MAKE AMERICA WAIT AGAIN
BIDEN CONFIDENT OF WIN AS TRUMP CLAIMING FRAUD
JOE BIDEN was inching closer to the White House last night with a seemingly desperate Donald Trump threatening court action as the delayed US presidential election result descended into chaos.
The Democrat challenger’s campaign team were increasingly confident he would secure the 270 electoral college votes needed, with victories in key states such as Arizona and Wisconsin. Mr Biden declared at a press conference: ‘We believe we will be the winners.’
With counting still not over, it emerged Mr Biden had won more votes than any candidate in history – surpassing the 69,498,516 who backed Barack Obama in 2008. But Republican Mr Trump said he would go to the US Supreme Court over ‘fraud’ involving postal ballots
and was already demanding a recount in Wisconsin. In Michigan – where CNN and Sky News said Mr Biden had won – and Pennsylvania, the party filed lawsuits calling for vote counting to be halted.
Earlier, the president insisted he had ‘already’ won, despite millions of mailed ballot papers still being counted.
He tweeted: ‘ Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled.
‘Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the “pollsters” got it completely & historically wrong!’
Some states, including Nevada, will still be counting votes today, with the prospect of the final result not being known for some days.
Despite his winning margins being lower than pre-election polls had predicted, Mr Biden declared that he was heading towards overall victory regardless of Mr Trump’s claims.
The challenger was 2.6million votes ahead of the president – although Mr Trump won the 2016 election via the electoral college system, despite being 3million votes behind Democrat Hillary Clinton.
As police braced for potential disorder on the streets, both candidates were taking turns as the bookmakers’ favourite.
Some crucial vote-counting faced delays for bizarre reasons, including a printer running out of ink in Green Bay, Wiscon
sin, and a water pipe bursting in Fulton County, Georgia. Reports suggested many of the postal votes came from Democrat-supporting areas.
In a broadcast from the White House, with his wife, Melania, at his side, Mr Trump, 74, said: ‘We were getting ready to win this election... frankly, we did win this election.
‘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.’
Mr Biden described the president’s comments as a ‘naked attempt to take away the democratic rights of American citizens’. He said at last night’s press conference that he was ‘confident we will emerge victorious’, adding: ‘No one is going to take our democracy away from us. There will be no blue states (Democrat) and red states (Republican) when we win. Just the United States of America.’
Key battleground states won by Mr Biden included Minnesota and New Hampshire, while Mr Trump secured the prized electoral college votes in Texas, Iowa, Ohio and Florida. In Nevada, Mr Biden marginally led by 49.3 per cent to 48.7 per cent with 86 per cent of votes tallied – as officials insisted they would not resume counting until this morning.
Inauguration day is on January 20. If Mr Biden wins, he will be 78 and the oldest person to be elected US president... since Mr Trump.