Democrat Joe Biden, 77 was pushing 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 President Donald Trump’s path.
With just a handful of states still up for grabs, Trump sought to stave off defeat with scattershot legal challenges.
The former senator from Delaware currently has 253 electoral votes — or 264 if the 11 electoral votes from the southwestern state of Arizona are included.
Fox News and AP news agency projected Biden as the winner in Arizona on Tuesday night. But other outlets have yet to do so and vote-counting continues in the state, where Biden has a fairly healthy lead.
The Democratic hopeful could pick up the votes needed for victory from other states where counting was continuing on Thursday — Georgia, Nevada or Pennsylvania.
With 86 percent of the vote counted, Biden has a razor-thin 8,000-vote lead in Nevada, which has six electoral votes.
Nevada was won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 and much of the outstanding vote is from areas of the western state that skew towards Democrats.
Trump, 74, has sizeable leads in Georgia and Pennsylvania but Biden has been making gains as the votes continue to be tallied and his campaign is confident he can overtake the president.
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“STOP THE COUNT!” Trump tweeted on Thursday morning.
“ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED!”
The birthplace of Biden, Pennsylvania, had 20 electoral votes and was considered one of the major awards in Tuesday’s elections.
Georgia, with its 16-vote electoral college, was certainly a Republican state, but it could land in the Democratic Party for the first time since Bill Clinton’s victory in 1992.
President Donald Trump has launched multiple legal challenges to the outcome of US elections
President Donald Trump has launched multiple legal challenges to the outcome of US elections.
Trump won both states in 2016 by carving out his upset victory over Hillary Clinton.
Protrump protesters gather outside Arizona’s ballot counting center
Protrump protesters gather outside Arizona’s ballot counting center.
With defeat imminent, Trump launched several legal protests on Wednesday, announcing proceedings in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, demanding a recount in Wisconsin, where Biden won with only 20,000 votes.
In Michigan, the campaign has filed a proceeding to suspend voting, saying that the “observer” is not allowed to see at close range.
And while Trump-led demands to stop counting votes in Georgia and Pennsylvania, his supporters will continue to count in Arizona and Nevada, where he lags behind. Was insisting.
In Detroit, the home of the Democratic Party, which is mostly black, a crowd of almost white Trump supporters chanted “Stop counting!” I tried to push it into the election office before being blocked by the guards.
A crowd of active Trump supporters gathered outside the ballot-counting offices in Maricopa, Arizona, including Phoenix.
Protesters who were openly carrying guns that were legal in the state chanted, “Count your votes!” When law enforcement officers form a protection line on the door of the facility.
There were anti-Trump protests overnight in Portland, Oregon, resulting in at least 10 arrests, and businesses in several other major cities have boarded up windows as a precaution.
In stark contrast to Trump’s unprecedented rhetoric about being cheated, Biden has sought to project calm, reaching out to a nation torn by four years of polarizing leadership and traumatized by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We have to stop treating our opponents as enemies,” Biden said Wednesday. “What brings us together as Americans is so much stronger than anything that can tear us apart.”
The head of an international observer mission to the US elections called Trump’s demands that vote-counting be halted a “gross abuse of office” on Thursday.
Michael Link told the German daily Stuttgarter Zeitung that Trump’s false allegations of fraud could pose “a danger that goes far beyond election day.”
“Even if he were to admit defeat and hand over office properly, his supporters, incited by rhetoric, may see violence as a legitimate tool because they no longer feel democratically represented,” said Link, who works for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
Russia wants the United States to be able to elect the next president “in full compliance with the US Constitution,” said Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“And most importantly, avoiding large-scale riots in the country,” she added.
The fierce White House competition and criticism evoked memories of the 2000 election between Republican George W. Bush and Democratic Al Gore.
That race, which hinged on a handful of votes in Florida, eventually ended up in the Supreme Court, which halted a recount while Bush was ahead.
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