Media count declares Joe Biden winner, as Trump refuses to concede: RT covers US presidential election

09 November 2020

Estonia’s Interior Minister Mart Helme is set to resign over a recent interview in which he blasted Joe Biden and his son Hunter as “corrupt dudes” and sided with Donald Trump in claiming that there was fraud in the US presidential election.

The minister, who is a member of the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (EKRE), said he decided to step down to protect the government and the ruling coalition, of which his party is a member.

The controversial remarks were aired on Sunday, when Helme and two other top party members discussed the outcome of the American elections and how the division over it may lead to a civil war in the US. The two other guests were Helme’s son Martin, who serves as EKRE chair and Estonian finance minister, and MP Jaak Madison.

The broadcast was rebuked by Prime Minister Juri Ratas, who is also the leader of the Centre Party. He said Biden was a respectable politician and that US democracy was robust and strong. The PM added that the attacks made by the conservatives were harmful to Estonia’s ties with the US.

The election of Joe Biden as the next US president may force UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to re-evaluate his Brexit strategy, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney believes. “I think we all want now to try to see the back of tense standoffs linked to Brexit,” he said in an interview with RTE News. “What we need for the coming months and years is Ireland, the EU and the UK working together in partnership … and working with this new incoming administration, because, I think, trans-Atlantic relations will be different.”

The minister said the US president-elect is “a real friend of Ireland” and is on the record as supporting the Good Friday Agreement. The cornerstone peace deal is in peril, as the Johnson cabinet put pressure on Brussels while negotiating a new EU-UK trade agreement. With no compromise reached, a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland seems to be on the table.

The incoming Biden administration will likely take a more multilateral approach to international trade, defusing tensions with Europe and China, German Economy and Energy Minister Peter Altmaier told Deutschlandfunk on Monday. But given the chaotic transition of power, uncertainty over future US policies could persist for months – potentially until spring, he said. The minister expressed hope that the US under Biden will rejoin the Paris agreement on climate change.

08 November 2020

Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have congratulated Joe Biden on his apparent electoral win. The Saudi royals, who usually maintain a tight relationship with Washington regardless of who controls the presidency, tweeted a message of support to Biden on Sunday night.

The Saudi royals fared well under the Trump administration. Donald Trump’s first foreign visit was to Saudi Arabia, and his administration stepped up weapons exports to the Kingdom’s military. Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal further cemented his alliance with the Saudis, in the power struggle between both regional rivals.

Former US president George W Bush has congratulated Joe Biden on his apparent victory over President Donald Trump, calling Biden “a good man, who has won his opportunity to lead and unify our country.”

Bush stressed that Trump “has the right to request re-counts and pursue legal challenges,” however – a route Bush himself took after the news media called Florida for Al Gore in 2000. 

Trump will take legal action against Biden’s apparent win, with lawyer Rudy Giuliani telling Fox News on Sunday that the president’s legal team has enough evidence of fraud to potentially overturn Biden’s narrow victories in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Celebrating Joe Biden’s apparent victory on the streets of New York, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer set his gaze south, where two Senate races could possibly hand control of the Upper Chamber to his party.

“Now we take Georgia, and then we change the world!” Schumer exclaimed.

Republican Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue face off against Democratic challengers Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in runoff races in January. Georgia hasn’t had a Democratic senator since 2005, but with control of the Senate at stake, the party will likely pour millions of dollars into unseating the two Republican lawmakers.

President Donald Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told Fox News that his legal team has enough evidence of fraud to overturn the election results in Pennsylvania and Michigan, and is gathering even more proof in as many as eight other states.

Calling the election in Pennsylvania a "disgrace," Giuliani said he would file a lawsuit there on Monday, and expects as many as 800,000 ballots to be thrown out, claiming they were processed without Republican oversight, or illegally backdated.

Alleging a "nationwide plan to catch up" with Trump's early lead on election night, Giuliani said that he has proof of a "similar situation" in Michigan, and is gathering evidence in eight other states, including Nevada, Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona.

By the end of the coming week, Giuliani said his team will have filed between four and five of these suits, and will argue them up to the Supreme Court if necessary.

Utah Senator and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney told NBC News that he believes Donald Trump will leave office once all of his legal options against Joe Biden’s apparent victory are exhausted.

However, Romney said that Trump will continue to wield an outsize influence over the GOP for some time to come. “He is not disappearing by any means,” Romney said. “He is the 900-pound gorilla when it comes to the Republican Party.”

Though a Republican, Romney is a vocal critic of Trump, and broke party lines to vote for Trump’s impeachment earlier this year. 

In his first morning tweet, Donald Trump shared comments from law professor Jonathan Turley, who argued that allegations of vote fraud should not be discounted, especially in cities such as Detroit and Philadelphia which, he claims, have had “election problems” in the past.

Donald Trump’s son, Eric, tweeted his frustration over a report detailing one of several “software glitches” that have occurred during the election, and called for “a manual recount of every ballot in this country right now.”

Joe Biden now leads Donald Trump by more than 10,000 votes in Georgia, after Fulton County reviewed its results to ensure that all provisional ballots were counted.

In a tweet, the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., joked how years of unsubstantiated allegations about Russia interfering with the 2016 election have been suddenly replaced with the insistence that the US democratic process is impregnable.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden after the Democrat emerged as the projected winner of the 2020 presidential election on Saturday, describing the former vice president as a “great friend of Israel.” The Israeli leader noted that he has known the American politician for nearly 40 years. He also thanked Donald Trump for “bringing the American-Israeli alliance to unprecedented heights.”

Democratic presidential Joe Biden, whose apparent victory in the US presidential election was called by the Associated Press and other US media, said he wants to “restore the soul of America” and “rebuild the backbone of the nation - the middle class,”  when addressing supporters in Delaware on Saturday. He urged his political opponents to bury the hatchet of war and “give each other a chance,” calling America “at its best” a “beacon” for the world.

"Tonight the whole world is watching America and I believe at our best, America is a beacon for the globe. We will lead not only by the example of our power but by the power of our example" 

Even as many other world leaders were quick to congratulate Joe Biden after US media outlets announced that he had won the presidential election, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said it was too soon to make such a call.

"We want to wait for the issue of the election to be legally resolved," Lopez Obrador said Saturday at a press conference in Tabasco.

Lopez Obrador maintained a good relationship with US President Donald Trump was among few US allies who showed reluctance to congratulate Biden. Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu has been silent on media declarations of Biden's victory as well.

07 November 2020

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that officials in Fulton County, which encompasses much of Atlanta, have discovered an “issue” with the ballot count there.

Raffensperger did not elaborate on the issue, but said that it involves reporting from the county on Friday, and that his investigators are monitoring the rescanning of ballots there to “protect all legal votes.”

72 percent of voters in Fulton county backed Joe Biden, but the former vice president only leads President Donald Trump by 0.15 percent statewide. Raffensperger already said on Friday that there will be a recount in his state.

Clashes broke out between Trump supporters and black-clad counter protesters in Olympia, Washington, with the Trump side claiming they were attacked and assaulted.

Amid the scuffles, police fired flashbangs and moved in to restore order. One man, bleeding from the head, claimed he was attacked by ‘Antifa’ radicals.

As President Trump’s supporters gathered outside state buildings nationwide, similar clashes were reported in Michigan. The Trump supporters demonstrated against Joe Biden’s apparent electoral victory, claiming that the result was fraudulent, and demanding their state governments intervene to “stop the steal.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi congratulated Joe Biden on winning the presidency, telling the former vice president that he is looking forward to “strengthening the strategic ties that bind Iraq and the United States.”

Al-Kadhimi was one of many world leaders to extend their congratulations to Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris. Shortly afterwards on Saturday, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo praised Harris for becoming the US’ first female vice president, while Guatemala’s government officially congratulated the pair of Democrats.

President Donald Trump has fired off an all-caps tweet, claiming that “BAD THINGS”happened in districts where Republican observers were kept out of counting centers.

The president went on to boast of having received “71,000,000 Legal Votes. The most EVER for a sitting President!”

Earlier on Saturday, Joe Biden claimed victory after the Associated Press called the race in his favor. Biden received nearly 75 million votes, topping Barack Obama’s 69.5 million in 2008. Trump has contested Biden’s vote count, claiming the former vice president won by fraud.

Joe Biden “will be a president for all of our families,” his wife, Jill Biden, said on Twitter.

Jill Biden’s message came shortly after her husband claimed victory in the presidential election, following a declaration by the Associated Press that President Donald Trump has refused to acknowledge.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has congratulated Joe Biden as the winner of the US presidential election.

“The US is our most important ally and I look forward to working closely together on our shared priorities, from climate change to trade and security,” Johnson tweeted on Saturday, after Biden claimed victory.

Johnson enjoyed a close relationship with Donald Trump, who has refused to accept Biden’s win, citing allegations of fraud.

President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has detailed some of the alleged voter fraud witnessed by Republicans in Pennsylvania, including the backdating of ballots, the barring of observers from polling locations, and dead residents “voting Democrat from the grave.”

