By Maeve Reston and Stephen Collinson, CNN
Millions of legally cast votes are being counted in elections offices around the country as the presidential race between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden comes down to a handful of battleground states.
Biden holds the lead in the Electoral College at
this
stage in the
night, 224-213; 270 electoral votes are needed to become
president.
Experts had warned for months that a result may not be known on election
night, or even days afterward, as voters voted by
mail in record
numbers. As of early
Wednesday morning, it was still too close to call in Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada,
Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine,
Georgia and the potentially critical state of Pennsylvania.Trump won a close
race in
Florida, which was one of the states Biden had hoped to peel away from the President’s 2016
map and has a narrow
edge in North Carolina. The former vice
president has taken the lead in
Wisconsin and is hoping that Arizona, where he has a 5-percentage point lead with 82% of the ballots counted, could be his first victory of the
night that turns a
red state
blue.Increasingly it appears that the result of the entire election could hinge on whether Biden can restore the Democratic “blue wall” in Michigan,
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, a scenario that could stretch into the coming days as large
numbers of
mail-in votes are counted.Biden currently leads the Electoral College at this early
stage in the
night, but the
key battlegrounds that will decide who serves as
president for the next four years are still in
play.The
night unfolded as the most unorthodox election
night in modern memory. At
times it appeared like one candidate or the other was heading for an early
win in important states. But batches of mail-in and early votes meant the count often dramatically shifted one way or the other.Polls are now closed across the US on a nerve-jangling
night that will
set the nation’s course for the next four years and cast judgment on the most tumultuous presidency of the modern age. Results are flowing in from battlegrounds and it’s too early to make a projection in many
key states.
CNN projects Biden will
win Hawaii, Rhode
Island, Minnesota,
Virginia, California, Oregon,
Washington, Illinois, New Hampshire, New
Mexico, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey,
New York, Vermont, Delaware,
Washington, DC, Maryland, Massachusetts and one of Nebraska’s five electoral votes. Nebraska awards two electoral votes to its statewide
winner and divides three others over its three congressional districts.
CNN projects Trump will also
win in Montana,
Texas, Iowa, Idaho,
Ohio, Mississippi, Wyoming, Missouri, Kansas, Utah, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, North
Dakota, South
Dakota, Arkansas, Indiana,
Oklahoma, Kentucky,
West Virginia and Tennessee and four of Nebraska’s five electoral votes.Trump’s chilling threat to vote countingTrump attempted to claim victory in the presidential
race and called for a halt to legitimate vote counting that is underway around the country in a chilling threat to American
democracy.In fact, the election is far from over with
millions of votes outstanding in
key states like Pennsylvania,
Wisconsin and Michigan — ballots that were cast before Election Day that have yet to be counted. Yet Trump sought to mislead his loyal supporters by conflating the legitimate counting of ballots with voting as he falsely claimed Democrats were trying to “steal the election.”Facing the
real possibility that he could lose, Trump — as expected — appeared to be seizing the
opportunity to confuse his supporters about the democratic process and suggest that there was something nefarious about the fact that many states are still counting votes. The lengthy vote count, which could extend for several days, was widely anticipated because so many Americans cast vote-by-mail ballots to protect themselves from exposure to the coronavirus in the middle of a pandemic.While making the ludicrous suggestion that the counting of legally cast votes should stop as he watched his margins narrow in several
key swing states, Trump made a
wild threat that his lawyers would take their case to the Supreme Court even though it remains unclear what their legal rationale would be.Even within Trump’s short speech there was a glaring inconsistency in his position as he advocated for votes to continue to be counted in Arizona, a state that he believes is more favorable to him, while expressing anger that one
network had called it early.
