The results of the US election are still unclear today as Joe Biden inches towards victory with wins in several key swing states by razor thin margins - while Trump launches lawsuits to try and overturn those results.
As things stand, Biden needs to hold on to his leads in two midwestern states - Nevada and Arizona - to win the White House. Counting there is due to resume on Thursday morning, local time.
But Trump has launched legal action in Michigan and Wisconsin, which Biden claimed Wednesday, and Pennsylvania, where Biden is creeping towards victory, in an attempt to stop vote counting and reverse the results - which had been going his way until mail-in ballots were tallied.
The opposite is true in Arizona, which was initially called for Biden as he sat on a lead of 200,000 votes. That has now been cut to just 13,000. If Trump can claim it, Biden's path to victory is far from clear.
Trump has also launched legal action in Georgia, another state that showed him with an early lead but where Biden now hopes to win. Counting is also ongoing in North Carolina, with the outcome far from certain.
Amid the continuing uncertainty...
- Trump protesters descended on counting centers in both Michigan and Arizona - demanding that the vote count be stopped in the former state, and demanding it continue in the latter
- Trump also launched a series of lawsuits to try and shift the result in his favor, while make unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud on Twitter
- In Wisconsin, Trump is suing for a recount - which is expected to go ahead because the result is within 1 per cent of votes cast, but is not expected to overturn Biden's 20,000-vote margin
- In Michigan, he claims his poll observers have not been given proper access to the count, and is suing to have the count stopped until they are given access
- In Pennsylvania, Trump is claiming that the Senator has given Biden back-door votes to try to push him out
- In Georgia, he alleges that a GOP poll observer witnessed 53 late absentee ballots added to a pile
MICHIGAN: Supporters of US President Donald Trump chant slogans as they gather outside the room where absentee ballots for the 2020 general election are being counted
ARIZONA: Pro-Trump protesters descend on a counting station in Maricopa County, Phoenix, to demand that every ballot is counted as Trump gains on his Democrat rival in the state
NEW YORK: Anti-Trump protesters kneel in the street in Manhattan in the wake of an uncertain election on November 3
Eric Trump, his wife Lara and Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, held a press conference in Philadelphia on Wednesday afternoon in which they claimed the president has won Pennsylvania despite roughly 1 million mail-in ballots needed to be counted and no news organizations calling the race. Neither man offered a legal argument for a win or proof of any voter fraud
MINNESOTA: Demonstrators take to the streets of Minneapolis for an anti-Trump rally in the wake of the election
CALIFORNIA: A man raises his fist during a protest in Los Angeles as uncertainty continued over the result of the election
SEATTLE: A protester lights an American flag on fire during a demonstration in Seattle on Wednesday
ILLINOIS: Demonstrator Brittany Bysina holds a sign as demonstrators march through central Chicago on Wednesday night
PENNSYLVANIA: Demonstrators, including one carrying a Black Lives Matter flag, march past Independence Hall in Philadelphia to urge that all votes be counted on Wednesday
Joe Biden on Wednesday afternoon all but claimed election victory as he said he was 'confident' he would win the White House after taking Michigan and Wisconsin. He is pictured with his running mate Kamala Harris by his side
Donald Trump on Wednesday at 2.30am, declaring election victory despite many of the votes still being counted. He has vowed to go to the Supreme Court to challenge what he is calling a 'fraud' outcome so far
On Wednesday afternoon, Biden all but declared he'd win the election, as Wisconsin and Michigan were called in his favor.
With Michigan - and with Arizona called for Biden by some networks - the former vice president was just 6 electoral votes away from the 270 he needs to claim the White House.
If he can get any one of the four remaining states to tilt his way - Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia or Pennsylvania - he will win.
Trump will only gain a second term if all four go his way. Trump has been up by around 76,000 votes in North Carolina.
Throughout the day, his lead in Pennsylvania has gotten smaller. It was at around 212,000 votes around 8 p.m. Wednesday night. Outstanding ballots in the Keystone State were coming from Democratic areas like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and they were mail-in, which also favored Biden.
Biden has been leading in Nevada by a slim margin - 7,647 - but more votes need to be counted there.
Another drop is expected at 12 p.m. EST Thursday.
