Protesters march to demand every vote be counted in the 2020 US general election, in Chicago, in the night of Nov 4, 2020. (ASHLEE REZIN GARCIA / CHICAGO SUN-TIMES VIA AP)
WILMINGTON/WASHINGTON - Democrat Joe Biden edged closer to victory over President Donald Trump in the US presidential race on Thursday as election officials tallied votes in the handful of states that will determine the outcome.
The Republican president, who during the long and rancorous campaign attacked the integrity of the American voting system, has alleged fraud without providing evidence, filed lawsuits and called for at least one recount.
Some legal experts called the challenges a long shot unlikely to affect the eventual outcome of the election.
As counting continued two days after Election Day, slowed by large numbers of mail-in ballots this year, Biden was leading in Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona and closing in on Trump in Georgia and Pennsylvania
As counting continued two days after Election Day, slowed by large numbers of mail-in ballots this year, Biden was leading in Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona and closing in on Trump in Georgia and Pennsylvania. Multiple Trump lawsuits and a recount request would have to succeed and find in some cases tens of thousands of invalid ballots to reverse the result if Biden does prevail.
Some of the outstanding votes in Georgia and Pennsylvania were clustered in places expected to lean Democratic - like the Atlanta and Philadelphia areas.
In Georgia's Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta, officials said they expected to finish vote tallying on Thursday morning, with 10,000 absentee ballots left to count. By early Thursday, Trump led by 19,000 votes out of nearly 5 million cast in the state.
Trump had to win the states where he was still ahead, including North Carolina, plus either Arizona or Nevada to triumph and avoid becoming the first incumbent US president to lose a re-election bid since fellow Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992.
The president appears to have grown more upset as his leads in some states have diminished or evaporated during the counting. On Thursday morning, he weighed in on Twitter, writing, "STOP THE COUNT!"
To capture the White House, a candidate must amass at least 270 votes in the state-by-state Electoral College. Such electoral votes are based largely on a state's population.
Edison Research gave Biden a 243 to 213 lead in Electoral College votes. Other networks said Biden had won Wisconsin, which would give him another 10 votes.
The counting and court challenges set the stage for days if not weeks of uncertainty before Dec 8, the deadline to resolve election disputes. The president is sworn into office on Jan 20, 2021.
"The litigation looks more like an effort to allow Trump to continue rhetorically attempting to delegitimatize an electoral loss," said Joshua Geltzer, executive director of Georgetown Law's Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.
Razor-thin margins
With tensions rising, about 200 of Trump’s supporters, some armed with rifles and handguns, gathered outside an election office in Phoenix, Arizona, on Wednesday following unsubstantiated rumors that votes were not being counted. Anti-Trump protesters in other cities demanded that vote counting continue.
By early Thursday, Biden had 3.6 million more votes than Trump nationwide, but margins were razor-thin in several states. In Wisconsin, Biden led Trump by roughly 21,000 votes out of 3.3 million cast. In Georgia, Trump led by 19,000 votes out of nearly 5 million cast.
Biden predicted victory on Wednesday and launched a website to begin the transition to a Democratic-controlled White House.
"It's clear that we're winning enough states to reach (the) 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency," Biden, appearing with his running mate Kamala Harris, said in his home state of Delaware. "I'm not here to declare that we've won. But I am here to report that when the count is finished we believe we will be the winners."
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The website, called buildbackbetter.com, declared "the Biden-Harris Administration can hit the ground running on Day One."
Trump's campaign fought to keep Trump's chances alive with lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania to stop vote counting. It demanded a recount in Wisconsin
As Trump spent part of the day airing grievances over Twitter, Biden pledged to govern as a unifier if triumphant.
"What brings us together as Americans is so much stronger than anything that can tear us apart," Biden, appearing with his running mate Kamala Harris, said in his home state of Delaware on Wednesday.
Trump, 74, has long sought to undermine the credibility of the voting process if he lost. Since Tuesday's Election Day, he has falsely declared victory, accused Democrats of trying to steal the election without evidence and vowed to fight states in court.
US election experts say fraud is rare.
Trump's campaign fought to keep his chances alive with the demand for a Wisconsin recount as well as lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania to stop vote counting. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson called his team's lawsuit "frivolous."
His campaign filed a lawsuit in Georgia to require that Chatham county, which includes the city of Savannah, separate and secure late-arriving ballots to ensure they are not counted.
It also asked the US Supreme Court to allow Trump to join a pending lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania Republicans over whether the battleground state should be permitted to accept late-arriving ballots.
