The latest on election results: Live updates | CNN Politics (2024)

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads the race for the White House with 253 electoral votes. President Trump has 213 electoral votes.

It’s still too close to call in six states: Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Based on CNN’s latest projections, this is where the race to 270 currently stands:

CNN projects Biden will win at least three of Maine’s four electoral votes, plus Wisconsin, Michigan, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Virginia, California, Oregon, Washington state, Illinois, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Delaware, Washington, DC, Maryland, Massachusetts and one of Nebraska’s five electoral votes. Nebraska and Maine award two electoral votes to their statewide winners and divide their other electoral votes by congressional districts.

CNN projects Trump will win Montana, Texas, Iowa, Idaho, Ohio, Mississippi, Wyoming, Missouri, Kansas, Utah, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee and four of Nebraska’s five electoral votes.

Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votesto win the presidency.

Democratic and Republican representatives review absentee ballots at the Fulton County Election preparation Center in Atlanta, on November 4.

Georgia’s largest county has about 10,000 absentee ballots left to count, Fulton County elections director Richard Barron told CNN early Thursday morning.

The county has decided to continue counting through the night and has been tabulating votes at a rate of about 3,000 per hour.

Fulton County is home to Atlanta and Democratic stronghold.

The county has tabulated all in-person votes and is now counting only absentee votes. The only remaining votes would be provisional and overseas military ballots.

While there is no question Republicans are gearing up and prepared to engage in a series of legal challenges, their true hope is tied to the vote totals in the key states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona.

Republicans both inside and outside the campaign understand that is where their most realistic path to victory lies and the lawsuits and recount requests serve as more of a Hail Mary to an election that may already be too far gone.

Still, the GOP remains bullish on their chances of winning the actual vote count. They started sounding the alarm bells on Arizona being a Trump state early on after networks began declaring the race for Biden and continue to warn reporters that the trend lines are in Trump’s favor. If Arizona flips, they believe the race is within the President’s grasp.

Many Republicans hope they will be able to make the case the President won the election from a position of having an electoral college lead, as opposed to hoping to flip results through court challenges.

One Republican operative expressed frustration over the characters the campaign was rolling out to present their legal arguments, suggesting it wasn’t doing the President any favors.

“I can’t understand how Rudy keeps popping up,” the operative said referring to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks one day after Americans voted in the presidential election, in Wilmington, Delaware, on November 04.

The race for the White House is still too close to call as contests tighten in the battleground states of Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Maricopa County, the most populous county in Arizona, has just released the second of two sets of new votes promised Wednesday night –shrinkingJoe Biden’s lead in the county by just over 10,000 votes.

Updated vote totals released by Maricopa County after 2:30 a.m. Thursday show Biden with912,585votes and Trump with838,071.

Previously, Maricopa was reporting 887,457 votes for Biden and 802,160 for Trump.

Biden currently has 1,469,341 votes statewide, and Trump has 1,400,951. (Follow the race in Arizona here.)

The release came as Maricopa County officials were forced to close the Phoenix election office building to the public due to growing pro-Trump protests outside.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads the race for the presidency with 253 electoral votes. President Trump has 213 electoral votes.

It’s still too close to call in six states: Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Based on CNN’s latest projections, this is where the race to 270 currently stands.

Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votesto win the presidency.

President Trump’s team launched a series oflawsuits in key battleground states that seemed less about sound legal reasoning and more about slowing Joe Biden from marching over the electoral vote threshold.

At times, thelawsuits have contested ballots in the double digits — hundreds if not thousands of votes away of potentially swing any state’s result.

“I think much of the litigation is a longshot and unlikely to succeed,” said Franita Tolson, a law professor at USC Gould School of Law and CNN contributor.

She pointed to alawsuitin Georgia the Trump campaign announced Wednesday night over a poll worker mixing unprocessed and processed absentee ballots. That might have the potential to affect few votes, she said.

“I suspect that a big goal of this litigation is, in the short term, to change the narrative” from a potential Biden win to a conversation about election mismanagement or even fraud, Tolson said.