Speaking immediately after Joe Biden claimed victory in the presidential election on Saturday, Giuliani said the Trump campaign would be taking legal action to challenge the result in Pennsylvania and potentially nationally.

The Associated Press has called the race in Nevada in favor of Joe Biden, with just under 90 percent of votes counted. Biden currently leads Trump in the state by around 25,000 votes.

Earlier on Saturday, the AP declared Biden the winner of the presidential election, after calling the vital swing state of Pennsylvania for the former vice president.Biden claimed victory, but Trump has refused to acknowledge his apparent win.

The president has vowed to take legal action over the results, claiming the Democratic Party committed fraud to clinch the win for Biden.

President Donald Trump has won 57 percent of the latest ballot drop in Arizona’s Maricopa County. Trump’s gain takes Joe Biden’s lead in Arizona down to just over 20,000 votes, but falls short of the kind of margin necessary to beat Biden.

Fox News and the Associated Press drew heavy criticism for calling Arizona in Biden’s favor on Tuesday night, leading Trump supporters to chant “Fox News sucks” outside an election office in Maricopa County. 

A small number of votes remain to be counted in the county, and Trump would need to outperform Biden by more than 15 points to clinch back a win in the Grand Canyon State.

President Donald Trump has claimed on Twitter that he won the election "BY A LOT," in a tweet that was soon slapped with a warning label by the platform.

Trump has alleged that Joe Biden's apparently impending victory in Pennsylvania, which would give him enough electoral votes to claim the presidency, was the result of fraud. The president has vowed to take legal action to the Supreme Court if necessary, and has called a press conference with his legal team in Philadelphia later on Saturday morning.

The Federal Election Commission's Ellen Weintraub, a long-time Democrat, has dismissed President Donald Trump's claims that the election was fraudulent.

"There really has been no evidence of fraud," Weintraub told CNN on Saturday. "State and local officials and poll workers throughout the country really stepped up. And there have been very few complaints about how this election was run."

Trump, however, has alleged a widespread fraud campaign against him, citing allegations of midnight "ballot dumps" in Democrat-run cities, backdated mail-in votes and closed-door counting in Pennsylvania, and ballots cast from out of state in Nevada.Trump intends to challenge the looming victory of Joe Biden in the Supreme Court.

Donald Trump has claimed in a series of new tweets that voting irregularities changed the outcome in numerous states. He said that “thousands” of votes were counted in Pennsylvania despite being received after the deadline, adding that many more ballots were tabulated without the presence of observers. The president alleged that “bad things” took place as a result of the lack of transparency at many counting stations.

Steve Cortes, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, has claimed “dishonest actors” have hijacked the 2020 election results in key states.

He said Trump supporters were peacefully organizing and using legal channels to make their grievances heard, as opposed to their opponents, whom he said resort to “violence.”

Donald Trump’s son Eric has expressed doubt over Joe Biden’s ability to mobilize a record number of voters during the 2020 contest.

“Does anyone believe that Biden, a candidate who had a tough time filing a room, got 8.89 million more votes than Obama [in] 2012?” he wrote, adding that his father has just received even more support than he had in 2016.

Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama is believed to be the first world leader to publicly congratulate Democrat Joe Biden for winning the 2020 election, even as vote counting continues and the contest faces recounts and legal challenges.

In his message, Bainimarama suggested that Biden would help prevent a “climate emergency” and use America’s resources to rebuild the global economy following the coronavirus pandemic.

Two armed men from Virginia who were arrested outside the Philadelphia Convention Center had wanted to “deliver a truck full of fake ballots,” prosecutors claim, according to local media. The two were arrested on Thursday night after police received a tip about a silver Hummer truck that was transporting weapons and ammunition. The FBI and Philadelphia Police are investigating the incident.

Joe Biden has widened his lead in Georgia after Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta, released a new batch of results. The Democrat is now up by 7,248 votes in the state, with more than 98 percent of votes counted.

The Pennsylvania Democratic Party has filed a brief in opposition to an order from Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr calling for ballots received after the election day deadline to be segregated and counted separately. The Democrats claim they are currently adhering to all rules concerning late ballots and that the Republicans have offered no evidence to the contrary.

Georgia will have two Senate runoffs after Sen. David Perdue, a Republican, fell shy of the majority of votes he needed to win re-election. Georgia’s second Senate seat is also still up for grabs, after a special election to replace retired senator Johnny Isakson failed to produce a clear winner with over 50 percent of the votes.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden addressed the nation on Friday evening and claimed that results show he is poised to take the White House. He said that he had rebuilt the “Blue Wall” with his presumptive wins in Wisconsin and Michigan. He called for “patience” as results are finalized, while adding that fellow Americans may be political opponents, but should not be viewed as “enemies.”

Some 39 House Republicans have signed a letter asking Attorney General William Barr to ensure that vote counting is "conducted in a manner that is fully consistent with state and federal law." They urged the Department of Justice to guarantee a "completely transparent" process so that Americans would have "confidence" in the election results.

US Supreme Court Justice Alito has ordered than any ballots in Pennsylvania received after after 8 pm on election day need to be segregated, secured, and counted separately if at all. Democrats have until 2 pm (1900 GMT) on Saturday to respond.

Asked earlier on Friday if any such ballots have been segregated and how many, the election authorities in Philadelphia declined to answer. 

Federal judge Andrew Gordon has denied the Republican request to stop the counting in Clark County, Nevada, saying “The public interest is not in disrupting the counting of the ballots."

Gordon said that one "potentially misplaced ballot" didn't outweigh the potentially tens or hundreds of thousands that wouldn't be counted in time if they all had to be reviewed by eye. Republicans were challenging the verification done by the signature-matching computer system called Agilis.

"Election fraud is real. In Texas, we investigate and prosecute it," tweeted Governor Greg Abbott on Friday evening, sharing a story about a social worker charged with 134 felony counts of voter fraud.

The employee of an assisted living facility that serves "people with intellectual and developmental disabilities" allegedly submitted voter registration applications for 67 residents without their signature or effective consent, while purporting to act as their agent, according to the charges.

06 November 2020

Maintaining that his "big lead" in disputed states "miraculously" disappeared since election night, Trump said "Perhaps these leads will return as our legal proceedings move forward!"

US President Donald Trump warned his Democrat challenger Joe Biden not to claim victory in the election prematurely.

"Joe Biden should not wrongfully claim the office of the President. I could make that claim also," Trump tweeted on Friday night, ahead of Biden's planned address to the nation, saying that litigation has only just begun.

Head of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Christopher Krebs, felt the need to call out "disinformation" floating around that mail-in ballots were printed by the Department of Homeland Security with special watermarks that would make them immune to fraud, or was auditing them now, calling it "efforts to confuse & undermine confidence in the election."

The latest count from Gwinett County, Georgia show Biden leading the state by 4,258 votes. There are still thousands of ballots outstanding, and the Georgia secretary of state said earlier that there will most likely be a recount.

Democratic Congresswoman from New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has suggested to document support for Trump's claims, proposing that Twitter feeds of incumbent president's backers be archived "for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in future."

On the other side of the aisle, Republican Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz has called on his party colleagues to "dig in and fight this fraud, or else we'll never win another election again."

President Donald Trump has insisted that Joe Biden's lead in certain states is fraudulent, and has vowed to battle it all the way to the Supreme Court. Democrats claim there is no basis for such allegations.

The Republican Party in Pennsylvania has made an “emergency request” to the US Supreme Court, asking the court to order all 67 counties to segregate ballots received after election day.

The state has already promised to keep the ballots separate, and the GOP's request simply asks the court to enforce this promise, and to make sure that “no action” is taken with the ballots.

Before the election, the Supreme Court declined to issue a ruling on a case that would see these late-arriving ballots excluded from the tally. As such, it may still order them tossed aside should Republicans succeed in ongoing litigation.

Joe Biden is leading Trump in Pennsylvania and is on track to claim victory in the Keystone State. Trump has alleged Biden's lead there is fraudulent.

Police in Philadelphia evacuated a shopping mall near the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where ballot counting is ongoing, after bomb threats were called in, local media reported.

No explosives were found and cops gave the all clear shortly afterwards.

A crowd of pro-Trump demonstrators had gathered outside the Convention Center, claiming that officials inside were committing voter fraud to clinch Joe Biden the presidential election. Trump's lawyers held a protest outside the center on Thursday after they were denied access to monitor the count.

Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont who twice tried and failed to secure the Democrat presidential nomination, has thanked "progressive grassroots organizations for their extraordinary efforts in helping to make Biden's victory possible."

The American people "deserve to have full transparency" into all vote-counting and election certification, Trump said in a statement released by his campaign, adding this is not about a single election but "about the integrity of our entire election process."

Jeff Van Drew, a Democrats who switched parties and became a Republican amid the 2019 impeachment of President Trump, was successfully re-elected in New Jersey's 2nd congressional district.

