Trump may have caught the global headlines but it’s Biden who could have the last laugh
With the election result ult going to the wire, the e spectre of a long legal al fight looms large,ge, writes Michael ael Settle
IN a presidential race that at times resembled the TV reality show Donald nald Trump was famous for, the dramatic tic jaw-dropping moment came at 2.30am 0am in the East Room of the White House. use.
With a backdrop of American flags, ags, the President cheered his supporters ers and outraged his opponents when he he strode up the microphone to suggest st the Democrats had tried to steal the he election but announced they had failed and he had won.
“This is a fraud on the American n public, this is an embarrassment to o our country,” declared Mr Trump. “We were getting ready to win this election; frankly, we did win this election.
“So, our goal now is to ensure the e integrity for the good of this nation. n. This is a very big moment. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. ner. So, we will be going to the US
Supreme Court, we want all voting g to to stop.”
Of course, the Republican candidate, who has nominated three ee of the Supreme Court’s nine justices, es, to give the highest court in the land d a conservative majority, had seen his most recent one, Amy Coney Barrett, confirmed in her new role just a week before the election.
Yet it was not clear what – if any – legal basis Mr Trump has for his claims. Joe Biden’s camp denounced the President’s remarks s as “outrageous”, making clear the law required every “duly cast vote” to be counted.
One CBS news anchor accused the President of “castrating the facts”.
But Mr Trump’s intervention did d not come as a surprise; it had been flagged up days before polling day. The The Biden campaign had been braced for for their opponent to seize on record numbers of postal votes to allege he e was being cheated.
Jen O’malley Dillon, the Biden campaign manager, said: “If the President makes good on his threat t to to go to court to try to prevent the proper oper tabulation of votes, we have legal teams standing by ready to deploy to to resist that effort. And they will prevail.”
With counts continuing in a few key key swing states, it was estimated that as as many as 300 lawsuits had been initiated over mail-in ballots.
Ahead of and into polling day the e Democrats had been upbeat. The nationwide polls gave Mr Biden a healthy lead and while in some of the the key swing states of the Mid-west it was was narrower, his supporters were confident of victory.
However, as the numbers started d to to come in it was clear Mr Trump was s doing much better than the opinion n polls had predicted and received an early major boost when his adopted home state of Florida was called for the President.
But the Democrat bubble could not be burst as just after midnight Arizona was declared for Mr Biden. He took to the stage to tell his chanting supporters that he was, thanks to the early postal voting, “on track” to win.
Over in the White House, The Donald bristled. He had previously warned of the Democrats trying to steal the election and his explosive intervention was about to be made. Outside Black Lives Matter protesters gathered, increasing the tension. Americans, accustomed to divisive politics, were glued to their TVS and tablets, eagerly looking for any sign of clarity about who would win.
Last night, as counting of votes totted up in key states Democrat HQ remained upbeat and privately confident victory was at hand given they had more routes to get their man into the White House.
The focus moved to the so-called “rust belt” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania after Mr Trump carried the prized battleground state of Florida along with the other crucial swing states of Texas, Iowa and Ohio, where Mr Biden had made a strong play in the final stages of the campaign.
By early evening Democrat HQ was claiming victory in Wisconsin, which has 10 electoral college votes. But the Trump campaign made clear it would demand a recount as Mr Biden’s lead was only around 20,000 votes, below one per cent.
Bill Stepien, the state Republican campaign manager, said: “There have been reports of irregularities in several Wisconsin counties which raise
We will be going to the Supreme Court, we want all voting to stop
serious doubts about the validity of the results.
“The President is well within the threshold to request a recount and we will immediately do so.”
The President himself took to Twitter to cast doubt on the counting, saying: “They are working hard to make up 500,000 vote advantage in Pennsylvania disappear – ASAP. Likewise, Michigan and others!” This raised the prospect of other calls for recounts being made if the contests in some of the final key states are very close.
With Pennsylvania, a key swing state with 20 electoral votes, set to declare a result on Friday, Rudi Giuliani, the President’s personal lawyer, ahead of a hastily arranged press conference tweeted excitedly: “En route to Philadelphia with legal team. Massive cheating. @ realdonaldtrump up by 550,000 with 75% counted.
“Will not let Philly Democrat hacks steal it!”
Earlier, Pennsylvania’s Governor Tom Wolf said the state had more than one million postal ballots still to count.
Individual states largely set their own rules for when counting has to end, with federal law requiring all votes to be tabulated by mid-december. So, the wrangling is set to continue for days if not weeks yet.
With offices and businesses boarded up across US cities there is a palpable sense of tension and unease across the country. The next few hours should tell us if the lid can be kept on the American pressure cooker of public opinion.