Biden maintains lead over Trump as vote counts continue in final battleground states

 

President's campaign files suits to stop counting, but unclear if strategy will work

• Electoral college vote stands at 253 for Biden, 214 for Trump.
• 'As far as I'm concerned, I already won,' Trump says, despite ongoing vote counts in several states and neither candidate reaching the required 270 electoral college votes.
• Biden campaign calls Trump's claims 'outrageous, unprecedented and incorrect.'
• Trump campaign sues to halt the vote count in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

With millions of votes yet to be tabulated, Biden already had received more than 71 million votes, the most in history.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden pushed closer to the 270 electoral college votes needed to carry the White House, securing victories in the "blue wall" battlegrounds of Wisconsin and Michigan and narrowing U.S. President Donald Trump's path.

With just a handful of states still up for grabs on Thursday, Trump alleged fraud without providing evidence and tried to press his case in court in some key swing states. It was unclear if any of his campaign's legal manoeuvring over balloting would succeed in shifting the race in his favour.

Two days after election day, neither candidate had amassed the votes needed to win the White House. Biden's victories in the Great Lakes states left him at 253 electoral votes, while Trump has 214.

Biden held narrow leads in Nevada and Arizona while Trump was watching his slim advantage fade in must-win states Pennsylvania and Georgia as mail-in and absentee votes were being counted. The Associated Press and Fox have called Arizona for Biden, but CBC News still considers it too close to call and is waiting to make the determination.

Trump clung to a narrow lead in North Carolina as well, another must-win for him. Trump had to win the states where he was still ahead and either Arizona or Nevada to triumph and avoid becoming the first incumbent U.S. president to lose a re-election bid since fellow Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Trump's campaign said in a statement it was going to make a "major announcement" in Las Vegas on Thursday morning.

With millions of votes yet to be tabulated, Biden already had received more than 71 million votes, the most in history. At an afternoon news conference Wednesday, the former vice-president said he expected to win the presidency but stopped short of outright declaring victory.

"I will govern as an American president," Biden said. "There will be no red states and blue states when we win. Just the United States of America."

It was a stark contrast to the approach of Trump, who early Wednesday morning falsely claimed that he had won the election. Trump's campaign engaged in a flurry of legal activity to try to improve the Republican president's chances and cast doubt on the election results, requesting a recount in Wisconsin and filing lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia.

Statewide recounts in Wisconsin have historically changed the vote tally by only a few hundred votes; Biden led by more than 20,000 ballots out of nearly 3.3 million counted.

It was unclear when a national winner would be determined after a long, bitter campaign dominated by the coronavirus and its effects on Americans and the national economy. But even as Biden's prospects improved, the U.S. on Wednesday set another record for daily confirmed coronavirus cases as several states posted all-time highs. The pandemic has killed more than 233,000 people in the United States.

Trump spent much of Wednesday in the White House residence, huddling with advisers and fuming at media coverage showing his Democratic rival picking up battlegrounds. Trump used his Twitter feed to falsely claim victory in several key states and amplify unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about Democratic gains as absentee and early votes were tabulated.

Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said the president would formally request a Wisconsin recount, citing "irregularities" in several counties. And the campaign said it was filing suit in Michigan and Pennsylvania to halt ballot counting on grounds that it wasn't given proper access to observe. Still more legal action was launched in Georgia.

At the same time, hundreds of thousands of votes were still to be counted in Pennsylvania, and Trump's campaign said it was moving to intervene in existing Supreme Court litigation over counting mail-in ballots there. The campaign also argued that outstanding votes still could flip the outcome in Arizona, showcasing an inconsistency in its arguments over prolonged tabulation.

Trump, in an extraordinary move from the White House, issued premature claims of victory and said he would take the election to the Supreme Court to stop the counting.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell discounted the president's quick claim of victory, saying it would take a while for states to conduct their vote counts. The Kentucky Republican said that "claiming you've won the election is different from finishing the counting."

Vote tabulations routinely continue beyond election day, and states largely set the rules for when the count has to end. In presidential elections, a key point is the date in December when presidential electors meet. That's set by federal law.

Dozens of Trump supporters chanting "Stop the count!" descended on a ballot-tallying centre in Detroit, while about 200 Trump supporters, some armed with rifles and handguns, gathered outside an election office in Phoenix, Ariz., following unsubstantiated rumours that votes were not being counted.

Thousands of anti-Trump protesters demanding a complete vote count also took to the streets in cities across the U.S. Protests — sometimes about the election, sometimes about racial inequality — took place Wednesday in at least a half-dozen cities, including Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and San Diego.

Several states allow mailed-in votes to be accepted after election day as long as they were postmarked by Tuesday. That includes Pennsylvania, where ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 can be accepted if they arrive up to three days later.

Trump appeared to suggest that those ballots should not be counted and that he would fight for that outcome at the high court. But legal experts were dubious of Trump's declaration. Trump has appointed three of the high court's nine justices, including most recently Amy Coney Barrett.

The Trump campaign on Wednesday pushed Republican donors to dig deeper into their pockets to help finance legal challenges. Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, during a donor call, spoke plainly: "The fight's not over. We're in it."

COURTESY CBC.CA

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