Election officials in Clark County, Nevada said they expect the final count on the "majority" of mail-in ballots by Sunday.

In addition to 63,000 mail-in ballots awaiting to be counted, some 60,000 provisional ballots are also waiting for review, the officials said.

Current count shows Biden ahead of Trump in Nevada by some 20,000 votes.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, said President Trump "needs to do is put his big boy pants on," concede and "congratulate the winner."

The city's election officials say that approximately 40,000 ballots remain to be counted, most of them provisional and military. The final count could take "several days," the election commissioner said.

We're going to keep counting.

While multiple Republicans have spoken out in support of President Trump, if only after public pressure from their base, Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) has condemned the president for saying the election was "rigged, corrupt or stolen," because that "damages the cause of freedom here and around the world."

Clayton County, Georgia - just south of Atlanta - has stopped all processing of ballots until Monday, without explanation.

Facing the prospect of recount in Georgia, and the media calling Pennsylvania for Biden, President Trump is wondering where the military ballots went - presumably expecting them to turn in his favor.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy has said that the battle for the White House is “far from over,” and his party “will not back down from this battle.”

As Joe Biden pulls ahead of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania and Nevada, he stands on the cusp of ousting Trump from the White House. The Trump campaign, on the other hand, has vowed to take the battle against Biden to the courts, claiming the Democrat won by fraud.

After being criticized by Trump’s supporters for their silence, a number of prominent Republicans have spoken out in defense of the president since Thursday, among them Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who said he would donate $500,000 to Trump’s legal defense fund.

Joe Biden has doubled his lead in Nevada and is now more than 22,000 votes ahead of President Donald Trump. This jump puts Biden on track to win the state, with 49.8 percent of the vote to Trump’s 48.1. Nine percent of votes in Nevada remain to be counted.

Together with Pennsylvania, where Biden eclipsed Trump’s lead earlier on Friday, a win in Nevada would give the former vice president enough electoral votes to claim the presidency.

The Trump campaign, however, has claimed that there are “thousands of individuals who improperly cast mail ballots” in Nevada, and has vowed to challenge the results there and in Pennsylvania, and to call for recounts in Georgia and Wisconsin.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has described Joe Biden’s electoral victory as “imminent,” and referred to the former vice president as “President-elect Biden.”

“Pretty soon the hyphen will be gone from vice-president to President-Elect Joe Biden,” Pelosi told reporters on Friday. “This morning it is clear that the Biden/Harris ticket will win the White House.”

Shortly before Pelosi spoke, Biden edged ahead of Trump in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania, leading some news outlets to call the race in his favor. President Trump, however, has vowed to fight the results to the Supreme Court if necessary, claiming Biden won by fraud.

Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, has said that it will hold a recount. “As we are closing in on a final count, we can begin to look to our next steps,” he told reporters on Friday. “With a margin that small, there will be a recount in Georgia.”

Joe Biden pulled ahead of Donald Trump in Georgia by just over 1,000 votes on Friday morning, with more than 99 percent of ballots accounted for. Georgia law allows for a recount if the difference between both candidates is within half a percentage point.

The Trump campaign hopes to uncover ballot fraud during the recount, saying they are confident they will find “ballots improperly harvested.” Raffensperger said on Friday, however, that they were “not seeing widespread fraud” in the state.

“This election is not over,” the Trump campaign said after Joe Biden took the lead in Pennsylvania.

Biden’s lead in the Keystone State puts him on the cusp of declaring electoral victory, and some news organizations have called the state in his favor, with 135,000 votes still to be counted. Victory in Pennsylvania would hand Biden the White House, but the Trump campaign intends to take legal action, citing allegations of fraud.

“There were many irregularities in Pennsylvania, including having election officials prevent our volunteer legal observers from having meaningful access to vote counting locations,” a statement from the campaign read. “In Nevada, there appear to be thousands of individuals who improperly cast mail ballots.”

Trump’s team will also call for recounts in Georgia and likely in Wisconsin. Biden pulled ahead of Trump in Georgia on Friday, and claimed victory in Wisconsin on Thursday.

Joe Biden has flipped Pennsylvania, after overcoming Donald Trump's considerable lead in the state. With the Democrat also leading in Georgia, news outlets are projecting that Biden will surpass the 270 electoral votes needed to secure victory in the 2020 contest.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has issued a statement in which he stressed that “illegally-submitted ballots” should not be counted during the 2020 election.

“Every legal vote should be counted. Any illegally-submitted ballots must not. All sides must get to observe the process,” he wrote, in what appears to be a show of support for the Trump campaign’s assertion that invalid mail-in ballots have tipped the scales in Democrat Joe Biden’s favor. McConnell added that the courts should be used to “resolve” the electoral dispute.

The Republican National Committee has announced it has legal challenge teams on the ground in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, which will be tasked with ensuring that alleged “voting irregularities” are “fully investigated to the fullest extent allowed under of [sic] the law.”

The press release accused Democrats and the media of talking about a “Russia hoax” for four years while ignoring “clear irregularities” that have purportedly occurred during the 2020 contest.

Joe Biden has widened his lead in Georgia, with Donald Trump now trailing by 1,097 votes. The state flipped blue on Friday morning. According to the current AP projection, a Biden win in Georgia would put the former vice president past the 270 electoral votes he needs to secure victory in the 2020 contest.

Georgia has not voted blue since 1992, when Bill Clinton won the southern state.

Belgian MEP Guy Verhofstadt has suggested that Donald Trump should accept defeat in the 2020 presidential election, and cited late Republican Senator John McCain’s 2008 concession speech as an example to emulate.

Joe Biden has taken a narrow lead in Georgia, but counting continues in several states and the race has not yet been called for either candidate. Verhofstadt tweeted yesterday that “counting all votes seems the core of democracy to me” and said not doing so “is the beginning of authoritarian rule.”

Democratic challenger Joe Biden has taken the lead in the battleground state of Georgia. Trump now trails Biden by 917 votes. Ninety-nine percent of the ballots in the state have been counted. It’s believed that there are also military absentee ballots that still need to be tabulated. Georgia has not voted blue since 1992, when Bill Clinton took the state.

A win in Georgia would hand Biden the 270 electoral votes he needs to win the election, according to AP’s current projection.

US President Donald Trump has doubled down on his claim that he would easily defeat Democratic challenger Joe Biden if only “legal” votes were counted. He argued that poll observers were prevented from doing their job and that the Supreme Court should decide the outcome of the 2020 election.

He then posted a follow-up message in which he accused Twitter of being “out of control.” He said that Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields online platforms from liability for content generated by users, was a “gift” that the social media giant was taking advantage of. Twitter has flagged numerous posts made by Trump concerning alleged election irregularities and fraud.

The US Postal Service failed to deliver more than 150,000 mail-in ballots by Election Day, including nearly 12,000 across four states that have yet to be called in the race, the Washington Post reported on Thursday night, citing government data.

Thanks to delays in deliveries, the large trove of ballots was not processed in time to reach their destination at vote-counting facilities around the country by November 3. While the USPS set a target to deliver 97 percent of the ballots on time, in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia – all of which excluding Arizona remain uncalled – their on-time rate was just shy of 85 percent.

Of the five states, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina allow for late ballots to be tallied for a brief period, so long as they were mailed on or before November 3, while Georgia and Arizona do not, meaning more than 800 ballots were invalidated in each state for tardiness.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz told Fox News host Sean Hannity that election officials in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania were “ignoring the law” by barring poll observers from ballot-counting stations. 

The Texas lawmaker said that by preventing transparency during the counting process, officials were “setting the stage to potentially steal an election.”

Arizona’s Republican Governor Doug Ducey urged patience as the state continues its ballot-count for the presidential race, encouraging news organizations to “avoid the temptation to declare a winner until our Arizona election officials have finished their jobs.”

“We’ve seen dramatic changes to races up and down the ballot since Tuesday night, including for President,” Ducey tweeted. “All of this underlines the importance of not jumping to conclusions in the state of Arizona until there’s a final outcome in all counties.” 

While several media outlets have already called the state for Democratic nominee Joe Biden, its most populous county of Maricopa has yet to be decided, reporting Biden ahead at over 944,000 votes to Trump’s 880,000 at 88 percent reporting.

For a second night in a row, a significant crowd of President Donald Trump supporters continued to demonstrate outside an election center in Maricopa County, Arizona, the only undecided district in the state, which was called for Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Wednesday by the Associated Press, Fox News and other outlets.

Chants of “USA! USA!” could be heard from the protesters in footage circulating online, some hoisting signs and banners demanding a fair ballot-count in what’s become a hair-splitting race for the US presidency.

Trump and his backers have challenged Biden’s reported win in Arizona, suggesting news organizations were premature to call the state as the gap between the two candidates continues to close while Maricopa completes its tally.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs blasted the demonstrators in an interview with CNN on Thursday night, alleging that their presence “is causing delay and disruption and preventing [election] employees from doing their jobs.”

