The outcome of the US presidential election remained in the balance on Friday as a handful of battleground states complete their vote counts and thousands of ballots are still left to be counted.
Former Vice President and Democrat Joe Biden overtook Republican President Donald Trump in the number of ballots counted in Georgia and Pennsylvania, two must-win states for Trump. Biden now has a 917-vote advantage in Georgia and an over 5,000-vote advantage in Pennsylvania, according to the Associated Press.
As Biden moved closer to winning the White House, Trump adopted a fighting posture, making false claims to undermine a vote that was not going his way.
Biden has racked up at least 264 of the 270 electoral votes that he needs. Donald Trump has amassed 214 electoral votes so far, and is still in contention in several states that would afford the Republican incumbent a path to re-election.
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US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden won the battleground prizes of Michigan and Wisconsin on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press, reclaiming a key part of the “blue wall” that slipped away from Democrats four years ago and dramatically narrowing President Donald Trump’s pathway to reelection.
With just a handful of states still up for grabs, Trump tried to press his case in court in some key swing states, It was unclear if any of his campaign’s legal maneuvering over balloting would succeed in shifting the race in his favor.
Two days after Election Day, neither candidate had amassed the 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 — any would do — from becoming president-elect.
By flipping yet another critical battleground state that Trump won four years ago, Biden placed himself in a comfortable lead, with only 6 electoral votes shy of the presidency.
Meanwhile, the incumbent president, Trump, vowed to ask the Supreme Court to weigh in on the inconclusive election.
Trump’s campaign also filed lawsuits in Pennsylvania — which is yet undecided — and Michigan, laying the groundwork for contesting the outcome in the battleground states that could determine whether he gets another four years in the White House. The campaign also announced it had requested a recount in Wisconsin, which went to Biden with less than a percentage point.
It was still unclear when or how quickly a winner could be determined. Hundreds of thousands of votes were outstanding in Pennsylvania, while Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Alaska also remain to be called.
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf tweeted that his state had over 1 million ballots to be counted and that he “promised Pennsylvanians that we would count every vote and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Trump suggested those ballots shouldn’t be counted. But Biden, briefly appearing in front of supporters in Delaware, urged patience, saying the election “ain’t over until every vote is counted, every ballot is counted”.
“It’s not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare who’s won this election,” Biden said. “That’s the decision of the American people.”
Trump in an early-morning declaration from the White House had called for outstanding ballots not to be counted.
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 after the election.
