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US Election 2020: As Joe Biden closes in on presidency, Trump resorts to lawsuits
Biden picked up Michigan, the second of the Blue Wall states Trump had won in 2016, taking up his tally of electoral college votes to 264, just six shorts of the threshold of 270, to Trump’s 214.
Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for US president, continued his slow but steady march on the White House on Wednesday as President Donald Trump launched a multi-pronged effort to drag out the outcome through demands for recount in Wisconsin and lawsuits to halt or challenge votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and, just as the race looked tightening, Georgia.
Biden picked up Michigan, the second of the Blue Wall states Trump had won in 2016, taking up his tally of electoral college votes to 264, just six shorts of the threshold of 270, to Trump’s 214. He was ahead in Nevada and trailed the president in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia on AP’s tracker.
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The Democrat was placed well to wrap up the race if he only picked up Nevada, with six electoral college votes. Or he could just wait for Pennsylvania to count all its early votes, bulk of which were Democratic and were in sufficient numbers to overtake the president, whose lead in Georgia was also shrinking, presenting Biden with yet another pathway to 270.
“After a long night of counting, it is clear we are winning in enough states to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency,” Biden said in a brief speech in Wilmington, Delaware, with vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris by his side. But he added he was “not here to declare that I have won.”
“I am here to report that when the count is finished, I believe I will be the winner”.
The Democrat also made clear he was not going to shrink from a fight with Trump to ensure every vote polled was counted. “Now every vote must be counted. No one is going to take our democracy away from us. Not now. Not ever.”
This was in marked contrast to President Trump’s premature claim of victory last night at a stage when he was ahead overall on the electoral map but with millions of outstanding votes that had not been counted. He had also then revealed his plan to take the battle to courts in a clear sign he suspected his re-election chances had run up against mounting odds.
Shortly after the resumption of counting on Wednesday morning, Biden began closing the gap between him and Trump on the Blue Wall states, and he was soon leading Trump in Wisconsin and Michigan, and Arizona was called for him by AP. Suddenly the race seemed like slipping away.
The Trump campaign then announced it was calling for a recount of votes in Wisconsin citing “reports of irregularities”. It followed up with an announcement of a lawsuit in Michigan to halt counting till the campaign was given “meaningful access” to counting locations.
And then came the lawsuit in Georgia, a Republican-ruled state, shortly after it announced new counting numbers showing a narrowing race. This lawsuit claimed a Republican observer had seen 53 ballots (yes, only 53) added to counting stacks after close of polling.