In what appears to be a reaction to President Trump's press conference, his challenger Joe Biden has tweeted that "No one is going to take our democracy away from us. Not now, not ever."

Nevada Republicans have requested the US Department of Justice to investigate "at least 3,062 instances of voter fraud," where people allegedly cast ballots after moving out of the state, and "expect that number to grow substantially."

South Dakota's Republican Governor Kristi Noem chimed in on Thursday evening, describing her state's election set-up: voter ID, easily verifiable paper ballots that must all be received by Election Day, and counting open to the public.

"We have an EXCELLENT system. Every Democrat-run state should imitate it," tweeted Noem.

Vice President Mike Pence has tweeted that he stands with Trump and that "We must count every LEGAL vote."

Nine minutes after his tweet, a Politico reporter cited a guest on Fox News claiming that Pence has been absent since Wednesday and had not publicly backed Trump's claims about the election. 

Arriving to the White House press room at 2347 GMT, Trump condemned "fake and suppression polls," praised his party's success in House and Senate races, and accused Democrat strongholds like Philadelphia and Detroit of "shenanigans" with counting the ballots.

“I challenge Joe [Biden] and every Democrat to clarify that they only want LEGAL votes… counted,” Trump said, maintaining that he easily won the legitimate votes tallied on election night.

“We want openness and transparency," Trump told reporters, noting that his campaign had to sue for perfectly legal access for observers, while Democrats counter-sued to stop them.

“We’re hearing absolute horror stories. We can’t let that happen to the USA,” the president concluded, noting that whether the final victory goes to him or Biden, the issue is the legitimacy of US elections in general. “We can’t be disgraced by having something like this happen.”

He took no questions from the press. 

05 November 2020

President Donald Trump is scheduled to address the White House press corps at 6:30 pm Eastern (2330 GMT). 

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat, said on Thursday that the "overwhelming majority" of ballots will be counted by Friday and the number of late-arriving ballots is "significantly lower" than expected. 

She said she was not aware of any recent allegations of voter fraud.

Meanwhile, Trump campaign officials have said they continued to be barred from observing the vote count in Philadelphia, despite a court order allowing them in.

While President Donald Trump hasn't tweeted in several hours - after his last two messages were censored by Twitter - his son Donald Jr. has just called for "total war over this election to expose all of the fraud, cheating, dead/no longer in state voters, that has been going on for far too long."

"It’s time to clean up this mess & stop looking like a banana republic!" Trump Jr. added.

Biden issued a brief statement on Thursday afternoon urging patience, and saying that "The process is working. The count is being completed."

Calling democracy "sometimes messy," Biden said it requires patience that has been "rewarded now for more than 240 years with a system of governance that has been the envy of the world."

Republican John James, who ran against the incumbent Gary Peters in Michigan for the US Senate seat, said he had “deep concerns that millions of Michiganders may have been disenfranchised by a dishonest few who cheat.”

There is enough credible evidence to warrant an investigation, said James. “Those who object likely have something to hide.”

Donald Trump Jr. had some harsh words for the Republican party's relative silence about the election controversy, condemning the "total lack of action from virtually all of the '2024 GOP hopefuls'" and accusing them of cowering to the "media mob." 

The president "will fight [and] they can watch as usual," Trump's son said.

The US "needs new election integrity laws NOW," tweeted Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, saying he'll introduce a bill that would "Ban ballot harvesting, guarantee poll watcher access, make ballot counting transparent."

Meanwhile, federal judge Emmett Sullivan has ordered the US Postal Service to conduct two sweeps of warehouses every day in states that have extended deadlines for receiving mail-in ballots - for example, Pennsylvania and North Carolina - to ensure all the ballots are delivered that day.

Sullivan is best known for refusing to allow the DOJ to drop the case against Trump's first national security adviser, General Michael Flynn. 

A state court has just ordered elections boards in Pennsylvania to set aside certain mail-in ballots that lack voter identifying information and not count them for now, pending final legal resolution.

Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller has openly accused the Democrat-led Pennsylvania authorities of wanting to "keep counting crooked ballots until they find enough votes for Biden to take the lead."

"What is happening in America does not quite correspond to the democratic culture we know from the US," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told Das Erste TV on Thursday.

"It is important that the result is accepted by everyone. It's easy to be a winner, but sometimes it's hard to be a loser," Maas added.

Republicans from the House Administrative Committee have said that Maricopa County, Arizona election officials are preventing their official observers from watching the vote-counting.

Officials in Nevada’s Clark County say they won’t be finished counting votes until Thursday, November 12.

“The bulk of our ballots” will be counted by Saturday or Sunday, registrar Joe Gloria announced on Thursday. However, Gloria said that the count will not be complete until November 12.

Joe Biden is narrowly leading President Donald Trump in Nevada, with around 60,000 ballots still to be counted in Clark County, where Las Vegas is located. The Trump campaign claims that officials there are counting “illegal votes,” and plans on filing a lawsuit to stop the count. Nevada could earn its winner six more electoral votes.

A Michigan judge has rejected the Trump campaign’s effort to stop vote counting in the state, claiming that the lawsuit was based on “hearsay.” 

The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, alleged that poll workers in Michigan were backdating mail-in ballots to swing the election for Joe Biden, and were denying the Trump campaign access to counting sites.The loss is the second court defeat for the Trump campaign on Thursday.

Earlier in Georgia, a judge threw out another lawsuit that claimed officials in Chatham County were processing mail-in ballots received after polls closed. Trump has vowed to challenge any alleged fraud in the courts.

President Donald Trump has vowed to challenge Joe Biden’s recently declared victories, claiming that there is “plenty of proof” of fraud in these swing states.

Biden was recently declared the winner in Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona, though counting is ongoing. Trump and his supporters have claimed that Biden’s lead was established fraudulently.

Trump has launched similar legal action in the remaining swing states, and will reportedly sue Nevada on Thursday to stop its ballot count. Republicans claim that 10,000 votes for Biden in Nevada came from out of state, fraudulently swinging the election his way. 

A Pennsylvania court has ruled that Republican observers can more closely monitor ballot counting in the Keystone State.

President Trump’s legal team previously argued that its poll watchers in Philadelphia were forced to remain “25 feet or more from the counting process, leaving no meaningful way whatsoever for our observers to do our jobs.”

With counting ongoing, Trump is currently leading Joe Biden by more than 200,000 votes in Pennsylvania. Though votes from the Democratic stronghold of Philadelphia are eroding Trump’s lead, Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien told reporters on Thursday that “we still have confidence in Pennsylvania,” but claimed that Democrats are “lying, cheating and stealing” all over the country.

Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, told Atlanta’s WSB-TV that his state will finish counting ballots by noon, with around 60,000 mail-in ballots outstanding.

President Donald Trump currently leads Joe Biden by only 18,500 votes, and with the majority of these outstanding ballots coming in from Democrat-leaning Atlanta and Savannah, Biden has a strong chance of taking Georgia.

The Trump campaign, on the other hand, has sued to stop the count in Georgia. The lawsuit alleges that late-arriving ballots in Savannah were counted without proper oversight.

His lead in several key swing states dwindling, President Donald Trump has broken a lengthy Twitter silence to demand that election officials “STOP THE COUNT.”

Though it is unclear to which state Trump was referring, his campaign has already filed lawsuits over the vote counting process in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, citing alleged fraud and irregularities.

Shortly before Trump’s tweet – the first after around 14 hours of Twitter silence from the commander-in-chief, Joe Biden tweeted “Every vote must be counted.”

A flood of mail-in and absentee ballots has helped Biden shrink Trump’s lead in multiple states. The most recent tranche of ballots in Pennsylvania, counted in Philadelphia on Thursday morning, reportedly gave Biden another 20,000 out of 22,000 votes.

The Trump campaign says it will make a “major announcement” at a press conference in Las Vegas, Nevada on Thursday morning, minutes before the state is expected to release its latest batch of election results. 

The briefing will be attended by former Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, and the state’s GOP chairman. 

Fox reported that the campaign is filing a lawsuit alleging that at least 10,000 people voted in Nevada despite no longer living there.

Biden holds a narrow lead in Nevada, with 75 percent of the votes counted. The state is expected to announce updated results in the coming hours. 

A Biden win in Nevada would secure him the 270 electoral votes he needs to win the election, assuming that Arizona, which is still counting votes, remains blue.

Donald Trump is leading Joe Biden by only 0.4 percent in Georgia after the battleground state updated its results early on Thursday.

The US president is ahead of his Democratic rival by around 23,000 votes. 98 percent of the ballots in the state have been counted, according to AP.

A New York Times op-ed has accused Trump of “election interference” and argued that the US president has done more meddling in the nation's 2020 contest than any foreign country.

In an unusual spin-off from the unsubstantiated 2016 narrative that the Trump campaign had “colluded” with the Kremlin, NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof has claimed that by declaring victory early, the Republican incumbent “has already done what the Russians have always tried to do: cast doubt on American elections and destabilize the United States.”