The maneuvers amounted to a broad effort to contest the results of a still undecided election a day after millions of Americans went to the polls during the coronavirus pandemic that has upended daily life.
US President Donald Trump speaks in the East Room of the White House, in Washington, in the morning of Nov 4, 2020. (EVAN VUCCI / AP)
While fighting to stop the count in states where he feared losing, Trump blasted news organizations that projected losses in Arizona and Nevada, states he thought he should be winning. He tweeted his consternation over mail-in voting.
"They are finding Biden votes all over the place -- in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. So bad for our Country!" he posted on Twitter.
Every vote must be counted. No one's going to take our democracy away for us, not now, not ever. America's come too far, America's fought too many battles, America has endured too much to ever let that happen.
Joe Biden, US Democratic candidate
Biden said, "Every vote must be counted. No one's going to take our democracy away for us, not now, not ever. America's come too far, America's fought too many battles, America has endured too much to ever let that happen."
Biden won Michigan by 67,000 votes, or 1.2 percent, while he was ahead in Wisconsin by just over 20,000 ballots, or 0.6 percent, according to figures from Edison Research, which projected Biden as the winner in Michigan. Several news outlets projected Biden as the winner in Wisconsin, though Edison did not, citing the pending recount.
Wisconsin law allows a candidate to request a recount if the margin is below 1 percent, which the Trump campaign immediately said it would do.
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In response to the Michigan lawsuit, Ryan Jarvi, a spokesman for the state attorney general, said the elections had been "conducted transparently."
Voting concluded on Tuesday night, but many states routinely take days to finish counting ballots, bolstered by a surge in mail-in ballots nationally because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Other closely contested states, including Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, were still counting votes, leaving the national election outcome uncertain.
Tump campaign manager Bill Stepien called the president the winner in Pennsylvania. Biden said he felt "very good" about his chances in the state.
READ MORE: US voters pin hope on next president to end pandemic, rifts
Election workers in Pennsylvania's Chester county process mail-in and absentee ballots for the 2020 general election at West Chester University, in West Chester, on Nov 4, 2020. (MATT SLOCUM / AP)
Potential gridlock
If victorious, Biden will face a tough battle to govern, with Republicans appearing poised to keep control of the US Senate and likely block large parts of his legislative agenda, including expanding healthcare and fighting climate change.
Supporters of both candidates expressed anger, frustration and fear with little clarity on when the election would be resolved
US stock index futures jumped on Thursday as investors were optimistic that a potential gridlock in Washington could reduce the chance of major policy changes, although concerns remained about the risk of a contested election.
The contentious election aftermath capped a vitriolic campaign that unfolded amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 233,000 people in the United States and left millions more jobless. The country has also grappled with months of unrest involving protests over racism and police brutality.
Supporters of both candidates expressed anger, frustration and fear with little clarity on when the election would be resolved.
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Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 after winning crucial battleground states even though she drew about 3 million more votes nationwide.
Republican candidates have won the popular vote only once since the 1980s, though they have won three out of seven presidential elections during that period due to the Electoral College system.
US Democratic presidential candidate and former vice-president Joe Biden speaks in Wilmington, Delaware, on Nov 4, 2020. (CAROLYN KASTER / AP)
Legal experts had warned the election could get bogged down in state-by-state litigation over a host of issues, including whether states can include late-arriving ballots that were mailed by Election Day. Both campaigns have marshaled teams of lawyers in preparation for any disputes.
In the case in which the Trump campaign sought to intervene, the Supreme Court previously allowed Pennsylvania to move forward with a plan to count ballots mailed by Election Day that arrive up to three days later.
But some conservative justices suggested they would be willing to reconsider the matter, and state officials planned to segregate those ballots as a precaution.
Ahead of the election, Trump had said he wanted his latest US Supreme Court appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, confirmed by the Senate in case the court had to hear any electoral dispute. Democrats had criticized the president for appearing to suggest he expected Barrett to rule in his favor.
Trump continued to make unsubstantiated attacks on the vote-counting process on Twitter on Wednesday, hours after he appeared at the White House and declared victory in an election that was far from decided. Both Facebook and Twitter flagged multiple posts from the president for promoting misleading claims.
READ MORE: Trump, Biden scour battleground states for votes on last day
In this Nov 3, 2020 photo, supporters of US President Donald Trump chant and wave flags during a celebration on election night in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami. (WILFREDO LEE / AP)
"We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election," Trump said before launching an extraordinary attack on the electoral process by a sitting president. "This is a major fraud on our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we'll be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop."
Trump provided no evidence to back up his claim of fraud and did not explain how he would fight the results at the Supreme Court.