It means America is inching closer to an election result but still does not have one almost 24 hours after the first polls closed thanks to record voter turnout, which is slowing the counting process.
President Trump netted 13,644 votes in Arizona when Maricopa County released additional election results on Wednesday night but it wasn’t enough to overcome Biden’s lead in the state.
Biden’s lead in Arizona has shrunk to about 13,000 votes. The Associated Press and Fox News has called the state for the Democratic contender but the Trump campaign was pushing for that decision to be recalled, arguing they would pick up enough votes to win when more results were announced.
But the results coming out of Marciopa will not help the president’s cause. Marciopa will release another round of results later Wednesday night.
Maricopa is the largest county in Arizona, home to Phoenix and 62% of the state’s 7.28 million residents. A candidate cannot win the state without it. Biden leads in Maricopa County by approximately 85,000 votes.
The President is demanding a recount in Wisconsin and he has filed lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania to halt counting, claiming his people have not been allowed to oversee the process and ensure it is being carried out fairly.
Biden at a press conference on Wednesday, was unperturbed by Trump's last-ditch efforts to snatch back the likelihood of a second term.
'After a long night of counting it's clear we are winning enough states to win the presidency. I am not here to declare that we won but I am here to report that when the count is finished we believe we will be the winners.
'We have won Wisconsin by 20,000 votes. In Michigan, we lead by over 35,000 votes and its growing. We have a substantially bigger margin than Trump won Michigan in 2016.
'Michigan will complete its vote soon. I feel very good about Pennsylvania. Virtually all remaining ballots to be counted are cast by mail and we've been winning 78% of the votes by mail in PA.
'We flipped Arizona and the 2nd district in Nebraska. We won the majority of the American people and every indication is that the majority will grow.
'Senator Harris and I are on track to win more votes than any ticket in the history of this country - over 70million votes. I'm very proud of our campaign,' he said.
'Only three presidential campaigns in the past have defeated the incumbent president. When it's finished, God willing, we'll be the fourth. This is a major achievement.'
Biden said that after the election is resolved, he would help 'lower the temperature' and unite the country, though he said he wasn't naive to how 'deep and hard the opposing views are.'
'To make progress we have to stop treating our opponents as enemies, we are not enemies,' Biden said.
'What brings us together as Americans is so much stronger than anything that can tear us apart.'
At the end of his speech he stated, 'Now, every vote must be counted.'
'No one is going to take our democracy away from us - not now, not ever,' he added, a statement clearly aimed at Trump.
The count is ongoing but in Detroit, angry crowds are demanding that it stop.
They are being stopped from entering the building - where volunteers are racing to tally up the votes - by police.
Volunteers have started boarding up windows in the counting center.
The Trump campaign have already demanded a Wisconsin recount and have filed a lawsuit in Michigan asking that the vote counting be halted because they think it is suspicious.
‘The President is well within the threshold to request a recount and we will immediately do so.
‘There have been reports of irregularities in several Wisconsin counties which raise serious doubts about the validity of the results,’ Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said in a statement shortly after Wisconsin chief election official Meagan Wolfe announced the state went for Biden.
'As votes in Michigan continue to be counted, the presidential race in the state remains extremely tight as we always knew it would be. President Trump's campaign has not been provided with meaningful access to numerous counting locations to observe the opening of ballots and the counting process, as guaranteed by Michigan law.
'We have filed suit today in the Michigan Court of Claims to halt counting until meaningful access has been granted. We also demand to review those ballots which were opened and counted while we did not have meaningful access.
'President Trump is committed to ensuring that all legal votes are counted in Michigan and everywhere else,' Stepien said.
Officials in northern Michigan's Antrim County are investigating possible inaccurate results after the traditionally red county flipped to Joe Biden, the Detroit Free Press reports.
In 2016, Trump won Antrim – which has 23,000 residents – with 62% of the vote, taking 8,469 votes to Hillary Clinton's 4,448.
But officials, who did not check the unofficial results before posting them, were stunned when it appeared Joe Biden had gained 7,700 votes and was leading Trump by 3,000 votes Wednesday morning.
Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy, a Republican, said results on electronic tapes and a computer card appeared to be accurate. But she said they had become scrambled being transported in sealed bags from township precincts to county offices.
