US presidency in limbo; Biden bats away Trump’s false victory claim

Donald Trump

Joe Biden

WILMINGTON (Reuters): The US Presidential Election hung in the balance yesterday, with a handful of close-fought states set to decide the outcome in the coming hours or days, even as Donald Trump falsely claimed victory and made unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud.

President Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden both still have possible paths to reach the needed 270 Electoral College votes to win the White House, as states keep counting mail-in ballots that surged amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Opinion polls had given Biden a strong lead nationwide for months, but they had shown closer races in battleground states, and the vote did not produce the stinging verdict against the Republican President that the Biden camp had hoped for.

Biden, 77, said in the early hours he was confident of winning once the votes are counted, and urged patience. Trump, 74, appeared at the White House soon after to declare victory.

“We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election,” he said, before launching an extraordinary attack on the electoral process by a sitting President. “This is a major fraud on our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we’ll be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop.” Trump provided no evidence to back-up his claim of fraud and did not explain how he would fight the results at the Supreme Court, which does not hear direct challenges.

Voting concluded as scheduled on Tuesday night, but many states routinely take days to finish counting ballots. Huge numbers of people voted by mail because of the pandemic, making it likely the count will take longer than usual.

The next President will take on the raging disease, which has killed more than 231,000 people in the US and left millions more jobless, amid a political climate marked by racial tensions and bitter polarization.

The trio of ‘blue wall’ states that unexpectedly sent Trump to the White House in 2016 – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – remained too close to call. Biden held a slight lead in Nevada, where officials said they would not update the count until Thursday.

Two Southern states, Georgia and North Carolina, were also still in play; Trump held leads in both. A win for Biden in either one would narrow Trump’s chances considerably.

Biden’s victory in Arizona – both Fox News and the Associated Press projected he would win the State – gave him multiple pathways to the White House.

If he holds onto Nevada, he could secure the presidency by winning the Midwestern states of Wisconsin and Michigan, where he held narrow leads yesterday, even if he loses Pennsylvania.

Trump’s most likely path goes through Pennsylvania; if he wins that State, he would secure re-election if he also held onto the Southern states and won at least one Midwestern state.

Officials in Michigan and Georgia said yesterday they expected the states to complete their counts by day’s end.

World leaders were in limbo as they waited for clearer results, with most avoiding weighing in amid the uncertainty. In global markets, investors moved to price a greater chance of US policy gridlock.

Biden leads 224 to 213 over Trump in the Electoral College vote count, according to Edison Research.