Democratic nominee Joe Biden took narrow leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia, which are key battleground states that could determine the outcome of the election. Biden was trailing President Trump in Pennsylvania all week, but took a lead of 5,500 votes thanks to mail-in ballots. The race is still very tight in both states and too close to call, but some sources have started to project Biden as the winner.
Decision Desk, an independent vote-counting operation, has called the presidential race for Joe Biden.
Decision Desk HQ projects that @JoeBiden has won Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral college votes for a total of 273.
Joe Biden has been elected the 46th President of the United States of America.
Race called at 11-06 08:50 AM EST
All Results: https://t.co/BgcQsEyt3j
— Decision Desk HQ (@DecisionDeskHQ) November 6, 2020
Georgia may still be up in the air for some time, considering that voters still have until Friday to return overseas and active military ballots. Election officials are also working to fix mistakes on absentee ballots. In Pennsylvania, thousands of mail ballots still need to be counted, but most are from Democrat-leaning counties.
If Biden wins Pennsylvania, he doesn’t need any of the other states he’s leading in to reach 270 electoral votes, which would make him the winner. Trump, on the other hand, has an uphill battle. In order to keep the presidency, he must win in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania’s legislature did not adjust election law to allow election officials the ability to process mail ballots before Election Day, which resulted in a lengthy counting process.
BREAKING: Joe Biden takes the lead in Pennsylvania vote count Friday morning #Decision2020@chucktodd: As votes come in, "the math is working in Joe Biden's favor here." pic.twitter.com/RzYmjsG8fR
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 6, 2020
Trump still has a strong lead in North Carolina, but a winner has not been declared in the state because election officials there are allowed to accept mail ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 as long as they arrive before Nov. 12.
Nevada is still close to call, with Biden remaining in the lead. Meanwhile, Arizona has called the race for Biden.
CBS News Special Report: Joe Biden takes lead over President Trump in Pennsylvania. @SalvantoCBS breaks down the latest. https://t.co/e3yap9Oq8s pic.twitter.com/JJRVrMeL18
— CBS News (@CBSNews) November 6, 2020
The Trump campaign does not seem to be going down without a fight, members of the campaign, including the president himself, have alleged that the democrats are cheating in the election and have promised an aggressive legal campaign to question the validity of the later votes that came in for Joe Biden.
On Thursday night, the president gave a controversial press conference in which he claimed that many of the votes to come in for his opponent were false, causing many network news channels to cut off his speech in mid-sentence.
MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, NPR all cut off Trump’s broadcast, stopping the spread of his disinformation-filled speech.
Tech is fed up. The media is fed up. America is fed up. https://t.co/zUQbFOKmqF
— Tiffany C. Li (@tiffanycli) November 6, 2020
Legacy media sources have insisted that Trump’s claims of cheating are baseless, and judges in key jurisdictions seem to agree. In many states where lawsuits have been filed, judges have rejected them, including Michigan, where the Trump campaign wanted the counting to stop entirely until they were able to send someone to oversee the process. However, the lawsuit was rejected and Joe Biden was called as the projected winner in the state.
Meanwhile, a Georgia judge dismissed a similar lawsuit from Trump’s campaign on Thursday, ruling that there was no evidence that ballots being processed in Chatham County had been received after 7 p.m. on Election Day.
Donald Trump Jr took to Twitter on Thursday to express frustration about the election results, in which his father has fallen behind. In what many have called an irresponsible tweet, Trump Jr told his audience that “the best thing for America’s future” is for his father to go to “total war” over the election.
