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All eyes on Georgia and Pennsylvania as US awaits election results

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden can become the next president by winning Pennsylvania, or by winning two out of the trio of Georgia, Nevada and Arizona.

Reuters

Joe Biden makes a statement on the 2020 US presidential election results during a brief appearance before reporters in Wilmington, Delaware, US on November 5, 2020.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is now leading President Donald Trump in the battleground state of Georgia and gained more ground in Pennsylvania, edging closer to the White House hours after Trump's unsubstantiated claims the election was being "stolen" from him.

Biden had a 253 to 214 lead in the state-by-state electoral college vote that determines the winner, according to most major television networks, and was inching toward securing the 270 votes needed to win the state-by-state electoral college in four undecided swing states.

Biden, 77, would become the next president by winning Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes), or by winning two out of the trio of Georgia (16), Nevada (6) and Arizona (11).

Trump's likeliest path appeared narrower (he needed to hang onto both Pennsylvania and Georgia and also to overtake Biden in either Nevada or Arizona).

For latest updates: US election 2020: Biden closes in on White House as Trump’s margin narrows

By Friday morning, Biden overtook Trump in the number of ballots counted in Georgia, a must-win state for Trump that has long been a Republican stronghold. Biden now has a 1,096-vote advantage.

The contest is still too early to call. Thousands of ballots are still left to be counted — many in counties where the former vice president was in the lead.

An AP analysis showed that Biden’s vote margins grew as counties processed mail ballots cast in his favour.

There is a potential that the race could go to a recount. Under Georgia law, if the margin between Biden and Trump is under half a percentage point of difference, a recount can be requested.

Shrinking deficit

In Pennsylvania, which has 20 electoral votes, Biden cut Trump's lead to just over 18,000 by the early hours of Friday.

Those numbers were expected to continue to move in Biden's favour, with many of the outstanding ballots from areas that typically vote Democratic, including the cities of Philadelphia and Atlanta.

Biden, meanwhile, saw his lead in Arizona shrink to around 47,000 by early on Friday; he was still ahead in Nevada by only 12,000 votes.

As the country held its breath three days after Tuesday's Election Day, Georgia and Pennsylvania officials expressed optimism they would finish counting on Friday, while Arizona and Nevada were still expected to take days to finalize their vote totals.

Trump repeats fraud claims

Trump, 74, has sought to portray as fraudulent the slow counting of mail-in ballots, which surged in popularity due to fears of exposure to the coronavirus through in-person voting.

As counts from those ballots have been tallied, they have eroded the initial strong leads the president had in states like Georgia and Pennsylvania.

States have historically taken time after Election Day to tally all votes.

Trump fired off several tweets in the early morning hours on Friday, reiterating the complaints he aired earlier at the White House. "I easily WIN the Presidency of the United States with LEGAL VOTES CAST," he said on Twitter, without offering any evidence that any illegal votes have been cast. Twitter of course fired up its election machine to mark Trump's tweet as misleading.

I easily WIN the Presidency of the United States with LEGAL VOTES CAST. The OBSERVERS were not allowed, in any way, shape, or form, to do their job and therefore, votes accepted during this period must be determined to be ILLEGAL VOTES. U.S. Supreme Court should decide!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2020

I ask people to stay calm.
The process is working.
The count is being completed.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 5, 2020

No evidence of rigging

Trump appeared in the White House briefing room on Thursday evening and baselessly alleged the election was being "stolen" from him.

Offering no evidence, Trump lambasted election workers and sharply criticised polling before the election that he said was designed to suppress the vote because it favoured Biden.

"They're trying to rig an election, and we can't let that happen," said Trump, who spoke for about 15 minutes in the White House briefing room before leaving without taking questions.

Several TV networks cut away during his remarks, with anchors saying they needed to correct his statements.

No sweeping victory

Biden, who earlier in the day urged patience as votes were counted, responded on Twitter: "No one is going to take our democracy away from us. Not now, not ever."

Trump's incendiary remarks on Thursday followed a series of Twitter posts from him earlier in the day that called for vote counting to stop, even though if voting were to stop right now, he currently trails Biden in enough states to hand the Democrat the presidency.

Trump's campaign, meanwhile, pursued a flurry of lawsuits in several states, though judges in Georgia and Michigan quickly rejected challenges there. Legal experts said the cases had little chance of affecting the electoral outcome, and Biden campaign senior legal adviser Bob Bauer call them part of a "broader misinformation campaign."

Trump's steady support base

The close election underscored the nation's deep political divides, while the slow count of millions of mail-in ballots served as a reminder of the coronavirus still sweeping America.

Biden, if he prevails, will nevertheless have failed to deliver the sweeping repudiation to Trump that Democrats had hoped for, reflecting the deep support the president enjoys despite his tumultuous four years in office.

Trump's influence on the Republican Party will remain strong, even if he ultimately loses a tight election.

The winner will face a pandemic that has killed more than 234,000 Americans and left millions more out of work, even as the country still grapples with the aftermath of months of unrest over race relations and police brutality.

Biden's lead in the national popular vote broke 4 million on Thursday night, though that plays no role in deciding the winner. Trump lost the popular vote by about 3 million to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, when he secured an upset victory by winning key states in the Electoral College.

He is trying to avoid becoming the first incumbent US president to lose a re-election bid since fellow Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Twitter and Facebook have flagged numerous posts from Trump since Election Day as misleading.

Trump's rhetoric had gained traction with some supporters, however. A Facebook group called "Stop the Steal" pushing false claims of voter fraud gained hundreds of thousands of members on Thursday before the social media giant took down the page, citing calls for violence.

Supporters of both candidates also held small protests outside voting centres on Thursday, though the demonstrations were largely peaceful.