Officials are going over the tape of all the results and inputting the numbers manually.
Triston Cole, a Republican who represents Antrim County in the Michigan State House, told Interlochen Public Radio: 'There is no way that we flipped from 62 percent Trump in 2016 to upside-down this time around'.
In a tweet earlier on Wednesday, the President cried fraud and claimed his overnight majority had 'magically disappeared' thanks to 'surprise ballot dumps' in Democrat states.
It is due to a large number of mail-in ballots for Biden being counted after votes for Trump which have predominantly been in person. Neither the President nor Joe Biden has yet reached the 270 electoral college votes they need to claim the White House and ballot counting will continue throughout the day and even the week.
Biden has officially won the most votes of any presidential candidate.
He is currently projected to have 72,054,459 votes, which is 50.4% of the total vote reported so far.
That beats Barack Obama, who, in 2008, won that record with 69,498,516 total votes, according to the Federal Election Commission.
If Biden follows his wins in Michigan and Wisconsin by taking Nevada, as expected, tomorrow - he will win the election with the key 270 electoral votes.
Then it won’t matter what happens in the Pennsylvania vote which was likely to be the subject of messy Trump legal challenges if he failed to win it when it finally finishes counting votes on Friday.
Mounted police confront anti-Trump protesters on the streets of Minneapolis in the wake of the election
A police officer stands guard as they clear the streets during a protest in Los Angeles
Police officials attend an injured man detained during a protest after the US election in Seattle
A woman leads protesters through Seattle for a 'count every vote' rally after Trump sued to stop the count in some states
A breakdown of the electoral college shows how much each state is worth. This was the situation before the first votes started coming in. There have not yet been any major surprises. Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan are the key swing states and Trump won Ohio and Florida. Both the Associated Press and Fox called Arizona for Biden before dawn on Wednesday and are standing by it, saying the outstanding votes are in Biden strongholds that will not flip back to Trump. Some are reluctant to give it over to Biden. He is currently only leading there by 90,000 votes. The majority of the outstanding votes are in Maricopa County, where he performs better than Trump, and are mail-in ballots, which he also tends to do better in
But even as they dared dream of Biden finally entering the White House after decades of trying, and an end to the Trump regime, it was dawning on many Democrats that this was not the new era they had hoped for.
Despite almost every opinion poll predicting an easy Biden victory the election turned into an all-night nail-biter before a route home eventually opened up for Joe Biden.
It most certainly was not the national rejection of Trump they wanted.
Trump still achieved 48 percent of the popular vote and notched up even more ballots than he did in 2016, albeit on a much higher turnover.
He also appeared to have made inroads into the black male and Latino demographics and not alienated as many white women as the polls suggested.
Meanwhile there was further disappointment in the Senate which remains at 46-48t to the Republicans.
And in another bitter blow to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Republicans even took back some House seats, closing the gap to give the Democrats a mere 89 against their 183 seats, with just a few left to call.
All in all, the disappointing night for the Democrat party risks leaving Biden with little chance of enacting a radical agenda of change, frustrating the left wing of his party.
As leading Democrat donor Barry Diller said: ‘It clearly will be that there is no progressive agenda that’s got any steam behind it, given what is likely to happen with a divided Congress.’
Diller, chairman of Expedia and IAC, told CNBC he was ‘humbled’ by the results so far.
He said: ‘I had hoped for a repudiation’ of Trump, but ‘for all the reasons that are kind of obvious that has not happened.’
Trump on Wednesday morning tweeted that votes for him were 'magically disappearing'.
'Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled.
Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the “pollsters” got it completely & historically wrong!' he said.
He went on: 'How come every time they count Mail-In ballot dumps they are so devastating in their percentage and power of destruction?'
He then reposted a graphic which showed Biden's numbers by 100 percent in one count in Michigan, saying: 'WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT?'
At the same time, his campaign manager Bill Stepien laid out their strategy to question the results if Biden wins.
He outlined the path the campaign saw, which includes a recount in Wisconsin, Trump winning more votes in Michigan and Pennsylvania going their way in greater margins than expected.
The Trump campaign is also contesting Arizona, which has been called for Biden.
‘If we count all legal ballots the president wins. The votes still being counted will come the president’s way at day’s end,’ campaign manager Stepien said.