Another law professor and CNN contributor, Rick Hasen, said thelawsuits appeared to be more public relations than serious litigation. “Theselawsuits so far are not tackling any major problem that would seem to call overall vote totals into questions,” he said.

Justin Levitt, another elections expert and law professor, called some of the suits, like in Michigan, “laughable.”

“One says you didn’t put people by absentee dropboxes, so stop the count. Huh?!”

Even a Republican-appointed federal judge in Pennsylvania cast doubt on the validity of a suit from Republicans on Wednesday, when they challenged fewer than 100 ballots that absentee voters corrected in a county outside Philadelphia. At a hearing Wednesday morning, the judge, Timothy Savage, did not rule, yet he suggested the lawyer for Republican canvass observers was seeking to disenfranchise votes. He noted thelawsuitappeared to have other problems in its arguments.

Some legal challenges in Pennsylvania from the Trump campaign were quickly dismissed on Election Day, with Trump touting his appeals of those losses apparently as new cases Wednesday. For instance, aPhiladelphia election day judge had shot down a Trump campaign case over ballot processing access, writing that “observers are directed only to observe and not to audit ballots” and deciding that the city’s board of elections complied with the law. Another Election Day challenge from the Trump campaign to the ballot observation process in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, also near Philly, was dismissed by a judge, though Trump is now appealing, according to Pennsylvania court records.

Lawyers for the Trump campaignsued in Nevada on Tuesday, too,claiming that their observers were not given enough access to all aspects of the ballot counting process — from opening the ballots, to machine and manual signature checking and duplicating spoiled ballots. A Nevada judge denied the GOP challenge to the early voting process in the heavily Democratic county.

“If this last-minute suit were successful, it would require a major change in how [Nevada] processed absentee [ballots] to determine if the signature on the ballot matched the voter’s prior signature on file,” said RichardPildes, a constitutional law professor at New York University and CNN election law analyst. “Courts are typically unwilling to let plaintiffs come in the door so late in the day and ask for major changes to a process that’s already well underway.”

However, one suit, the petition before the US Supreme Court on Pennsylvania’s ballot deadline, may be a more serious litigation challenge. It challenges the validity of potentially several thousand votes cast in good faith by voters, but received by officials after the election through the mail.

For this case to make a difference, Pennsylvania would need to be the deciding state for the election, and the margin of difference between Trump and Biden would need to be a few tens of thousands of votes.

CNN’s Maeve Reston and Stephen Collinson contributed to this report.

Nevada is ready to rebuff any legal challenges the Trump campaign brings against the state’s election results, the state’s Democratic attorney general Aaron Ford said late this evening.

“We feel quite invulnerable, if you take a look at the track record we’ve already established against Mr. Trump,” said Ford when asked by CNN’s Chris Cuomo how invulnerable to legal attack he felt.

“[Trump] sued us twice, maybe three times, already,” he said. “Each time my office has been able to work with our local district attorney … and defeat those lawsuits.”

Late last month, for example, the Trump campaign along with Nevada Republicans sued in state court to halt the count of some mail-in ballots over stringency of signature-matching computer software and how closely observers can watch votes being counted. A Nevada judge rejected that lawsuit on Monday, with less than 24 hours before Election Day.

“We actually have safeguards to prevent fraud, such as signature verification and unique barcodes, that are also part and parcel of the process here,” Ford told Cuomo. “We think it’s pretty impenetrable when it comes to legal challenge against us.”

Watch the interview:

Video Ad Feedback

5c66bbd0-6047-4ec1-a8f1-609cfeaf7ace.mp4

02:36 - Source: cnn

New numbers on Philadelphia mail-in ballots are expected overnight, according to a state official.

Philadelphia County still has 120,000 mail-in ballots to count, according to the state’s website.

Election precinct suitcases containing ballots, election materials and keys to voting machines are held under guard by the Allegheny County Police at the Allegheny County elections warehouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on November 4.

Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh, says it has finished tabulating mail-in and absentee ballots.

County spokesperson Amie Downs told CNN early Thursday that the county tabulated 313,072 absentee and mail-in votes.

