‘We believe we will be the winners,’ Biden says
Supporters of both candidates express fear
WILMINGTON • Democrat Joe Biden said on Wednesday he was headed toward a victory over President Donald Trump in the U. S. election after claiming two pivotal Midwestern states, while the Republican incumbent opened a multipronged attack on vote counts by pursuing lawsuits and a recount.
Wisconsin and Michigan were giving the former vice president who has spent five decades in public life a critical boost in the race to the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House. Trump won both states in 2016. Losing them would narrow his path to securing another four years in office.
“And now after a long night of counting, it’s clear that we’re winning enough states to reach ( the) 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency,” Biden, appearing with his running mate Kamala Harris, said in his home state of Delaware. “I’m not here to declare that we’ve won. But I am here to report that when the count is finished we believe we will be the winners.”
Trump’s campaign asked to intervene in a pending U. S. Supreme Court case over whether Pennsylvania, another key state that was still working its way through hundreds of thousands of mail- in ballots, should be permitted to accept late- arriving ballots sent by Election Day.
His campaign also said it would request a recount in Wisconsin and added that it had filed lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania seeking to halt vote counting, arguing that officials had failed to allow fair access to counting sites.
Trump attacked the integrity of the vote, as he claimed victory and suggested that democrats would try to steal the election.
Biden said, “every vote must be counted. No one’s going to take our democracy away for us, not now, not ever.”
Trump is trying to avoid becoming the first incumbent u.s. president to lose a re-election bid since George h.w. bush in 1992.
Biden won michigan by 67,000 votes, while he was ahead in Wisconsin by just over 20,000 ballots, according to figures from edison research. Several news outlets projected biden as the winner in Wisconsin, though edison did not, citing the pending recount.
Wisconsin law allows a candidate to request a recount if the margin is below 1 per cent, which the Trump campaign immediately said it would do.
In response to the michigan lawsuit, ryan Jarvi, a spokesman for the state attorney general, said the elections had been “conducted transparently.”
Other closely contested states including Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina were still counting votes, leaving the national election outcome uncertain.
At press time, not including Wisconsin, biden led Trump 243 to 213 in electoral College votes, which are largely based on a state’s population.
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.
In Pennsylvania, Trump’s lead dropped to around 320,000 votes as officials 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 the state.
In the nationwide popular vote, biden on Wednesday was comfortably ahead of Trump, with about three million more votes. Trump won the 2016 election over democrat hillary Clinton after winning crucial battleground states even though she drew about three 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.