Democrat Joe Biden said on Wednesday he was headed toward a victory over President Donald Trump in the U.S. election after claiming the pivotal Midwestern states of Wisconsin and Michigan, while the Republican incumbent opened a multi-pronged attack on vote counts by pursuing lawsuits and a recount.
This report produced by Jonah Green.
Officials worked around the clock counting ballots in Philadelphia...in Detroit...in Kenosha... And while the excruciatingly close U.S. presidential election dragged on into its second day, the prospect that Joe Biden would seize enough electoral votes to win the White House looked more and more likely.
"It's clear that we're winning enough states to win 270 Electoral votes." The former Vice President projected confidence at a speech Wednesday afternoon but asked for patience.
"I'm not here to declare that we've won...but I'm here to report, when the count is finished, we believe we'll be the winners....Now, every vote must be counted.
No one's going to take our democracy away from us.
Not now, not ever." Multiple news outlets called Michigan and Wisconsin for Biden, while the Trump campaign sued to stop ballot counting in the former and requested a recount in the ladder.
Trump tweeted a firehose of misinformation and innuendo, implying votes were being illegally added or tampered with.
In the early hours Wednesday while millions of votes remained uncounted, Trump prematurely declared victory.
"This is a fraud on the American public, this is an embarrassment to our country.
We were getting ready to win this election, frankly, we did win this election." As of Wednesday afternoon, the president was clinging to leads in North Carolina and Georgia, though several of the large counties around Atlanta that lean Democratic have substantial numbers of ballots still to count.
Of the battleground states, Pennsylvania has the furthest to go in counting votes, and Trump so far maintains a large lead there.
Democratic Governor Tom Wolf said many votes remain to be counted.
Though Trump's campaign said on Wednesday it was suing to stop counting of ballot there, as well.
But if Biden maintains his leads in Arizona and Nevada - he won't need Pennsylvania to win the White house.