The alleged conspiracy involving Trump and Moscow, dubbed ‘Russiagate’, became a years-long obsession of the media. In her new op-ed on RT, NYC-based author Katya Kazbek looks at how the US’ left-leaning media are still haunted by its ghost.

Trump is closing the gap with Biden after Maricopa County, Arizona released updated results. The Republican incumbent has shrunk Biden’s lead in the state, which was called early for the Democratic nominee. 

Trump has shaved 10,000 votes off the margin separating him from Biden, but he’s still trailing by around 69,000 ballots. The president’s comeback in the state has led to commentators arguing that Arizona should have never been declared blue so early in the contest.

In a tweet, Maricopa County said that about 275,000 votes remain uncounted, plus provisional ballots. It said the next batch of results will be announced on Thursday night.

Tensions run high at the Maricopa County, AZ ballot-counting office, as sheriff’s deputies were seen wearing tactical gear, ready to face off against a large crowd of demonstrators gathered outside.

Reports have emerged that the building is being closed to the public and media, but that counting would continue.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown has put the state National Guard on standby to assist police as protests that rocked Portland after election night descended into what police described as “widespread violence” on Wednesday evening.

Protesters faced off with officers and smashed storefronts in downtown Portland, prompting police to declare a riot.

Pro-Trump protesters in Phoenix, Arizona have flocked to the state capital, with some chanting “Shame on Fox!” 

The crowd numbering some 150 people then marched towards the Maricopa County Recorder’s office.

Fox News was the first major outlet to call Arizona, a historically red state, for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. The GOP demanded the channel retract its projection, pointing out that there were over 600,000 outstanding votes from Republican-leaning areas still to be counted at the time of the call.

A self-professed whistleblower who claims to work for the US Postal Service told Project Veritas mail carriers in Michigan have been instructed to retrieve absentee ballots from general mail circulation so they can be stamped with Tuesday’s date and counted as legitimate votes. Project Veritas founder James O’Keeffe said the Postal Service’s internal investigation body contacted him and is considering looking into the matter. Michigan was sued by the Trump campaign after an unusual last-minute spike in Biden votes.

New York City police arrested more than 20 people as a post-Election Day “Count Every Vote” rally devolved into violence late on Wednesday in Manhattan. A small group of protesters lit several fires around the city, throwing garbage, setting off fireworks, and attempting to provoke police into retaliating against the larger mass of peaceful demonstrators. Several weapons were retrieved from those arrested, including a taser and knives.

Michigan's secretary of state Jocelyn Benson denounced a lawsuit launched by US President Donald Trump that seeks to halt the counting of votes in the state, deeming it “frivolous.” She also urged residents to avoid “spreading misinformation” and bolstering “efforts to sow seeds of doubt” in the electoral process. 

“Whether it’s doctored images, staged demonstrations, false tweets or frivolous lawsuits, the purpose is all the same: to reduce the public’s faith in our elections and their outcomes,” Benson said in a video update, referring to a suit filed by the president earlier on Wednesday.

Australian bookies Sportsbet.com.au have called the election for Biden and decided they will be "paying out early" some $23 million ($16.5 million US) Australian dollars on those who wagered on the Democrat.

They are still keeping the presidential betting market open, however.

The Trump campaign has filed to ensure the rules on counting absentee and mail-in ballots are being followed in Georgia, where about 200,000 absentee and mail-in ballots remain uncounted in DeKalb, Fulton, Forsyth, and other left-leaning counties, after a Republican poll worker claimed to have observed fraudulent behavior.

The AP initially reported the lawsuit ordered an immediate halt to the vote count. However, it was later revealed that the campaign had ordered election officials first to separate ballots received after 7pm on Election Day, the deadline for absentee and mail-in votes to be counted in Georgia. Once the absentee ballots were all accounted for, they should be stored pending "further instruction" from the court "as to their final disposition,” the campaign requested.

04 November 2020

The Arizona Republican Party has called on Fox News to "retract its early and rash call" that Biden has won their state, saying there are 600,000 ballots left to count from voters leaning Republican. 

Fox News called Arizona for Biden early on Tuesday night, with its statisticians insisting their models show no path for Trump to win. AP echoed that assessment early on Wednesday.

"The damage has already been done to the integrity of our system, and to the Presidential Election itself," Trump tweeted, noting that 'meaningful access' his campaign is suing to secure in Michigan isn't going to amount to much.

AP has officially called Michigan for Biden, putting the Democrat within 6 electoral votes from victory. 

Trump's campaign has disputed the Michigan results, claiming irregularities with mail-in ballots. 

North Carolina has just announced it will not provide a final vote count until November 12.

Trump claimed victory in the state, but without an official call it won't be included in his electoral college projections, leaving him short of 270 votes in any scenario. 

At least any conspiracy theories about "Russia" or some "foreign adversary" meddling in the election can be put to rest, as Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Chris Krebs said they found no evidence of that.

President Trump has tweeted a claim that he has won Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, all three with a "big Trump lead," as well as Michigan - which has been called for Biden - "if, in fact, there was a large number of secretly dumped ballots as has been widely reported!” 

Twitter immediately put warning labels on both posts, saying the first claim hasn't been backed by "official sources" and the second was "disputed and could be misleading."

Trump campaign attorney Rudy Giuliani accused the Democrats of being run by "crooks" making a concerted effort to "steal" the election in major cities.

"You know these big city machines are crooked," Giuliani said in Philadelphia on Wednesday afternoon. "A 100 years of one-party rule leads to corruption."

Democrat Joe Biden says "it’s clear that we’re winning enough states to reach 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency."

Biden stopped short of claiming victory outright, but pointed out his margins in Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, the popular vote lead, and confidence about winning Pennsylvania based on the rate of mail-in ballots he's been winning.

Standing alongside his running mate Kamala Harris, who did not speak, Biden urged Americans to "unite, to heal, to come together as a nation" and not treat opponents as enemies. 

Biden promised he would govern as a president for all Americans, not as a Democrat. However, his speech also contained a warning, presumably aimed at the Trump campaign's challenge to some of the voting results, that “No one’s going to take our democracy away from us - not now, not ever."

Republicans have picked up the net total of five seats in the US House of Representatives, but Democrats are projected to stay in control, with 232 seats to the GOP's 197. One seat is held by a libertarian and there are five currently vacant. 

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has announced victory in Pennsylvania. 

"We have won Pennsylvania!"tweeted Eric Trump.

"Victory for President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania," White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted from her personal account.

Neither the authorities nor the mainstream media outlets designated by social networks as the arbiters of the election have made that call, however.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf vowed that the state "will have a fair election and that election will be free from outside influences.”

Make no mistake, our democracy is being tested in this election.

This seemed to be a reference to the Trump campaign's challenge to the count of votes after Election Day. Some three million votes were mailed in under changes to electoral laws enacted in 2019, Wolf said.

“We are approaching 50 percent of the mail-in ballots counted,” Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said, adding it was “exactly” where the officials said the process would be by now.

"We are going to accurately count every single ballot," Boockvar added.

“We’re going to defend this vote, the vote by which Joe Biden has been elected to the presidency,” Biden campaign adviser Bob Bauer says during the 'election protection briefing', calling the Republican claims about alleged irregularities in vote-counting "absurd" and "specious."

Pennsylvania remains a key battleground, with its 20 electoral votes in the balance. State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, told CNN the final count won't be done before Friday.

Regardless of what the media or Biden may say, "Vote counts have to be certified. We do this the legal way, not the DC way," said Richard Grenell, former acting director of national intelligence and now a Republican campaign official.

The Biden campaign is holding an "election protection briefing" any minute now, while the Trump campaign has announced a press conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for 3:30 pm local time (2030 GMT).

AP has now called Wisconsin for Biden, who was just over 20,000 votes ahead as of the last count.

Trump's campaign manager said they intended to request a recount, which Wisconsin law allows because the difference was within one percentage point. 

The Trump campaign said it has filed a lawsuit with the Michigan Court of Claims to halt ballot counting in the state until it is granted “meaningful access” to observe the opening and counting of ballots. Campaign manager, Bill Stepien, also demanded a review of ballots that were allegedly opened and tallied without the campaign representatives present.

Maine’s Republican Senator Susan Collins has claimed victory in her re-election contest against a Democratic contender. Her opponent Sara Gideon confirmed she had already congratulated Collins on winning the vote.

Trump maintains an eight percent lead over Biden in Pennsylvania, with 80 percent of the estimated ballots counted, according to Edison Research. The incumbent has 53.4 percent of the votes while his Democratic contender has 45.3 percent.

With some 100,000 ballots left to count, Michigan expects to present the voting results by Wednesday night, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said as she asked “for patience.” “I’m optimistic that by the end of the day, the majority of our ballots will be tabulated,” she told journalists.

With 99 percent of the votes counted in Wisconsin, Biden has 49.4 percent of the votes while Trump is on 48.8 percent, according to the Edison Research. A margin of less than one percent point allows a candidate to seek a recount, however the Trump campaign has expressed concern over “reports of irregularities in several Wisconsin counties” and said they will request an immediate recount as soon as all the ballots are counted. 
Biden’s lead over Trump in Wisconsin is just over 20,000 votes, according to Ann Jacobs, chair of the state’s Elections Commission.

