WASHINGTON: Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden took a narrow lead over President Donald Trump in the battleground states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Nevada on Friday (Nov 6), edging closer to winning the White House in a nail-biting contest as a handful of undecided states continue to count votes.
Biden has a 264 to 214 lead in the state-by-state Electoral College vote that determines the winner, according to the Associated Press .
Winning Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes would put the former vice president over the 270 he needs to secure the presidency, while taking just Georgia's 16 electoral votes would put him on the cusp of victory.
Edison Research reported on Friday morning that Biden led Trump by 20,552 votes in Nevada. With 92 per cent of the estimated vote tallied so far, Trump has 48.1 per cent of the Nevada vote, with Biden holding 49.8 per cent.
In Pennsylvania, Biden moved ahead of Trump by 9,746 votes on Friday morning, while in Georgia, he had opened up a 1,097-vote lead.
With his re-election chances fading, Trump escalated his baseless attacks on the results, appearing at the White House on Thursday evening to falsely claim the election was being "stolen" from him.
"This election is not over," a statement from campaign general counsel Matt Morgan said while making further allegations of irregularities.
The campaign's general counsel, Matt Morgan, asserted in a statement on Friday that the elections in Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania all suffered from improprieties and that Trump would eventually prevail in Arizona.
"This election is not over," he said. "Biden is relying on these states for his phony claim on the White House, but once the election is final, President Trump will be re-elected."
LIVE UPDATES: US election count enters third day as Biden, Trump await results of remaining key states
Trump's lead had steadily diminished in Georgia, a Southern state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since Bill Clinton took the White House in 1992, as officials worked through tens of thousands of uncounted votes, many from Democratic strongholds such as Atlanta.
Georgia's secretary of state on Friday said he expects a recount due to the small margin for the presidential election in the battleground state.
"With a margin that small, there will be a recount," Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's secretary of state, told reporters.
Officials said about 9,000 military and overseas ballots were still outstanding and could be accepted if they arrive on Friday and are postmarked on Tuesday or earlier.
TRUMP'S DIMINISHING LEADS
Trump 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.
The close election has underscored the nation's deep political divides, and if he wins Biden will likely face a difficult task governing in a deeply polarised Washington.
Republicans could keep control of the US Senate pending the outcome of four undecided Senate races, including two in Georgia, and they would likely block large parts of his legislative agenda, including expanding healthcare and fighting climate change.
READ: Biden says he will win presidency, calls for patience as votes are counted
The winner will have to tackle a pandemic that has killed more than 234,000 people in the United States 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.
Trump fired off several tweets in the early morning hours on Friday, and repeated some of 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 flagged the post as possibly misleading, something it has done to numerous posts by Trump since Election Day.
In an extraordinary assault on the democratic process from the White House on Thursday, Trump lambasted election workers and advanced unsupported allegations of rigged vote counts. Several networks cut away from his remarks to correct his misstatements in real time.
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."
READ: Trump says he 'easily' wins US election by the 'legal votes'
Trump supporters, some carrying guns, ramped up their demonstrations against the process on Thursday night. In Arizona, Trump and Biden supporters briefly scuffled outside the Maricopa County Elections Department in Phoenix.
In Philadelphia, police said they arrested one man and seized a weapon as part of an investigation into a purported plot to attack the city's Pennsylvania Convention Center, where votes were being counted.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMicmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vbmV3cy93b3JsZC91cy1lbGVjdGlvbi1iaWRlbi1haGVhZC1nZW9yZ2lhLXBlbm5zeWx2YW5pYS10cnVtcC13aGl0ZS1ob3VzZS0xMzQ4MTY1NtIBAA?oc=5
2020-11-06 17:37:30Z
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