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President Donald Trump and Joe Biden, his Democratic rival, traded victories in conservative and liberal states as they awaited results on the battlefields that will decide the elections, including Florida.
Trump won solidly conservative states like Indiana, Tennessee, and South Carolina. Biden took New York, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts and Illinois, all states where the former vice president expected victories.
As results began to roll in from the eastern states, both candidates focused on Florida, where the race was incredibly tight. With 91 percent of the votes counted, Trump had a 2.2-point lead.
Florida is one of the largest swing states, casting 29 of the 270 electoral college votes required to win the White House. It is particularly critical for Trump, whose path to 270 would be nearly impossible without a victory there.
Biden doesn’t need to win Florida to take the White House, but he hoped he could take back the Sunshine State after Trump’s victory in the state four years ago. A loss in the state would put more pressure on Biden to win Pennsylvania, another crucial battlefield.
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Larry Sabato, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, said losing Florida would be a “big setback” for Biden. Now the pressure for a big victory in an undecided state is on the Democrats. Getting closer means nothing. “
As of 9 p.m. ET, none of the swing states had been called for any of the candidates.
Aside from Florida, Trump and Biden were paying close attention to battlefields like North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.
Biden took an early lead in Ohio, a rust belt state that was essential to Trump four years ago, with about a third of the votes counted.
But it was difficult to draw conclusions because the results from more liberal and conservative parts of the states came at different times. Counting has also been complicated by the large number of mail-in ballots that were cast as voters tried to avoid the polls due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden took the lead in Texas, the second-largest award with 38 electoral college votes. Democrats hope that changing demographics and anti-Trump sentiment, particularly among suburban women, will help Biden become the first Democrat to win the state since Jimmy Carter in 1976.
But experts in Texas warned that early results would favor Biden, while rural areas that later tabulate the results would lean toward Trump.
In the Senate races, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, defeated Amy McGrath, a former fighter pilot, in the Kentucky Senate race. While his seat was not deemed high-stakes, Republicans are desperately trying to defend their increasingly vulnerable 53-47 majority in the Senate.
More than 100 million Americans cast their votes before Election Day, putting the US on track for its highest voter turnout rate in more than a century. Democrats are bracing for potential legal trouble if Republicans attempt to challenge the absentee ballot count after Election Day, as is allowed in states like Pennsylvania.
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