US Postmaster General Louis DeJoy will have to answer questions under oath over the US Postal Service’s (USPS) failure to comply with a court order, the US District Judge for the District of Columbia Emmet Sullivan said. Earlier, the court demanded the USPS “sweep” certain processing facilities by 15:00 EST to make sure all mail-in ballots had been processed. DeJoy argued his agency could not do this due to the lack of time and personnel.

Both Trump and Biden camps say they are confident they are on their way to victory as the vote count in the presidential election continues. Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien said the president would be re-elected “if we count all legal ballots” while accusing the Democrats of “pushing to count late ballots.”

Trump’s legal team said that “all legal options are on the table in battleground states.” Biden’s campaign official meanwhile told Fox News that the vote count is “moving to a conclusion” in the Democrat’s favor.

Joe Biden has surpassed Donald Trump in Michigan, with an estimated 94 percent of the votes counted, the Associated Press has reported. The Democrat has a lead of less than 20,000 votes over his Republican rival, according to the latest tally.

During the 2016 election, Michigan, traditionally a blue state, fell to Trump by a small margin of less than 11,000 votes.

Tensions remained high overnight in Washington, DC, where activists marched through the streets chanting Black Lives Matter slogans and set up fireworks. On some occasions there were minor clashes with the police, though no major incidents of violence directly linked to the protests were reported.

But there was an incident near the White House, in which several members of the pro-Trump group Proud Boys were stabbed. They were taken to hospital with non life-threatening injuries. The police are looking for three suspects, whom the victims believe to be part of BLM. The group itself denied any links to the attack.

The counting of votes in Nevada has been suspended for the night and will continue on Thursday, state election officials said. They have processed all in-person votes, but mail-in and provisional ballots are yet to be tallied. “Ballots outstanding is difficult to estimate,” they said.

The race is extremely tight in the state, with Biden leading over Trump by some 8,000 votes. Over 1,190,000 ballots have been counted in Nevada, accounting for an estimated 67 percent of all votes cast.

Battleground state Wisconsin has switched sides and now has Biden in the lead after absentee ballots from the city of Milwaukee were counted in.

With over 95 percent of the votes tallied, the Democratic candidate is only around 20,000 votes ahead of Trump. Observers say the state will be an obvious target for a legal battle between the two campaigns, regardless of the final official count.

Republican candidate David Andahl, who died last month after getting Covid-19, has won a seat in North Dakota Congress, state election officials have confirmed. The 55-year-old succumbed to the disease on October 5, but remained on ballots, in part because voting started prior to his death.

North Dakota Republicans are expected to choose a replacement for Andahl, who will represent District 8 in the state legislature. A special election may also be called to fill the seat he has won, if voters in his constituency petition for it.

The Biden campaign has accused Donald Trump of attempting to “shut down the counting of duly cast ballots” after he said he would ask the US Supreme Court to intervene and stop what he described as a “major fraud” in vote counting. The statement expressed certainty that Biden will be the next president of the US.

AP, the New York Times, and other outlets have called Maine for Biden, with at least three of its four electoral votes going to the Democratic contender.

Governor Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania blasted President Trump for claiming without providing evidence that “major fraud” is happening with the vote count.

“Let’s be clear: This is a partisan attack on Pennsylvania’s elections, our votes, and democracy,” the Democratic governor tweeted. “Pennsylvania will have a fair election and we will count every vote.”

Associated Press (AP) and Fox News have called Arizona for Joe Biden, adding 11 electoral votes to his count. Shortly before that Trump claimed it was “possible” that he had won the state, as he gave a speech on how he expected victory in the election.

Donald Trump has claimed victory in several states that are yet to be projected for either candidate, and said that as far as he is concerned, he has won the presidency.

He claimed “major fraud” is underway to steal the election from him through legal challenges and said he will be asking the Supreme Court to intervene and protect the integrity of the election.

Speaking at the White House, Trump expressed confidence that he is about to win the election and that the Democratic campaign “can’t catch up with us.” He thanked the millions of people who voted for him for their support and said they will not be “disenfranchised.”

Facebook has marked Joe Biden’s prediction that he will win with a label warning that the votes are still being counted and that the outcome has not been projected.

Some of Trump’s posts on the platform received similar treatment.

Joe Biden is winning one of Nebraska’s five electoral votes, multiple media outlets say. His supporters hope that winning the state’s 2nd district may be the difference between victory and losing the entire election.

The last polling stations are now closed in Alaska, meaning voting has ended in the US. The outcome of the election is far from certain.

Texas’ 38 electoral votes are set to go to Trump as multiple outlets have called it for the incumbent president.

While not traditionally considered a battleground state, opinion polls indicated that the Republican stronghold might turn blueish for this election cycle and be grabbed by Biden.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican politician from Georgia, has won the US House seat from the 14th district. She drew national attention during the campaign after saying on social media that the ideas of the conspiracy theory QAnon are “worth listening to”.

QAnon claims that the US circles of power have been infiltrated by a cabal of pedophiles and that Donald Trump will eventually order sweeping arrests of those individuals.

After the uproar, Greene distanced herself from the movement, rejecting the label of a “QAnon candidate” slapped on her by critics.

“We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election,” Donald Trump has tweeted. The tweet was labeled as “disputed” and potentially misleading by the service.

“Keep the faith guys, we’re gonna win this!” Biden told supporters in Wilmington, Delaware at 45 minutes after midnight on Wednesday.

“I’m here to tell you tonight we believe we’re on track to win this election,” the Democrat said, reminding his supporters that “it ain’t over till every ballot is counted.”

Biden added that his campaign is confident about Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan. “And by the way… we’re gonna win Pennsylvania.”

More than half an hour after midnight, AP finally calls Florida for Trump, with 3.5 percentage points ahead of Biden.

AP has called Iowa, Ohio and Montana for Trump, and Hawaii and Minnesota for Biden.

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has pushed back on Fox News' decision to call the state for Biden.

"It’s far too early to call the election in Arizona. Election Day votes are not fully reported, and we haven’t even started to count early ballots dropped off at the polls," he tweeted.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said the final results for the presidential race won't be available until Wednesday night, Reuters reports.

With about 60 percent of the votes counted so far, Trump has a 9-point lead over Biden.

Three states that Trump won in 2016 and where he is reportedly doing well this year - Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania - are most likely not going to announce their results on Election Night, potentially leaving the outcome in limbo with official calls showing Biden in the lead.

Michigan officials reportedly said they need until Friday. Wisconsin said there was "no way" they would be announcing a winner tonight. Pennsylvania has stopped counting the mail-in ballots at 11 pm. All three states are run by Democrats.

Mississippi voters have approved the design of the new state flag. Previous versions of the flag have featured the Confederate battle flag as part of the design since 1894.

In Baltimore, Democrat incumbent Kweisi Mfume has defeated Republican Kimberly Klacik to hold onto Maryland’s 7th congressional district. AP is calling the race based on 58 percent of precincts reporting, showing Mfume leading by over 100,000 votes. Klacik, who campaigned on the slogan that African-Americans don't have to vote Democrat, won more than 55,000.

Meanwhile, masked and armed protesters in Washington, DC seem to have rallied and are marching through the city, vowing to "burn down the American plantation."

Polls have now closed in California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. AP has already called all but Idaho for Biden.

Voting is still ongoing only in Alaska and Hawaii at this point. 

All four members of the progressive Democrat “squad” from 2018 have now been re-elected. AP has called the 7th congressional district of Massachusetts in favor of Ayanna Pressley, while CNN is calling Michigan’s 13th district for Rashida Tlaib.

Earlier, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) also reportedly held on to their seats in the US House of Representatives.

In a three-way special election for the US Senate in Georgia, incumbent Senator Kelly Loeffler has edged out fellow Republican challenger Doug Collins, but will face a runoff in January against Democrat challenger Raphael Warnock.

Loeffler was appointed by Governor Brian Kemp at the end of 2019, to replace Sen. Johnny Isakson, who resigned for health reasons.

Democrat Ilhan Omar has held onto her seat in Minnesota's 5th congressional district, with AP reporting she easily defeated the Republican challenger Lacy Johnson.

Her colleague in the progressive "squad," Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has also managed to keep her seat in New York's 14th congressional district, per media reports.

Though it hasn't been officially called, Republican Nicole Malliotakis has declared victory over the incumbent Democrat Max Rose in New York's 11th congressional district.

Republicans have flipped two House seats in Florida, which has still not been officially called for Trump.

In the 26th district, Carlos Gimenez beat the incumbent Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, while in the 27th Maria Elvira Salazar beat the incumbent Democrat Donna Shalala, who had flipped that seat in 2018.

Republican challenger Tommy Tuberville has defeated the incumbent Senator Doug Jones (D-Alabama), according to AP. 

