Democrat Joe Biden predicted victory over President Donald Trump after winning two critical US states, while the Republican incumbent alleged fraud, filed lawsuits and demanded recounts in a race yet to be decided a day after polls closed.
- KEY POINTS
- TRUMP has won Texas, Ohio, Montana, Idaho, Iowa, Florida, Kansas, Missouri, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Louisiana, Indiana, Arkansas, West Virginia, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky.
- BIDEN has won Arizona, California, Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Hawaii, New York, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Illinois, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, Virginia, Colorado, District of Colombia, Wisconsin, Michigan.
While stopping short of declaring victory, Biden launched a website for a transition to a Democratic-controlled White House. His team called it buildbackbetter.com and declared "the Biden-Harris Administration can hit the ground running on Day One."
As Trump spent part of the day airing grievances over Twitter, Biden pledged to govern as a unifier if triumphant.
"What brings us together as Americans is so much stronger than anything that can tear us apart," Biden, appearing with his running mate Kamala Harris, said in his home state of Delaware on Wednesday (local time).
"Democracy is very much alive in the United States... We the people will not be silenced, we the people will not be bullied, will not surrender."
At the moment, not including Wisconsin, where the Republican Trump has demanded a recount, Edison Research gives Biden a 243 to 213 lead over Trump in Electoral College votes, which are largely based on a state's population.
A former vice president with five decades in public life, Biden, 77, was projected by television networks to win the Midwestern states of Michigan and Wisconsin, a boost to his hopes of entering the White House on Jan. 20.
Trump, 74, who won both states in 2016, now has fewer options to secure a second four-year term. He hopes to avoid becoming the first incumbent US president to lose a re-election bid since George H.W. Bush in 1992.
Trump has long sought to undermine the credibility of the voting process if he lost. Since Tuesday, he has falsely declared victory, accused Democrats of trying to steal the election without evidence and vowed to fight states in court.
US election experts say fraud is very rare.
TRUMP MOUNTS LEGAL CHALLENGES
Trump's campaign fought to keep his chances alive with the demand for a Wisconsin recount as well as lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania to stop vote counting. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson called his team's lawsuit "frivolous."
His campaign filed a lawsuit in Georgia to require that Chatham County, which includes the city of Savannah, separate and secure late-arriving ballots to ensure they are not counted.
It also asked the US Supreme Court to allow Trump to join a pending lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania Republicans over whether the battleground state should be permitted to accept late-arriving ballots.
The manoeuvres amounted to a broad effort to contest the results of a still undecided election a day after millions of Americans went to the polls during the coronavirus pandemic that has upended daily life.
While fighting to stop the count in states where he feared losing, Trump blasted news organisations that projected losses in Arizona and Nevada, two states he thought he should be winning. He tweeted his consternation over mail-in voting.
"They are finding Biden votes all over the place -- in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. So bad for our Country!" he posted on Twitter.
Biden said every vote must be counted. "No one's going to take our democracy away from us, not now, not ever," he said.
Voting concluded on Tuesday night, but many states routinely take days to finish counting ballots, bolstered by a surge in mail-in ballots nationally because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Other closely contested states, including Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, were still counting votes, leaving the national election outcome uncertain.
Trump earlier continued to make baseless attacks on the vote-counting process on Twitter on Wednesday, hours after he appeared at the White House and declared victory in an election that was far from decided. Both Facebook and Twitter flagged multiple posts from the president for promoting misleading claims.
"We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election," Trump said before launching an extraordinary attack on the electoral process by a sitting president. "This is a major fraud on our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we'll be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop."
Trump provided no evidence to back up his claim of fraud and did not explain how he would fight the results at the Supreme Court, which does not hear direct challenges.
The uncertainty only added to the anxiety many Americans were feeling following a vitriolic campaign that unfolded amid a pandemic that has killed more than 231,000 Americans and left millions more jobless. The country has also grappled with months of unrest involving protests over racism and police brutality.
Jeff Brower (48), a registered independent in Atlanta, stayed up past midnight fretting about the vote count in Georgia, where officials are still tallying ballots.
"I woke up feeling as anxious as ever," said Brower, who owns a general contracting business and voted for Biden. "This election is crucial to the future of America."
THE PANDEMIC EFFECT
The contentious aftermath capped a vitriolic campaign that unfolded amid a pandemic that has killed more than 233,000 Americans and left millions more jobless. The country has also grappled with months of unrest involving protests over racism and police brutality.
Supporters of both candidates expressed anger, frustration and fear with little clarity on when the election would be resolved.
Trump led in Georgia and North Carolina, while his lead dwindled in Pennsylvania. Without Wisconsin and Michigan, he would have to win all three as well as either Arizona or Nevada, where Biden was leading in the latest vote counts.
Biden would be only the second Democratic presidential candidate to win Arizona in 72 years. Trump won the state in 2016.
In Pennsylvania, Trump's lead dropped to around 320,000 votes as officials gradually worked their way through millions of mail-in ballots, which were seen as likely to benefit Biden. Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien called the president the winner in Pennsylvania, even though state officials had not completed the count. Biden said he felt "very good" about his chances in Pennsylvania.
In the nationwide popular vote, Biden on Wednesday was comfortably ahead of Trump, with about 3 million more votes. Trump won the 2016 election over Democrat Hillary Clinton after winning crucial battleground states even though she drew about 3 million more votes nationwide.
In the case in which the Trump campaign sought to intervene, the Supreme Court previously allowed Pennsylvania to move forward with a plan to count ballots mailed by Election Day that arrive up to three days later.
But some conservative justices suggested they would be willing to reconsider the matter, and state officials planned to segregate those ballots as a precaution.
Ahead of the election, Trump had said he wanted his latest US Supreme Court appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, confirmed by the Senate in case the court had to hear any electoral dispute. Democrats had criticised the president for appearing to suggest he expected Barrett to rule in his favour.
Trump has repeatedly said without evidence that widespread mail-in voting would lead to fraud, although US election experts say fraud is very rare.
The election will also decide which party controls the US Congress for the next two years, and the Democratic drive to win control of the Senate appeared to be falling short. Democrats had flipped two Republican-held seats while losing one of their own, and five other races remained undecided - Alaska, Michigan, North Carolina and two in Georgia.
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Comments
"We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election," Trump said" so Trump gets lambasted by the media yet again but the other camp says "We're going to defend this vote, the vote by which Joe Biden has been elected to the presidency" isn't lambasted, shows where the allegiances lie, can't tell me there is no bias in the media.
"Unite America"
How and exactly will Biden and the democrats unite all those millions of conservatives who were witnesses of a massive scam by democrats to undermine and unseat a legally elected president via phony Trump/Russia collusion and sham impeachment?!
The ONLY thing democrats have achieved during the last 4 years is to alienate many millions of Americans.
Besides, Biden won't be president long enough to do anything....Kamala Harris will replace him soon after the inauguration ceremony. You'd be a fool not to see that coming!
Where are the Russian hackers? Where is the Russian fake news? Where is the Russian collusion? This was all a lie and the silence about it this year speaks volumes. Shame on our media for buying into this and echoing that narrative here on our news without objectivity. You are no more than shills of the dysfunctional US political partisan polarity.