Defiant Trump claims he is being cheated out of victory

President alleges cheating as lawsuits are submitted in at least four states in race for the White House

DONALD TRUMP last night claimed he had won the election if only “legal” votes were counted as he doubled down on his claims to the presidency despite the result hanging in the balance.

In an address from the White House briefing room, the US president insisted he had triumphed despite ballots still being counted and Joe Biden, his Democratic rival, ahead in the all-important electoral vote count. He gave no evidence for his claims.

“If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes they can try to steal the election from us,” Mr Trump said.

The message echoed his campaign’s blitz of lawsuits aimed at halting counts in critical swing states where the outcome was not yet clear.

Trump campaign officials have been arguing that some mail-in ballots which were received by state officials after election day should be discounted, despite rules in those states allowing that to happen – providing they were submitted before polls closed.

Mr Trump also falsely claimed that Republicans had held the US Senate. At the point he spoke shortly before 7pm in Washington, control of the Senate was still in the balance, with a few tight races yet to call.

Since the polls closed the Trump campaign has submitted lawsuits in at least four battleground states. Some were knocked back by judges, others were awaiting decisions last night.

With all eyes on Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina, the US president continued to tweet claims backing his narrative that the election was being stolen from him. “STOP THE FRAUD!” read one. “STOP THE COUNT!” stated another.

Twitter again limited access to many tweets, initially blocking them with messages stating their contents were “disputed and might be misleading”.

In a brief speech yesterday, Mr Biden said: “We have no doubt that when the count is finished Senator [Kamala] Harris and I will be declared the winners.”

He also voiced implied criticism of the Trump campaign’s legal challenges, saying: “In America the vote is sacred. It’s how people of this nation express their will.” He tweeted last night: “The people will not be silenced, be bullied, or surrender. Every vote must be counted.”

US elections are decided by the electoral college system, with each state having a different number of electoral votes up for grabs. The candidate who reaches 270 or higher wins.

Yesterday afternoon Mr Biden was ahead in both Arizona and Nevada, two states in the West. Winning both would net him the White House.

Mr Trump was ahead in Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. However, his leads were narrowing dramatically as postal votes were counted. But by yesterday evening, all five races were in the balance, each with a margin of just a few percentage points, confounding pre-vote polls.

But much of the Trump campaign’s focus yesterday was on lawsuits alleging widespread fraud, especially over the increased use of postal ballots, which have favoured Mr Biden.

In Michigan and Pennsylvania. the Trump campaign demanded a halt to vote counting, claiming their officials were being denied access to observe the process.

A Michigan judge denied the request to stop the count. In Pennsylvania, Trump campaign officials were allowed better access, a small concession they dubbed a “major” victory. In Nevada, they submitted a lawsuit claiming that ballots had been found in bins and even that dead voters had ballots submitted in their names. The veracity of the allegations was not immediately proven.

His campaign also sought to convince the Supreme Court to decide on the legality of Pennsylvania allowing postal ballots, which arrive by the end of the week, to be counted. The state’s officials had made the change before the election. The ballots had to have been submitted before polls close on Tuesday. It was unclear if the Supreme Court would pick up the legal challenge.

Last night, Trump campaign lawyers filed a new lawsuit in the Pennsylvanian city of Philadelphia, claiming campaign figures were being barred from watching counts. The veracity of the claim was unclear.

The president’s sons were issuing increasingly heated demands on Twitter, criticising Republicans for not speaking out for their father. Donald Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son, urged his father to “go to total war over this election” while Eric Trump, his middle son, tweeted: “Where are Republicans! Have some backbone.”

The Biden campaign, meanwhile, dismissed the lawsuits as “meritless”. Bob Bauer, an attorney for the campaign, claimed the Trump camp was trying to create a “cloud” of suspicion and confusion about the election result. “We see through it, so do the courts and so do election officials,” Mr Bauer said.

The significance of the legal challenges and whether they could have any impact on the result will be based partly on the margins in key states.

If the winning candidate is thousands of votes ahead it is unlikely to go to the courts. In the 2000 election, where both candidates were neck and neck, the result depended on who won Florida, and centred on a win margin of about 500 votes.

Jason Miller, a Trump campaign adviser, claimed that by tonight it would be clear that Mr Trump had won. But Jen O’malley Dillon, Mr Biden’s campaign manager, said: “We are absolutely confident that Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States.”