Tense US election wait continues as Democrats confident Biden on course to be new President
THE race to the White House was on a knife edge last night as the Democrat camp continued to exude confidence that Joe Biden was on course to win the presidency, while Donald Trump fired off a raft of legal challenges, still insisting he would secure a second term.
The President spent much of the day in his White House residence, huddled with advisers and fuming at media coverage showing his Democrat rival picking up battleground states.
At one point, Mr Trump was said to be so angry at Fox News projecting a win for Mr Biden in the key state of Arizona, he rang up the station’s owner, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and reportedly “screamed down the phone” to complain.
With many analysts predicting a Biden win in Arizona with its 11 votes in the Electoral College, this placed the former vice-president on 264, just six votes short of the 270 needed to claim victory; one state away from victory, as this is the same number of votes in Nevada, where the Democrat candidate had a narrow one per cent lead of around 11,000 votes.
Mr Trump, on the other hand, was placed on 214 Electoral College votes, which meant if he failed to win Pennsylvania, he would lose the contest.
In the keystone state, which has 20 Electoral College votes, the Republican was ahead. However, in just 24 hours his lead had been cut from
618,000 to 111,000 or 1.8 per cent.
To win the state, therefore, he needed to pick up around 60% of the uncounted ballots, while Mr Trump needed around 40%.
Kathy Boockvar, Pennsylvania’s secretary of state, told CNN it was possible the winner of the state could be announced late last night. In Georgia, which has 16 Electoral
College votes, the race appeared even tighter.
Mr Trump was narrowly ahead by 0.3% or 13,500 votes with some 50,000 ballots still needed to be counted.
This would mean that Mr Biden needed to win almost two-thirds of the remaining uncounted ballots, but it was believed most had come in from Democrat-supporting counties.
The Biden camp said the situation in Georgia was a “true toss-up”.
Tension was mounting on the streets around counting centres in the key swing states.
Trump supporters in Michigan were shouting “stop the count”, while in Arizona they chanted “count the count”.
As the political rollercoaster continued its journey, Jen
O’malley Dillon, Mr Biden’s campaign manager, insisted that it was clear the Democrat candidate would be the next President.
“The counting is happening now in these states and they are moving to us as we see the counting throughout this morning, yesterday and into today, that counting is going to continue to show our path to victory,” she declared.
“Joe Biden now has won more votes than any presidential candidate in history and we’re still counting; over 140 million votes have been counted so far, with more than 72 million of those votes going to vicepresident Biden.”
She said that Mr Trump “knows he is losing” and had chosen to “push a flailing strategy, designed to prevent people’s votes from being counted”.
Ms O’malley Dillon added: “What we’re seeing on these legal suits are that they are meritless and nothing more than an attempt to distract and delay what is now inevitable; Joe Biden will be the next President
of the United States.” Bob Bauer, who is directing Biden’s legal team, denounced “some of the silliness behind” the Republican claims and claimed they were based on the “suspicion of wrongdoing” rather than any actual evidence.
Earlier, Mr Trump, who has alleged electoral fraud by the Democrats but without producing any proof of wrongdoing, took to Twitter, saying: “All of the recent Biden-claimed states will be legally challenged by us for Voter Fraud and State Election Fraud. Plenty of proof – just check out the Media. WE WILL WIN! America First!”
Bill Stepien, the President’s campaign manager, accused Democrats of “lying, cheat and stealing,” claiming illegal behaviour was “running rampant.”
Among the raft of legal challenges, the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in Georgia asking a judge to order election officials there to follow law on storing and counting absentee ballots; not to have Georgia’s vote counting paused as previously thought.
In Nevada, the Trump camp said it would sue the state authority because there were a number of “illegal votes” being counted in that state.
They claimed dead people as well as people who did not meet residency requirements had voted.
One viral video, shared by the President’s son, Eric, appeared to show around 80 ballots being put into a bag, doused with a flammable liquid, and set on fire.
However, officials in Virginia said the ballots shown in the video lacked official markings and were merely samples.
The Trump camp has demanded a recount in Wisconsin after it was put down as a Biden win. However, statewide recounts in the Badger State have historically changed the vote tally by only a few hundred votes; Mr Biden led by more than 20,000 ballots out of nearly 3.3m counted.
For four years, Democrats have been haunted by the crumbling of the blue wall, the trio of Great Lakes states – Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – that their candidates had been able to count on every four years.
But Mr Trump’s populist appeal struck a chord with white workingclass voters and he captured all three in 2016 by a combined total of just 77,000 votes.
The candidates waged a fierce fight for the states this year, with Mr Biden’s political persona resonating in working class towns while his campaign also pushed to increase turnout among black voters in cities like Detroit and Milwaukee.
Last night, it was still unclear when the candidate to become America’s 46th President would finally be declared the winner following one of the bitterest contests in recent history and a campaign dominated by the coronavirus and its effects on American life and the national economy.
Whoever occupies the Oval Office from January the battle to beat the coronavirus will remain the top priority.
On Wednesday, there was another record for daily confirmed coronavirus cases as several states posted all-time highs. So far, the pandemic has killed more than 233,000 Americans.