The seat once held by Jeff Sessions, who went on to become Trump's first attorney general but got sidelined by 'Russiagate', was flipped by Democrats in 2017.

In that special election, Jones had help from New Knowledge, a Democrat-funded outfit that leveraged Russiagate to create an army of false-flag "Russian bots" that supposedly backed the Republican candidate.

AP has called the US Senate race in South Carolina for the Republican incumbent Lindsey Graham over the Democrat challenger Jamie Harrison.

Graham was widely considered vulnerable as Democrats poured money into Harrison's candidacy, but he ended up holding his own, much like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell against like Amy McGrath in Kentucky. 

Polls have now closed in Iowa, Montana, Nevada and Utah.

Meanwhile in Washington, DC, black-clad and masked activists have been spotted on Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House, described as either anarchists or 'Antifa.'

Another video showed several of them in a physical altercation with riot-geared police officers.

Odds

Betting markets have shifted dramatically in Trump's favor, and the president is now favored to win re-election for the first time since September 2, according to OddsShark.

Previously, all betting showed Democrat Joe Biden way ahead.

AP reports that Republican Madison Cawthorn has won the House race in the 11th congressional district in North Carolina, the seat previously held by Mark Meadows, who became the White House chief of staff in March.

Cawthorn is a 25-year-old paraplegic, who wasn't considered a shoo-in to win, as the newly redrawn district included a Democrat stronghold. He becomes the youngest member of Congress.

Within minutes of polls closing in Colorado, media are projecting that Democrat John Hickenlooper will oust the incumbent Republican Cory Gardner, in what could be the first Senate flip of the night.

Democrats would need to win four seats without losing any, to take control of the Senate. 

Polls have now closed in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Decision Desk HQ has called Florida, with its 29 electoral votes, for Trump. Other outlets like AP, however, still deem the state too close to call.

Trump reportedly had a much stronger showing in the Democratic stronghold of Miami-Dade than in 2016, running up African-American and Latino support.

US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has won re-election in Kentucky, fending off a well-funded challenge from Democrat Amy McGrath.

With 61 percent of Kentucky precincts having reported results, McConnell led McGrath by more than 14 percentage points, at 55-41.Democrats tried to make a late run at McConnell's Senate seat as he oversaw the controversial confirmation of US Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. McGrath's campaign raised a record $36.8 million in the July-September quarter.

Georgia's Marjorie Taylor Greene has won her race for the US House, which will make her the first member of Congress who has openly supported the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Greene, a Republican, was guaranteed victory when her Democrat rival, Kevin Van Ausdal, dropped out of the contest in September. State officials left Van Ausdal's name on the ballot, but Greene had captured 81 percent of votes in a tally from early precincts.Greene said she made social-media posts about QAnon during the Trump-Russia collusion investigation, but she decided to "choose another path" by running for office after finding "misinformation."

Georgia delay

Results from Fulton County, Georgia - home to Atlanta and a tenth of the state's population - will be running late, as mail-in voting count was delayed by four hours after a water pipe burst at State Farm Arena, where the processing facility is located. Officials said no ballots were damaged, however.

As polls begin to close and media project winners based on just a couple of percentages of votes counted, the Trump campaign has called on Republican voters to "stay in line" until they've cast their ballots, regardless of what the reports say.

It is 7 pm Eastern time in the US, and polling stations have closed in the states of Georgia, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia and parts of Florida.

Polls in the Florida panhandle are staying open for another hour. 

Media organizations have already projected Biden as the winner in Vermont and Virginia, while calling Kentucky and Indiana for Trump.

03 November 2020

An "exit" poll conducted by AP showed the American electorate was not convinced either Joe Biden or Donald Trump have the "mental capability to serve effectively as president."  

Slightly more voters thought Biden had better mental capacity than Trump, however, mirroring the Democrats' advantage in national polling reported by mainstream media outlets.

As the first round of polling places close in Indiana, Kentucky and New Hampshire, initial results from Indiana show Trump leading Biden. These are just the first numbers of the night, though.

"We are looking really good all over the country," Trump tweeted at 6:15 pm Eastern time (2315 GMT).

The New York Times has removed its tweet saying that "the role of declaring the winner of a presidential election in the US falls to the news media,” after facing backlash.

While social media platforms have selected a group of mainstream outlets to "call" the race before allowing any candidates to claim victory, the media do not in fact declare the winner.

Moreover, the media have called the races wrong in the past, from declaring Al Gore won Florida in 2000, to perhaps the most infamous incident of all, when the Chicago Tribune declared 'Dewey Defeats Truman' in 1948. Truman actually won that election. 

Crowd gathers outside the White House in Washington, DC

There is a heavy police presence outside the White House and on the surrounding streets in Washington, DC as the US capital braces for possibility of violent demonstrations on election night.

As evening fell on Washington, a crowd assembled north of Lafayette Park, on the street renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza during the summer riots. So far, the gathering has remained peaceful.

Earlier, however, there was a scuffle with police and one person was arrested, apparently in an effort to remove an illegally parked vehicle.

A ballot scanner in Des Moines, Iowa, was reportedly no match for Covid-19, as a buildup of hand sanitizer from the hands of voters caused the machine to stop working. Some voters' hands were moist with sanitizer as they cast their ballots, and a buildup of the fluid caused a ballot scanner at one polling place to jam, according to a spokesman for Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate. The machine was repaired and put back in service in about one hour.

US stocks posted their best Election Day performance since 2008, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 554 points.

The Dow climbed 2.1 percent to 27480.03, while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index advanced 1.8 percent to 3369.16. The Nasdaq Composite gained similarly, rising nearly 1.9 percent.

Both sides saw the market's behavior as a harbinger of victory, with Joe Biden supporters recalling that it was the Obama-Biden ticket that won after the market rallied in 2008. President Donald Trump has warned that the stock market will collapse if Biden wins the election.

The US Postal Service reportedly failed to meet a judge's deadline to sweep its facilities and immediately deliver all remaining ballots by 3 p.m. New York time.

US District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered earlier Tuesday that postal inspectors in certain locations sweep their processing facilities to ensure that no ballots were held up. An estimated 300,000 ballots lacked a delivery scan as of Monday, The Hill reported.

The Postal Service said inspectors were unable to accelerate their daily review process to finish by 3 p.m. without significantly disrupting their other Election Day responsibilities, "something which defendants did not understand the court to invite or require."

Dozens of states don't allow mail-in ballots that are received after Election Day to be counted.

Jill Biden, wife of Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, visited supporters at a polling site in North Carolina, a key swing state seen as a toss-up in polling. She and her husband went their separate ways to build last-minute support in key locations after visiting family graves in Delaware in the morning.

"We're just keeping on keeping on," Jill Biden reportedly told members of the press after she arrived in Cary, North Carolina. 

 She turned on the charm offensive by greeting supporters and handing out cookies.

Amid reports of record number of requests for vote-by-mail ballots, footage emerged showing what purports to be a low turnout at a polling station in Philadelphia. The video posted by journalist Jack Posobiec shows a polling station with no line of people and workers waiting to process voters.

Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden is counting on a dominant performance and high turnout in Philadelphia, traditionally a Democrat stronghold, to help win the hotly contested swing state of Pennsylvania. Donald Trump won the state by 0.7 percent in 2016, the smallest margin since 1840, despite getting just 15.5 percent of the vote in Philadelphia.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden seemingly lost his train of thought while speaking to a group of supporters in Philadelphia, introducing his granddaughter by saying, "This is my son, Beau Biden, who a lot of you helped elect to the Senate in Delaware."

He then said, "This is my granddaughter, Natalie. No wait, I've got the wrong one."

Another granddaughter stepped to his side and he said, "This is Natalie, this is Beau's daughter, and we're out campaigning together." He then corrected himself by introducing the other granddaughter as Finnegan Biden, daughter of his son Hunter.

New York Attorney General Letitia James is investigating a spate of robocalls urging voters to stay at home on election day. James said in a statement that “attempts to hinder voters from exercising their right to cast their ballots are disheartening, disturbing, and wrong,” and will be punished. 

Earlier on Tuesday, Reuters reported that the FBI was investigating these calls, which allegedly were placed in multiple states, including the key battleground state of Michigan. There, Attorney General Dana Nessel recently filed charges against Republican operatives for similar robocalls. 

Unlike Michigan, New York is not a swing state, and voters there haven’t backed a Republican since Ronald Reagan won re-election in 1984.  

Washington, DC Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan has ordered the US Postal Service to gather any remaining mail-in ballots in its facilities and speed up their delivery.

Sullivan’s order applies to several battleground states where ballots must be delivered by the closing of polls, including Michigan, Georgia, Florida and Arizona. His order also covers Pennsylvania and Texas, however both of these states allow counting after election day.

Democrats have brought several cases against the USPS in an effort to gather more mail-in ballots. The Supreme Court bolstered their chances on Monday when it allowed Pennsylvania's officials to count late-arriving ballots postmarked by November 3.