CNN has not projected a
winner in Arizona.He celebrated his victories in
Florida and
Ohio, and claimed to
win multiple states that
CNN has yet to
project. His call for an
end to the counting was the kind of dangerous election
night speech that political observers
long feared Trump would make, in which he falsely claimed, “This is a
major fraud on our nation.”Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon ripped Trump’s speech as “a naked effort to take away the democratic rights of American citizens.”“The President’s statement
tonight about trying to shut down the counting of duly cast ballots was outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect,” she said, adding, “It was unprecedented because never before in our
history has a
president of the United States sought to strip Americans of their
voice in a national election. Having encouraged Republican efforts in multiple states to prevent the legal counting of these ballots before Election Day, now
Donald Trump is saying these ballots can’t be counted after Election Day either.”Biden was the first candidate to speak to supporters early
Wednesday morning, after a
night of results didn’t deliver a
quick winner, saying that “we believe we’re on
track to
win this election.” The former vice
president said it was not up to him or Trump to decide the
winner of the election and that the votes would be counted. “Keep the faith guys, we’re going to
win this,” Biden said.Trump wins two must-have statesWins for Trump in the Sunshine State and
Ohio are crucial to keep open his pathway to
win a second term.
Florida Democrats were concerned early in the
night about populous southern Miami-Dade County where Biden appeared to be underperforming Clinton’s mark in 2016.The early Biden deficit in Miami-Dade could be a
sign of what was apparent in pre-election polls that suggested the
President had been making incursions into traditional Democratic
support with
Black and Latino
men. Former
President Barack
Obama made two trips to Miami-Dade in the closing days of the
race to
drive up turnout. Miami-Dade, which Biden is still likely to
win, has large concentrations of voters of Cuban and Venezuelan descent who tend to be more conservative than other Latino groups and were targeted by the
President with claims that Democrats were akin to socialists.The
President also opened up a solid lead in
Ohio after early returns showed Biden in the lead. The Buckeye State was another battleground that Trump’s campaign thought he must
win in
order to earn another four years in
Washington. Biden spent
time in the state on Monday and was another place that the Democrat had hoped to flip.Biden does not need to
win Florida and
Ohio in
order to
win the presidency, but his campaign had hoped to flip those states after several encouraging polls in the final weeks of the campaign.Biden performs well in ArizonaBiden appears to have made significant gains in Arizona where demographic changes have accelerated the state’s
shift from traditional Republican territory to a
potential Democratic pick up. The President’s unpopularity and the
rapid growth of the state — from its rising Latino population to the influx of retirees from the Midwest and other parts of the country — has made its politics more unpredictable, even in just the four years since 2016, when Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the state 49% to 45.5%.Clinton built up Democratic margins in populous Maricopa County, which includes
Phoenix and its suburbs — and the majority of the state’s voters — and Biden appears to be continuing that trend
Tuesday night, with turnout looking strong in that
key county.Even within the patchwork of early returns, some trends were emerging that pointed to the fact that is a very different
race than 2016. In states like
Ohio and parts of
Florida, Biden appears to be performing better in the suburbs than Clinton did four years ago. At the same
time, the President’s
team seems to have succeeded in turning out their voters as promised — in some cases making up for what appeared to be an advantage for Democrats in the early vote count in
key swing states.Results may not be known for daysMillions of ballots were still outstanding in those critical three states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin, many of them vote-by-mail ballots that were cast early and were expected to favor Democrats.Even
Georgia appeared at a standstill as officials in Fulton County, which includes
Atlanta and its populous suburbs said they had stopped counting mail-in ballots around 10:30 p.m. ET and that count would resume at 8 a.m.