The Trump campaign said they expect the matter to end up in the courts.
'We are obviously leading a full court press to make sure we have our legal teams are in place to make sure all the legally cast votes are ballot,' Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller said.
Pennsylvania has said it will keep counting mail-in ballots until Friday and it's unclear when a final result will come in in the other states. Despite the overwhelming uncertainty, Trump held a victory party on Tuesday night.
Biden Campaign Manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said: 'Nearly 100 million people cast their ballot before Election Day in the belief — and with the assurances from their state election officials — that their ballot would be counted. Now Donald Trump is trying to invalidate the ballot of every voter who relied on these assurances.
'If the president makes good on his threat to go to court to try to prevent the proper tabulation of votes, we have legal teams standing by ready to deploy to resist that effort. And they will prevail.'
Trump provided little clarity about what he has in mind for his legal team after claiming falsely early Wednesday that he already 'won' the election.
Poll challengers in Detroit are being kept from a counting center after descending there en masse chanting 'stop the votes!' as Trump claimed they were being counted unfairly
A Detroit police officer stops election challengers from entering the central counting board due to overcrowding, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020, in Detroit
Trump said he was 'going' to the Supreme Court, when in fact the course of action would be for Republican lawyers to sue in individual states and county jurisdictions seeking to stop or modify the count in some way.
If, for example, Republicans allege that there is a problem in the county in Allegheny County, PA, they first must go to court there, appeal through the Pennsylvania courts system and then if they are not satisfied, go to a federal court. Federal court decisions are appealed to the federal appeals circuit, and from there to the Supreme Court.
It is also up to the Supreme Court to decide whether it even hears a case. It can simply decline to take it which leaves in place whatever ruling the federal appeals circuit has made.
Three different federal appeals circuits are potentially involved in the Midwestern states.
Pennsylvania is in the Third Circuit, which had a majority of Trump and George W. Bush appointees; Michigan is in the Sixth Circuit which is majority Republican appointed, and Wisconsin is in the Seventh, against majority Republican.
'So we'll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court,' Trump said in a speech to supporters at the White House where he railed against TV networks for making election calls that went against him while pointing out the battleground states where he holds leads over Joe Biden.
'We want all voting to stop. We don't want them to find any ballots at four in the morning and add them to the list,' Trump said.
His chief legal obstacle is that states, who oversee elections under the Constitution, are fulfilling their obligations by counting votes lawfully cast. Seeking to stop the count before all votes are accounted for would likely run into constitutional protections for 'one person, one vote' grounded in the Equal Protection clause.
Trump has repeatedly claimed mail-in ballots are fraudulent. Lawyers representing his campaign and Republicans have already gone to court seeking to stop states from counting mail-in ballots after Election Day.
In the case of Wisconsin, the Supreme Court already upheld Wisconsin's voting laws requiring mail-in ballots be received by November 3 to get counted. What was holding up results there was simply the process of ballots already in.
'We will win this. As far as I'm concerned, we already have won,' Trump told supporters.
Votes being counted in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday. Pennsylvania is likely to be the last state to return a result
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA - NOVEMBER 04: Election workers count ballots on November 04, 2020 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With no winner declared in the presidential election last night, all eyes are on the outcome in a few remaining swing states to determine whether Donald Trump will get another four years or if Joe Biden will become the next president of the United States
Chester County, Pa. workers transport mail-in and absentee ballots to be processed at West Chester University, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020, in West Chester
Pennsylvania is further behind in completing its count, with less than three-quarters of the vote in around 4 am.
Before the election, there was reporting in the Atlantic that amid a dispute over ballots, the Republican legislature could try to send a set of pro-Trump electors if the state's vote remained undecided or contested in December.
The state was already the site of a pre-election battle that had the Supreme Court deciding 4-4 to allow mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to come in for three days after the election.
The decision itself would appear to contradict Trump's claim that he has already 'won' based on an election that has not yet been certified with ballots still allowed to come in.
