Joe Biden's wins in the United States battleground prizes of Michigan and Wisconsin today have put him on the brink of reaching the White House.
The Democrat reclaimed a key part of the "Blue Wall" that slipped away from the party four years ago and dramatically narrowed President Donald Trump's pathway to re-election.
A full day after election day, neither candidate had cleared the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.
But Biden's victories in the Great Lakes states left him at 264, meaning he was one battleground state away from crossing the threshold and becoming president-elect.
Biden, who has received more than 71 million votes, the most in history, was joined by his running mate Kamala Harris at an afternoon news conference and said he now expected to win the presidency, though he stopped short of outright declaring victory.
Biden supporters were more likely than Trump voters to have personally experienced a job loss or loss of income due to the pandemic, or to have a close friend and family member die from the coronavirus. https://t.co/kWYV3EzUMa
— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) November 5, 2020
"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 Trump, who had falsely proclaimed that he had won the election, even though millions of votes remained uncounted and the race was far from over.
AP called Wisconsin for Biden after election officials in the state said all outstanding ballots had been counted, save for a few hundred in one township and an expected small number of provisional votes.
Trump's campaign requested a recount, though statewide recounts in Wisconsin have historically changed the vote tally by only a few hundred votes. Biden led by 0.624 percentage point out of nearly 3.3 million ballots counted.
#BREAKING: Large, animated crush of “stop the count” protestors trying to push their way into TCF hall in #Detroit where ballots are being counted.
— Steve Patterson (@PattersonNBC) November 4, 2020
They’re being blocked by guards at the door.
Pizza boxes are pushed against the window to obstruct view. It’s tense. @NBCNews pic.twitter.com/zFhzd88skX
For four years, Democrats had been haunted by the crumbling of the Blue Wall, the trio of Great Lakes states — Pennsylvania is the third — that their candidates had been able to count on every four years. But Trump's populist appeal struck a chord with white working class voters and he captured all three in 2016 by a total of just 77,000 votes.
Both candidates this year fiercely fought for the states, with Biden's everyman political persona resonating in blue collar towns while his campaign also pushed to increase turnout among Black voters in cities like Detroit and Milwaukee.
Pennsylvania remained too early to call.
It was unclear when or how quickly a national winner could be determined after a long, bitter campaign dominated by the coronavirus and its effects on Americans and the national economy. But Biden's possible pathways to the White House were expanding rapidly.
International monitors on Trump: “Baseless allegations of systematic deficiencies, notably by the incumbent President, including on election night, harm public trust in democratic institutions,” said Michael Georg Link, leader of the short-term OSCE observer mission. 1/2
— Michele Kelemen (@michelekelemen) November 4, 2020
After the victories in Wisconsin and Michigan, he held 264 Electoral College votes, just six away from the presidency. A win in any state except for Alaska — but including Nevada with its six votes — would be enough to end Trump's tenure in the White House.
Trump spent much of today in the White House residence, huddling with advisers and fuming at media coverage showing his Democratic rival picking up key battlegrounds. Trump falsely claimed victory in several key states and amplified 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, Pennsylvania and Georgia to halt ballot counting on grounds that it wasn't given proper access to observe.
No, Joe Biden did not mysteriously gain 130,000 Michigan votes all at once https://t.co/zao57pXMv9
— Vox (@voxdotcom) November 5, 2020
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 the existing Supreme Court litigation over counting mail-in ballots there.
Yet, the campaign also argued that it was the outstanding votes in Arizona that could reverse the outcome there, showcasing an inherent inconsistency with their arguments.
In other closely watched races, Trump picked up Florida, the largest of the swing states, and held onto Texas and Ohio while Biden kept New Hampshire and Minnesota and flipped Arizona, a state that had reliably voted Republican in recent elections.
Americans have heard their whole lives that they are citizens of the world’s most vibrant democracy. But this year’s contentious vote will leave behind a legacy abroad, of a beacon shining a little less brightly, Rebecca Collard writes.https://t.co/Xwty5igCKr
— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) November 5, 2020
The unsettled nature of the presidential race was reflective of a somewhat disappointing night for Democrats, who had hoped to deliver a thorough repudiation of Trump's four years in office while also reclaiming the Senate to have a firm grasp on all of Washington.
But the GOP held on to several Senate seats that had been considered vulnerable, including in Iowa, Texas, Maine and Kansas. Democrats lost House seats but were expected to retain control there.
The high-stakes election was held against the backdrop of a historic pandemic that has killed more than 232,000 Americans and wiped away millions of jobs.
The candidates spent months pressing dramatically different visions for the nation's future, including on racial justice, and voters responded in huge numbers, with more than 100 million people casting votes ahead of election day.
The U.S. has surpassed 140 million presidential votes counted, and we've got a long way to go. It's a good bet we'll be over 150 million when all is said and done. https://t.co/9dMmSHHdVa pic.twitter.com/1HegtQjPx5
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 5, 2020
Trump, in an extraordinary move from the White House, issued premature claims of victory — which he continued on Twitter — and said he would take the election to the Supreme Court to stop the counting. It was unclear exactly what legal action he could try to pursue.
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."
The President’s Twitter feed currently has more warnings than a pack of cigarettes. pic.twitter.com/z0j88OM7zV
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) November 5, 2020
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 met. That's set by federal law.
Dozens gathered in Detroit, in a square across from the city's election commission office. Many wore yellow sweatshirts and carried signs reading "Count Every Vote." Rai Lanier, one of the organisers, said they had planned the gathering so anxious people could come together and channel that energy into hope.
"This is how democracy is supposed to work," she said
Several states allow mailed-in votes to be accepted as long as they were postmarked by Tuesday. That includes Pennsylvania, where ballots postmarked by November 3 can be accepted if they arrive up to three days later.
Trump appeared to suggest 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.
A protester interrupts a news conference by Clark County Registrar Joe Gloria as the state continues to count ballots. https://t.co/GM0i89Jtsd #Election2020 pic.twitter.com/y09TRmJ8bz
— ABC News (@ABC) November 5, 2020
The Trump campaign pushed Republican donors to dig deeper into their pockets to help finance legal challenges. Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, during a donor call, spoke plainly: "The fight's not over. We're in it."
The momentum from early voting carried into election day, as an energized electorate produced long lines at polling sites throughout the country.
Turnout was higher than in 2016 in numerous counties, including all of Florida, nearly every county in North Carolina and more than 100 counties in both Georgia and Texas. That tally seemed sure to increase as more counties reported their turnout figures.
Voters braved worries of the coronavirus, threats of polling place intimidation and expectations of long lines caused by changes to voting systems, but appeared undeterred as turnout appeared it would easily surpass the 139 million ballots cast four years ago.
- AP
Iran has vowed to respond, claiming its enriched uranium wasn’t destroyed.