Wednesday. The Fulton County tabulation was initially delayed by a
water leak near the
room where ballots were being counted but no ballots were damaged.Election officials in the so-called “Blue Wall” states of the Midwest tried to prepare the
public late
Tuesday night for the likelihood that a
full count would continue through the
night, and could stretch well into
Wednesday and later this week — meaning America may not know the
winner of the presidential contest for quite some
time.The
slow count in those Midwestern states is creating mounting anxiety for Democrats, who had hoped Biden could post some early wins on the board in swing states to prevent
President Trump from declaring a premature victory before even crossing the 270 electoral vote threshold that he needs to
win.For weeks now, Trump has hammered the message that voters should know the results on election
night — even though that is rarely the case in America — while suggesting that a later count could be a
sign of voting irregularities, even though there is no evidence to
support that and counting has been much more complex this cycle because so many
people cast votes by mail in
order to stay safe during the pandemic.Michigan officials are predicting record turnout, and are hoping that ballots counted overnight could give a sense of at least the unofficial result within 24
hours of poll closures, instead of several days as some were initially expecting, but that appeared uncertain. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told reporters
Tuesday night that the state could “potentially see a
full result of every tabulation out of Michigan in the next 24
hours,” which would be an improvement on the state’s
original prediction that it would not finish tabulating results until Friday. The state is on
track to break turnout records with more than 3 million absentee ballots cast. “I’m here
tonight to ask you all to be patient,” Benson said. “No matter how
long it takes, no matter what candidates say, we’re going to work methodically and meticulously to count every
single valid ballot and that, and only that, will determine who wins every
race on the ballot in the state of Michigan.”The tipping point state of Pennsylvania may see some of the longest delays, not only because of its very complex ballot with its inner and outer envelopes, but also because election officials were not permitted to start counting the vote-by-mail ballots until Election Day. Late
Tuesday night, the Pennsylvania secretary of state urged patience and told result-watchers to expect batches of vote totals to come in in fits and starts throughout the
night.In
Wisconsin, some results in the
key area of Milwaukee may not be reported until after 5 a.m. on
Wednesday, meaning the vote tallies in some of the most critical areas for Biden would not be known until then.Historic amount of early votesAcross the country, officials were counting the more than 100 million votes that were cast before Election Day, according to a
survey of election officials by
CNN, Edison Research and Catalist.In an unprecedented move, which could indicate some mail-in votes are in danger of not reaching their destination
in time to be counted, a federal judge in
Washington ordered the US
Postal Service to start sweeping all processing facilities by 3 p.m., including in parts of battleground states Pennsylvania, Michigan,
Texas, New Hampshire and
Florida. Democrats had previously criticized the US Postmaster General
Louis DeJoy, a Trump donor, for introducing reforms in the agency that they said could
slow down the
delivery of mail-in ballots. Democrats are nervous about widespread slowdowns within the
Postal Service
system after
budget cuts and
staff shortages, which has
led to intense scrutiny of DeJoy’s motivations.Polls began closing at 6 p.m. ET but there are wide variations in ballot counting
rules across the country. The economy is the
top issue on the minds of voters
Tuesday, according to the preliminary results of a nationwide
CNN exit poll. Those results are incomplete because Americans were still voting, but in those early measures about a third said the economy is the most critical
issue. About 1 in 5 said racial inequality is the
top issue and 1 in 6 said the coronavirus pandemic was most important to their vote. However, a majority said the nation should prioritize containing Covid-19 over rebuilding the economy.Republicans have made a huge effort to invalidate ballots and limit voter turnout through legal challenges and questionable monitoring
tactics that bordered on voter intimidation in some states. Trump spent his final days trying to cast aspersions on vote counting, insisting that a
winner should be declared on
Tuesday night, even though America has
long counted ballots well into the days and weeks after Election Day.With Biden leading in many national and battleground state polls, the President’s
team is counting on explosive Election Day turnout within the GOP and relying on their intensive, data-driven ground
game to turn out quiet Trump voters, who they say have not been reflected in the polls.Biden and Trump close their campaignsAt the
end of what has been a remarkably stable
race, the
President crossed the finish line after a frenetic
sprint across the battleground states, during which he continued to undermine the integrity of the election by falsely raising the specter of cheating in the possible tipping point state of Pennsylvania.After months of refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of
power and repeatedly lodging
false claims about widespread voter fraud — when there is no evidence that it exists — the
President gave a more muted interview to “Fox & Friends”
Tuesday morning, predicting that he had a “very solid chance of winning” and said he would declare victory “when there’s victory, if there’s victory,” adding there is no reason to
play games. He later visited Republican National Committee offices in northern
Virginia and predicted a “great
night ahead,” but also reflected the uncertainty of Election Day, saying he had prepared neither a victory speech nor a concession speech. “Hopefully we’ll be only doing one of those two and you know, winning is
easy. Losing is never
easy. Not for me it’s not,” he said.Biden ended his final day of campaigning on a more optimistic
note, promising to unite the country and calling it the “beginning of a
new day.” On
Tuesday morning, he sought to remind Americans of his blue-collar roots with a visit to his childhood
home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he was surrounded by supporters on the street outside who chanted “Scranton loves Joe.”Inside on one of the living
room walls where he grew up, he wrote: “From this
House to the
White House with the Grace of God,” signing his name and the
date “11.3.2020,” before heading to
Philadelphia where the campaign is hoping to
drive up turnout in the final hours.This is a breaking story and will be updated.Source:
cnn.com
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