, tweeted before his appearance at the White House. Twitter was quick to tag 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.
It was not clear what Trump meant when he said he would ask the Supreme Court to stop the “vote.”
The election will also decide which 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.
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.
For months there had been 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.
Trump’s chaotic four years in office have been marked by the coronavirus crisis, an economy hit by pandemic shutdowns, an impeachment drama, investigations into Russian election interference, racial tensions and controversial immigration policies.
Biden is making his third attempt to win the presidency after a five-decade political career, including eight years as vice president under Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.
The wait continues
Biden entered Election Day in a strong position, leading nationally by 7.2 percentage points, as well as in most undecided states, according to the RealClearPolitics poll average.
But the Election Day vote was expected to favor Trump in large part because Democrats encouraged their supporters to cast their early votes.
Despite Biden’s lead, some Democrats are scared Trump could defy the polls and win, just as he did in 2016.
But Biden’s lead over Trump in national polls is greater than Clinton’s on Election Day 2016.
RealClearPolitics had her ahead of Trump nationally by 3.2 percentage points.
Biden has also had a consistent lead in some key states that he needs to win, while in 2016 some of those states were surveyed infrequently and were assumed to be a hit to Democrats.
On Tuesday, Trump predicted a “big red wave” among Republicans who cast their votes in person rather than voting early or by mail, as many Democrats had done.
“I think we’re going to have a great night,” Trump told reporters when he stopped at his campaign headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, before returning to the White House to await poll results and work the phones.
The vote is taking place amid a deadly wave of the coronavirus pandemic, leading to millions of votes being cast by mail, a change that could delay the official recount in some battlefield states for days.
In Pennsylvania, for example, election officials were unable to begin processing early ballots until Tuesday, and it is unclear how long it will take for officials to count them.
Information on early turnout suggested that Republicans had erased the leadership of Democrats in early voting and by mail in Florida, a key state, Bloomberg reported.
“If there’s anything to talk about tonight, I’ll talk about it,” Biden said Tuesday afternoon at a campaign stop in Wilmington, Delaware.
“If not, I will wait until the votes are counted the next day.”
Biden’s campaign sees multiple paths to victory, while Trump has a narrower route that includes recapturing Pennsylvania while protecting the other states he won in 2016.
A victory for Biden in those states would almost guarantee him a victory.
For live results and updates, follow our live coverage of the US elections.
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