COUNTING CONTINUES:
Biden gains in Pa., Ga. as Trump claims fraud
As an anxious country waited to learn the winner of the presidential race, President Donald Trump and Joe Biden emerged toward day’s end to make remarks that were dramatically different.
In a brief appearance before reporters in Wilmington, Del., Biden said he remained confident that he would ultimately prevail but did not lay claim to the White House. Biden gained ground in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia on Thursday.
“Democracy’s sometimes messy,” said Biden, who remained ahead in Arizona on Thursday night but lost some ground there. “It sometimes requires a little patience as well. But that patience has been rewarded now for more than 240 years with a system of governance that’s been the envy of the world.”
He urged calm and emphasized
that “each ballot must be counted.
Hours later in a news conference, Trump claimed without evidence that the vote-counting underway in several states were trying to deny him re-election.
“They’re trying to steal an election, they’re trying to rig an election,” the president said from the White House briefing room. He also baselessly suggested nefarious behavior in Philadelphia and Detroit, cities that he called “two of themost corrupt political places.”
He used much of his appearance to complain about pre-election polls, demonize the news media and try to put the best face on Tuesday’s results, trumpeting his party’s congressional gains. He did not take questions from reporters.
In his speech, Trump expressed no concern about the protracted vote count in Arizona, a state where he’s been cutting into Biden’s lead as more ballots are tabulated.
The president’s remarks deepened a sense of anxiety in the United States as Americans enter their third full day after the election without knowing who would serve as president for the next four years. His statements also prompted a rebuke from some Republicans, though party leaders offered no immediate response.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., a frequent critic of Trump, offered the sharpest rebuke, saying “this is getting insane” and demanding that the president stop “spreading debunked misinformation.”
Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland, wrote, “There is no defense for the President’s comments tonight undermining our Democratic process.”
There were also Republican lawmakers who rushed to Trump’s defense, siding with him in falsely asserting that the vote counting was illegal and that Democrats were trying to cheat. “Radical Dems tried to do away with law and order and are now trying to do away with lawand order at the ballot box,” wrote Rep. Roger Williams of Texas.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., tweeted support for Trump’s claims, writing that “If last 24 hours have made anything clear, it’s that we need new election integrity laws NOW.”
With the world watching, America’s patchwork of electoral laws created a confusing and angst-inducing day for both parties, to say nothing of millions of Americans eager for the campaign’s conclusion.
Biden’s advantage in Arizona, a state The Associated Press has already called for the former vice president, narrowed as thousands of votes were tabulated. But in Georgia and Pennsylvania, Trump saw his early advantage dwindle as mail-in ballots were counted.
Until Trump’s remarks Thursday night, he had not appeared in public since he used a middle-ofthe-night appearance Wednesday to insist he had already won. But he has posted angry Twitter messages, and he continued to do so Thursday.
“All of the recent Biden claimed States will be legally challenged by us for Voter Fraud and State Election Fraud,” he said in one message, without elaborating on what precisely thatwould involve. “STOP THE COUNT!” he exclaimed in another tweet.
Rebuking the president, Twitter labeled some of the messages “disputed” and said they “might be misleading about an election or other civic process.”
In any event, stopping the count now would only ensure that Biden wins the presidency, because he is leading in Arizona and Nevada — states that together would give him 270 electoral votes.
The presidential contest was not the only tight race drawing attention. Akey Georgia Senate race that could decide the majority in the chamber grew even closer as Sen. David Perdue, a Republican, saw his vote share slip under 50 percent in his race against Jon Ossoff, a Democrat. If neither wins a majority, the race would head to a January runoff, setting up the prospect of a hotly contested battle for two Senate seats in Georgia.
A runoff is already planned in the special election for the state’s other seat.
On Thursday, an array of Trump’s political surrogates fanned out to some of the contested states to rally his supporters. And the president’s lawyers filed lawsuit sin several states questioning the integrity of the vote count in hopes of slowing down the process.
He suffered two legal setbacks Thursday when judges in Georgia and Michigan ruled against his campaign. But Trump notched a minor victory in Pennsylvania when a state appellate court acceded to its request to force Philadelphia election officials to grant its election observers better access to areas where workers are counting ballots.
With the counting proceeding slowly in the West, much of the focus Thursday fell on Pennsylvania, where a victory would deliver Biden the presidency no matter the results in the other states, the top election official in the state said Thursday evening that counties were “still counting” and did not offer any timetable for when the tally would be complete.
Trump’s lead in the state, about 26,000 votes as of 9:50 p.m. Central, was shrinking as mail-in ballots were counted in the heavily Democratic cities and suburbs.
The two parties held dueling news conferences in Philadelphia early in the day, with Trump’s supporters insisting his lead would hold statewide and the city’s Democrats, led by former Rep. Robert A. Brady, unveiling an analysis of the remaining vote count that concluded Biden would win Pennsylvania convincingly.
In Georgia, the counting of ballots in numerous counties continued to erode Trump’s advantage in the traditionally Republican state: By Thursday night, he was leading by about 1,900 votes out of nearly 5 million cast.
Tens of thousands of ballots remained to be counted in the state late in the day, including many in Chat ham County, a Democraticleaning county along the Georgia coast that is home to Savannah, and many thousands more from Atlanta-area counties that also lean Democratic.
Georgia’s Republican Party has said it plans to bring up to a dozen lawsuits in the state.
In Arizona, Biden’s lead was down to about 46,000 votes, significantly less than it was on election night. There are several hundred thousand ballots left to count, with many coming from Phoenix’s Maricopa County.
Adrian Fontes, the Democrat who oversees elections in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, said that officials would continue to release updates daily at 8 p.m. Central, including over the weekend.
“We’re plugging along and making it happen,” Fontes said.
The vote count in Maricopa has grown tense, however, since several armed protesters showed up at the county office Wednesday night. On Thursday afternoon, about 200 supporters of Trump also gathered in front of the headquarters of the Arizona Republican Party after a protest earlier in the day involving about 50 Trump supporters dissipated in front of City Hall in Phoenix.
Some in the crowd held signs reading “Don’t Steal Elections,” “Shame on Fox News” and “Recall Fontes.” (Fox News called Arizona for Biden on Tuesday night, inflaming Trump supporters.)
Biden led by just over 11,000 votes in Nevada, but local officials in Las Vegas announced Thursday that 51,000 ballots from Clark County there were being tallied and would be announced Friday. Biden was winning the county by about 8 percentage points. If he wins the bulk of the new votes, it would make it almost impossible for Trump to take the state, because about 70 percent of Nevada’s voters live in Clark County.
In a briefing with reporters, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign manager, acknowledged that his leads in Arizona and Nevada might tighten or otherwise fluctuate. It was a departure fromher position the day earlier when she referred to a “historic victory in a place like Arizona,” though she still expressed optimism about victories in both states.