Biden wins Michigan, Wisconsin, now on brink of White House
Joe Biden won the battleground prizes of Michigan and Wisconsin on Wednesday, reclaiming an integral part of the “blue wall” that slipped from Democrats four years back and considerably narrowing President Donald Trump’s pathway to reelection.
A complete day after Election Day, neither prospect had cleared the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House. But Biden’s victories in the fantastic Lakes states left him at 264, meaning he was one battleground state away from crossing the threshold and becoming president-elect.
Biden, who has received a lot more than 71 million votes, the most ever sold, was joined by his running mate Kamala Harris at a day news conference and said he now likely to win the presidency, though he stopped short of outright declaring victory.
“I'll govern as an American president,” Biden said. ”You will have no red states and blue states when we win. Just america of America.”
It had been a stark contrast to Trump, who on Wednesday falsely proclaimed that he previously won the election, despite the fact that an incredible number of votes remained uncounted and the race was definately not over.
The Associated Press called Wisconsin for Biden after election officials in the state said all outstanding ballots have been counted, save for a couple hundred in one township and an expected small number of provisional votes.
Trump’s campaign requested a recount, thought statewide recounts in Wisconsin have historically changed the vote tally by just a few hundred votes. Biden led by 0.624 percentage explain of practically 3.3 million ballots counted.
Since 2016, Democrats had been haunted by the crumbling of the blue wall, the trio of Great Lakes states - Pennsylvania is the third - that their candidates had been able to depend on every four years. But Trump’s populist appeal struck a chord with white working-class voters and he captured all three in 2016 by a total margin of just 77,000 votes.
Both candidates this year fiercely fought for the states, with Biden’s everyman political persona resonating in blue-collar towns while his campaign also pushed to improve turnout among Black voters in cities like Detroit and Milwaukee.
Pennsylvania remained prematurily . to call Wednesday night.
It had been unclear when or how quickly a national winner could be determined after an extended, bitter campaign dominated by the coronavirus and its effects on Americans and the national economy. But Biden’s possible pathways to the White House were expanding rapidly.
Following the victories in Wisconsin and Michigan, he was just six Electoral College votes from the presidency. A win in virtually any undecided state aside from Alaska - but including Nevada, using its six votes - would be enough to get rid of Trump’s tenure in the White House.
Trump spent a lot of Wednesday in the White House residence, huddling with advisers and fuming at media coverage showing his Democratic rival picking right up key battlegrounds. Trump falsely claimed victory in several key states and amplified unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about Democratic gains as absentee and early votes were tabulated.
Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said the president would formally request a Wisconsin recount, citing “irregularities” in several counties. And the campaign said it was filing suit in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia to demand better access for campaign observers to spots where ballots are being processed and counted, and raise absentee ballot concerns.
Concurrently, thousands of votes were still to be counted in Pennsylvania, and Trump’s campaign said it had been moving to intervene in the existing Supreme Court litigation over counting mail-in ballots there. Yet, the campaign also argued that it had been the outstanding votes in Arizona that could reverse the outcome there, showcasing an inherent inconsistency with their arguments.
In other closely watched races, Trump picked up Florida, the major of the swing states, and held onto Texas and Ohio while Biden kept New Hampshire and Minnesota and flipped Arizona, a state that had reliably voted Republican in recent elections.
The unsettled nature of the presidential race was reflective of a somewhat disappointing night for Democrats, who had hoped to provide an intensive repudiation of Trump’s four years in office while also reclaiming the Senate to have a firm grasp on most of Washington. However the GOP held onto several Senate seats that were considered vulnerable, including in Iowa, Texas, Maine and Kansas. Democrats lost House seats but were likely to retain control there.
The high-stakes election was held against the setting of a historic pandemic that has killed more than 232,000 Americans and wiped away an incredible number of jobs. The U.S. on Wednesday set another record for daily confirmed coronavirus cases as several states posted all-time highs.
The prospects spent months pressing drastically different visions for the nation’s future, including on racial justice, and voters responded in huge numbers, with more than 100 million persons casting votes before Election Day.
Trump, within an extraordinary move from the White House, issued premature claims of victory - which he continued on Twitter Wednesday - and said he'd take the election to the Supreme Court to avoid the counting. It had been unclear specifically what legal action he could try to pursue.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell discounted the president’s quick claim of victory, saying it could have a while for states to conduct their vote counts. The Kentucky Republican said Wednesday that “claiming you’ve won the election differs from finishing the counting.”
Vote tabulations routinely continue beyond Election Day, and states largely set the guidelines for when the count must end. In presidential elections, a key point is the date in December when presidential electors met. That’s set by federal law.
A large number of Trump supporters chanting “Stop the count!” descended on a ballot-tallying center in Detroit, while a large number of anti-Trump protesters demanding a complete vote count took to the streets in cities over the U.S.
Protests - sometimes about the election, sometimes about racial inequality - took place Wednesday in at least a half-dozen cities, including LA, Seattle, Houston, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and NORTH PARK.
Several states allow mailed-in votes to be accepted given that these were postmarked by Tuesday. Which includes Pennsylvania, where ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 can be accepted if they arrive up to three days later.
Trump appeared to advise those ballots shouldn't be counted, and that he'd fight for that outcome at the high court. But legal authorities were dubious of Trump’s declaration. Trump has appointed three of the high court’s nine justices - including, most recently, Amy Coney Barrett.
The Trump campaign on Wednesday pushed Republican donors to dig deeper to their pockets to greatly help finance legal challenges. Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, during a donor call, spoke plainly: “The fight’s not over. We’re in it.”
The momentum from early voting carried into Election Day, as an energized electorate produced long lines at polling sites through the entire country. Turnout was greater than in 2016 in various counties, including most of Florida, nearly every county in NEW YORK and a lot more than 100 counties in both Georgia and Texas. That tally seemed sure to improve as more counties reported their turnout figures.
Voters braved worries of the coronavirus, threats of polling place intimidation and expectations of long lines due to changes to voting systems, but appeared undeterred as turnout appeared it would easily surpass the 139 million ballots cast four years back.