Trump at around 2.30am this morning with Melania after a press conference where he called the result a 'fraud' on the American people
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks on election night in the East Room of the White House as First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Karen Pence look on. Trump spoke shortly after 2am with the presidential race against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden still too close to call
Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Lara Trump, Eric Trump, Tiffany Trump and Michael Boulos all appear on election night in the East Room of the White House in the early morning hours of Wednesday as Trump claimed victory despite millions of votes still needing to be counted
Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump appear on election night in the East Room of the White House. Donald Trump Jr had earlier shared an Instagram snap of the elaborate viewing party posing with his siblings Eric and Ivanka and their children saying: 'In the game. Let's do this.' Lara Trump also shared a snap with Guilfoyle with a celebratory emoji
In just one example of the kind of multi-front campaign GOP lawyers could have in mind, a Republican congressional candidate has sued suburban Montgomery County outside Philadelphia claiming the state improperly began its count too early.
The suit accuses the county of making 'arbitrary standards' – even as Trump complains about the process of deciding the election taking too long.
The astonishing move was immediately condemned by his own party.
Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro tweeted, 'No, Trump has not already won the election, and it is deeply irresponsible for him to say he has.'
Fox News was also critical of Trump's approach.
'This is an extremely flammable situation and the president just threw a match into it,' said Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, who moderated the first presidential debate. 'He hasn't won these states.'
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican who advises Trump and helped him with debate prep, believed the president would come to regret it.
'It's a bad strategic decision. It's a bad political decision,' Christie said.
Former GOP Sen. Rick Santorum, speaking on CNN, copped it up to Trump being stressed, old and it being 2 a.m. and suggested he would walk back his comments tomorrow and say every vote needs to be counted.
'I was very distressed by what I just heard the president say,' Santorum said.
Biden was handed Arizona by Fox News, and later by the Associated Press, in a call which the White House was disputing. Both he and Trump are now effectively in a stalemate which can only be ended by the lengthy process of counting mail-in ballots.
'We feel good about where we are, we really do. I'm here to tell you tonight, we believe we're on track to win this election,' Biden told supporters gathered outside the Chase Center just after midnight. He pointed to the gain of Arizona and Minnesota, which NBC News said was leaning Biden minutes before he came onstage.
'And we're still in the game in Georgia, although that's not one we expected,' Biden said. 'We feel real good about Wisconsin and Michigan. And, by the way, we're going to win Pennsylvania,' he said, getting copious honks from his drive-in crowd.
Biden said he was 'encouraged,' especially, by turnout in Philadelphia, which is adjacent to Wilmington.
'Look, we could know the results as early as tomorrow morning.
'It may take longer as I've said all along,' he said. 'It's not my place or Donald Trump's place to call who wins this election, that's the decision of the American people.'
'I am optimistic about this outcome,' he said.
Right before he exited he told the crowd that he and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, would be talking tomorrow.
As Biden was pulling in, the jumbotrons, which were playing MSNBC, announced that President Donald Trump had officially won Florida - the first sign Tuesday that the U.S. was in for a long night.
Big swaths of potentially Democratic votes were outstanding in places like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Detroit and Atlanta when Biden appeared.
Trump tweeted immediately after Biden's speech to accuse Biden of fraud and say he was 'winning BIG' and would make his own statement.
'Votes cannot be cast after the Poles are closed!' he tweeted from the White House residence – spelling polls incorrectly, but making clear that the battle will be over late-arriving mail-in ballots.
Trump tweeted that 'they are trying to STEAL the Election'. His accusation was flagged almost immediately by Twitter as 'misleading'
After 1am, Nebraska's 2nd Congressional district - which is worth one electoral vote - was called for Biden.
Trump won the rest of state, collecting four electoral college votes.
The gain for Biden is notable because it will prevent a 269-269 tie between the two presidential candidates. In 2016, Trump won all three of Nebraska's Congressional districts and thus all of its five electoral votes.
Trump snatched the biggest electoral prizes of the night in the closing minutes of Tuesday, as he took Ohio, Florida and Texas.
But Biden scored the first takeaway of the evening as he was also given Arizona, making the western battleground the first state to change hands from 2016.
President Trump watched returns in the upstairs residence of the White House with family and close advisers. Downstairs in the East Wing, Trump supporters watched returns on TV screens showing Fox News and snacking on fast food, including French fries and hamburgers.
Biden was at his home in Wilmington, watching the votes come in with his family.
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