Democratic candidate Joe Biden\u2019s lead over U.S. President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania climbed from 5,000 votes early Friday to about 29,000 votes by late night, and that margin is expected to grow as remaining ballots are counted. Taking this pivotal state would propel Biden over the required threshold of 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidential election.<\/p>\n
Biden is also ahead in Georgia by more than 4,000 votes and maintains clear leads in Arizona and Nevada, although these races have not yet been called for either candidate.<\/p>\n
Addressing supporters Friday, amid speculation he would be projected the winner in Pennsylvania, Biden stopped short of claiming victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have a final declaration of victory yet, but the numbers tell us a clear and convincing story, we\u2019re going to win this race,\u201d said Biden.<\/p>\n
If Biden does take Pennsylvania, his Electoral College lead would increase to 273 votes over Trump\u2019s current 214 vote total.<\/p>\n
In this U.S. system of indirect democracy, the popular vote is used to determine official electors in each state, who are allocated based on state population.<\/p>\n
A Biden win in Pennsylvania would also block Trump\u2019s path to victory.<\/p>\n
Trump is leading in the two remaining unresolved races in North Carolina and Alaska. Without winning Pennsylvania, Trump could not overtake Biden\u2019s lead even if he sweeps all the other states that have yet to be called.<\/p>\n
Biden surpassed Trump by 4 million votes in the national election. Biden won over 74 million votes to Trump\u2019s 69 million, with more than 150 million votes cast overall, the most ever in a U.S. election.<\/p>\n
Legal disputes<\/strong><\/p>\n Trump on Twitter Friday warned Biden not to claim early victory.<\/p>\n \u201cJoe Biden should not wrongfully claim the office of the President. I could make that claim also. Legal proceedings are just now beginning!\u201d he said in a Tweet on Friday.<\/p>\n Trump made his claim of victory in a speech election night.<\/p>\n The Trump campaign is disputing the vote count in several states, saying in a statement Friday, \u201cthis election is not over.\u201d The campaign says the president will ultimately win as a result of expected recounts in close state races and its legal challenges based on unsubstantiated allegations of vote fraud and irregularities.<\/p>\n Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Friday there will be a recount in that state because Biden\u2019s lead there is less than 0.5% of the vote. Georgia officials said about 9,000 military and overseas ballots were still outstanding and could be accepted if they arrive on Friday and were postmarked on Tuesday or earlier.<\/p>\n The Trump campaign also called for a vote recount in Wisconsin, where Biden is winning by more than 20,000 votes.<\/p>\n Trump, without evidence, accused Democrats on Thursday of engineering massive fraud and irregularities to prevent him from winning reelection as president.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a case where they are trying to steal an election, they\u2019re trying to rig an election, and we can\u2019t let that happen,\u201d he said during a White House news conference.<\/p>\n Trump accused state officials of barring his campaign from observing the vote count, called mail-in voting a \u201ccorrupt system\u201d that lacks \u201cany verification measures,\u201d and said he expects contested election litigation to end up in the Supreme Court. He also spoke without offering evidence of a \u201ccorrupt voting apparatus\u201d in states led by Democratic governors.<\/p>\n No evidence<\/strong><\/p>\n Trump\u2019s unsubstantiated claims drew quick rebukes from some of the president\u2019s fellow Republicans.<\/p>\n Sen. Mitt Romney, a former Republican presidential nominee who has been a Trump critic, said Friday on Twitter that Trump \u201cis wrong to say that the election was rigged, corrupt and stolen.\u201d He added that \u201cdoing so damages the cause of freedom\u201d and \u201crecklessly inflames destructive and dangerous passions."<\/p>\n Benjamin Hovland, who serves on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, told VOA there has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the country, which he said would be very difficult to pull off, and require, \u201ca vast conspiracy of people willing to commit thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of felonies.\u201d<\/p>\n Lawyers representing Trump and Republicans also filed lawsuits alleging vote counting irregularities and demanding that the counting of mail-in ballots be halted in Pennsylvania, where an early Trump lead evaporated as more mail-in ballots were counted.<\/p>\n Democrats had urged supporters to vote by mail to prevent the spread of the coronavirus while Trump called on his voters to show up in person on election day.<\/p>\n Democrats confident<\/strong><\/p>\n Earlier Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, said Biden\u2019s election victory was \u201cimminent,\u201d but called for patience as votes are tallied.<\/p>\n \u201cThe right to vote is a sacred right in our country. And having that vote counted as cast, it is the fundamental foundation of our democracy,\u201d Pelosi said during a news briefing Friday.<\/p>\n Biden also said Friday he is already anticipating assuming the presidency, and his team is prioritizing plans to contain the surging coronavirus pandemic in the country.<\/p>\n \u201cOn day one we are going to put our plan to control this virus into action,\u201d Biden said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Democratic candidate Joe Biden\u2019s lead over U.S. President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania climbed from 5,000 votes early Friday to about 29,000 votes by late night, and that margin is expected to grow as remaining ballots are counted. Taking this pivotal state would propel Biden over the required threshold of 270 Electoral College votes needed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96307"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}