The court ruled 4-4, meaning it could still hear the case again and invalidate these ballots in the coming days.

Voting machines in Scranton, Pennsylvania, have reportedly malfunctioned, leaving voters with an unappealing choice: stand in line and wait for the machines or fill out a paper ballot and trust poll workers to enter their choices later. 

Pennsylvania is a vital swing state for both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and the apparent glitch set conservatives on edge. Earlier on Tuesday, the Philadelphia GOP reported malfunctioning machines, illegal voting, and Republican poll watchers being barred from polling places.

President Trump has claimed that Democrats will attempt to rig the election against him in Pennsylvania, and has promised that “as soon as that election’s over, we’re going in with our lawyers.”

As storefronts were boarded up across the US in preparation for potential election night violence, Democratic VP candidate Kamala Harris downplayed the threat of unrest.

“Have faith in the American people,” she told reporters after a campaign stop in Detroit. “I do strongly believe that we, whoever you vote for, will defend the integrity of our democracy and a peaceful transfer of power.”

“There are certain lines that whoever you vote for, that we will not cross,” she added.

Though Harris struck a calm note on Tuesday, she praised protesters taking to the streets following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. She later said demonstrations are “not going to stop before Election Day in November and they're not going to stop after Election Day.”

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have said that anyone sick with Covid-19 or in quarantine may still turn up to vote in person.

While the CDC advised voters to seek “alternative voting methods” earlier this summer, it said on Sunday that infected or quarantining citizens can cast their ballots in person, provided they “take steps to protect poll workers and other voters.”

“This includes wearing a mask, staying at least six feet away from others, and washing your hands or using hand sanitizer before and after voting,” the CDC guidance says.

More than 588,000 new cases of Covid-19 were reported by the CDC in the last week, bringing the total number of cases in the US since the pandemic began to 9.2 million.

The FBI is investigating claims of robocalls telling voters in several states to remain at home, Reuters reported, citing an official from the Department of Homeland Security.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said that callers in her state targeted voters in the city of Flint, telling them that “due to long lines, they should vote tomorrow.” Nessel, who recently filed charges against Republican operatives for making similar calls, said that they are “an effort to suppress the vote.” 

CNN anchor Jim Sciutto said that callers in more than one state told voters to “stay safe and stay home.”

Business owners across the country have boarded up their storefronts in anticipation of election night violence. Some activist groups, among them Black Lives Matter and various ‘Antifa’ factions have planned rallies in major US cities. Many business owners fear that violence will ensue should Donald Trump win re-election.

“There is a movement in this country that is anarchic, they are Antifa, they are Black Lives Matter and very hardcore left-wing agitators and that's why this has to be done,” one New York worker told RT’s video news agency Ruptly on Monday.

Similar preparations have been made in Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland, where riots and vandalism have been an almost nightly occurrence since the killing of George Floyd in May.

Former FBI director James Comey has come out swinging in support of Joe Biden, appearing in campaign merchandise and encouraging Americans to “vote for your country.”

Comey’s endorsement is no surprise. The FBI’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election clouded much of President Donald Trump’s first term, and Comey has since become an outspoken critic of Trump on the cable news circuit.

However, his decision in October 2016 to announce the reopening of an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email scandal has been blamed by some for costing Clinton the election. Clinton herself said that Comey’s announcement “stopped our momentum.”

This time around, as a private citizen, Comey has offered nothing but endorsement for the Biden campaign.

Former President Bill Clinton and failed 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton have cast their votes for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Echoing Biden’s campaign language, Bill Clinton tweeted that Biden and Harris “will work tirelessly to heal our divisions and build a better future for all of us.”

President Donald Trump has not picked up the endorsement of any former president. Republican George W. Bush did not offer an endorsement to either Trump or Biden, but the former vice president is backed by a host of Bush administration Republicans and neoconservatives.

Former President Barack Obama has held multiple rallies for Biden in recent days. President Trump jeered the former leader for drawing “very small numbers of people,” saying “every time he speaks, people come over to our side.”

As polls opened in Florida on Tuesday morning, Democratic nominee Joe Biden led by more than 100,000 early votes, assuming Democrats voted along party lines. However, a strong Republican turnout soon eroded his lead, and by 11am local time, Donald Trump was in the lead by more than 60,000 votes, according to data compiled by one Republican researcher.

However, not all counties have issued preliminary vote counts yet. Miami-Dade County is the most populous county in Florida, and nearly two thirds of voters there backed Hillary Clinton in 2016. Officials there have not released any tallies yet, and Democratic turnout there could swing Florida back into Biden’s column by Tuesday night. 

Florida is a crucial swing state, and the most recent pre-election polls showed Trump and Biden in a dead heat in the Sunshine State.

Republicans in the swing state of Pennsylvania have reported numerous cases of potential voter fraud in Philadelphia, a Democrat stronghold.

Poll watchers have allegedly been barred from voting locations and kept away from counting tables, machines have been reported broken, and campaigners for Joe Biden have reportedly been campaigning outside polling places.

President Donald Trump especially highlighted Pennsylvania while taking aim at what he calls a Democrat effort to stage a “rigged election.” As well as calling on poll watchers to report irregularities, Trump has promised to “go in with our lawyers” if he doesn't trust the final result in Pennsylvania.

Trump and Biden have scored their first official victories in New Hampshire after votes were counted in the hamlets of Dixville Notch and Millsfield. The former went to the Democratic contender who grabbed all five votes in the tiny community in a landslide. But Trump took 16 votes to Biden’s five in the latter. 

Twenty-six votes seem like a drop in an ocean of an expected 160 million, but the Twitter battle around the results already serves as an example of how the political confrontation is expected to unfold.

Technical difficulties have been reported at polling stations in Spalding County, Georgia, bringing computers down. Officials said the problem was resolved quickly, but may still cause longer lines.

A CISA official said the issue appeared to be one of the “typical challenges with the election technology” and not an indication of malicious cyber activity.

The acting secretary of Homeland Security said despite “multitude of foreign inference threats” against the election, the actual votes have not been compromised. The Trump administration previously accused nations such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea of trying to interfere with the general election.

“We do remain on high alert here at DHS and CISA throughout the day and beyond to make sure that the integrity of our election infrastructure is maintained,” Chad Wolf said.

The pandemic has affected the way the voting is being conducted. Almost 100 million Americans have voted early, either by mail or in person, far surpassing the 47.2 million early votes that were cast before election day in 2016. Turnout projections say as many as 160 million people may cast ballots in total.

Both parties have sent rallying cries along the lines of “vote like your life depends on it” to their supporters. It will soon be clear if they have managed to overcome the concerns over Covid-19, as well as the discomforts of long lines at polling stations and other factors that traditionally keep American voters at home.

Contrary to Trump’s boastful claim of being one of the best presidents ever, many voters might not agree that his record backs it up. Arguably the most important issue that could cost him reelection is the manner in which his administration responded to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The US has the world’s highest death toll from the deadly disease, which Trump has consistently dismissed as being no worse than the flu. At the same time, his administration blamed China for failing to warn other nations about the danger of the coronavirus in time.

The antagonism is pervasive in the US media, as it is on the streets. Trump’s first term started with his opponents branding him a Russian agent who had stolen the election with the help of leaked emails and online memes. After years of ‘Russiagate’ investigations, not a single US citizen was charged in relation to conspiring with agents of the Russian government, while many anti-Trump stories, which respectable US outlets ran with, turned out to be extremely exaggerated or completely bogus.

Culminating this apparent bias was the decision of  social media and MSM to suppress allegations of corruption in the Biden family. Also, the leaked emails and photos allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden, the son of the Democratic candidate, were branded as Russian disinformation without a shred of evidence to back this claim. Many Trump supporters, like his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, say their preferred candidate is the victim of media and big tech conspiracy.

Concerns over post-election violence seem well justified, considering the charged political atmosphere and that over the previous months confrontations between supporters and detractors of President Trump have turned ugly, and even deadly.

Black Lives Matter activists in Portland, arguably the biggest rioting hotspot in the US, were at their thing overnight, vandalizing property and clashing with law enforcement. “You're gonna get a good show tomorrow,” one of them was filmed saying.

Year 2020 in the US was marked by the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, which claimed hundreds of thousands lives and devastated the national economy, mass protests and rioting over racism and an unprecedented polarization of the social fabric. Many shop owners in large cities boarded their businesses ahead of the election day, expecting street violence, or worse.

Biden promises a return of civility and bipartisanship in politics and that his administration would be steady and competent, unlike Trump’s. During the primaries centrist democrats managed to crush the “progressive insurgency” led by Bernie Sanders and rally their troops behind Biden.

Trump’s case for a second term is that his opponent is secretly planning to turn the US into a socialist country - or at least one where rioting and looting can go unopposed for the sake of social justice. He claims he has done a great job at making America great again and promises to keep it that way.

The Republican incumbent, President Donald Trump, is running against Joe Biden, the Vice President in the previous Democratic administration.