Downs said the county will resume tabulating several precincts’ worth of in-person votes later Thursday morning.

Election workers count Fulton County ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, on November 4.

Fulton County elections director Richard Barron said his staff and volunteers have about 14,000 mail-in ballots left to be counted, adding they have been counting at a rate of about 3,000 ballots per hour.

His team, many of whom have been working since 8 a.m. ET, have so far counted 127,948 ballots and adjudicated 123,716, he said.

Barron, who leads the count in Georgia’s most populous country, which includesAtlanta, said he feels a responsibility to get the ballots counted as quickly as possible. Earlier in the evening he said his team would not pause until all the ballots had been counted.

The county has tabulated all in-person votes and is now counting only absentee votes. The only remaining votes would be provisional and overseas military ballots which are due on Friday. As of 1:20 a.m., CNN’s election data gave Joe Biden a 73% to 26% advantage in Fulton Country.

CNN’s Nick Valencia has more:

Video Ad Feedback

45f5b62a-034b-42cb-885e-e7b037c63e1e.mp4

03:44 - Source: cnn

With 71% of mail-in ballots counted in Pennsylvania, officials still needs to count 763,000 of the 2.6 million cast, according to the state’s official website and reporting from CNN’s Kristen Holmes.

Major updates are expected from both Philadelphia County, the largest in the state, and Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh, before the night is over, Holmes reported.

In Philadelphia County, a major Democratic stronghold, 120,000 mail-in ballots remain uncounted. Seventy percent of those ballots were cast by registered Democrats while 20% were cast by registered Republicans.

In Allegheny County 46,000 mail-in ballots remain to be counted, as of 12:45 p.m. ET.

CNN’s Kristen Holmes walks through the latest:

Video Ad Feedback

ffb69c61-8e74-4480-b158-9ad271c42d30.mp4

02:06 - Source: cnn

Maricopa County elections officials count ballots at the Maricopa County Recorder's Office in Phoenix, on November 4.

Maricopa County will post its next batch of ballot results closer to 1:30 a.m. ET/11:30 p.m. MT, because of the process of uploading the data, according toDiana Solorio, a spokesperson for Maricopa County Elections Department.

They originally expected the results to be released by 12:30 a.m. ET/10:30 p.m. MT.

Solorio said the delay is not related to the protest going on outside the elections department building, but that it is simply part of the process uploading election data like this.

On Tuesday after the initial results posted at 10 p.m. ET/8 p.m. MT, the next uploading took some time and was delayed.

Maricopa County Elections Department tweeted about the ongoing count:

CNN visited a ballot counting facility today in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

Philadelphia city commissioner Al Schmidt explained to CNN the process of counting ballots in Pennsylvania, and why the state had to wait until Election Day to begin counting any votes.

Here’s what we found out:

Video Ad Feedback

13a2fc51-0d72-4e37-ba7a-0b31585a228c.mp4

02:29 - Source: cnn

In this Monday, November 2 photo, election workers sort ballots at the DeKalb County Voter Registration and Elections office in Decatur, Georgia.

DeKalb County, Georgia, a large Democratic stronghold just outside Atlanta, finished counting its last absentee ballots just after midnight Thursday.

A total of 127,019 absentee ballots were processed.

The county’s final tally was roughly 83% for Biden and 16% for Trump.

Fulton County, Georgia’s most populated county, meanwhile is still counting votes. At last check, 17,000 votes remained uncounted in that county.

Why this matters: There are 16 electoral votes at stake in Georgia. CNN is yet to project a winner in the state. Joe Biden leads the race for the presidency with 253 electoral votes. President Trump has 213 electoral votes. The candidates each need 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.

Election personnel examines a ballot as vote counting in the general election continues at State Farm Arena, on Wednesday, November 4, in Atlanta.

Georgia’s most populated county is still planning to count through the night, tabulating the last remaining absentee ballots.

After Fulton County officials briefly considered resuming the count Thursday, county spokesperson Regina Waller told CNN that staffers would continue tabulating until the count was complete.

At last check, 17,000 Fulton County votes remained uncounted.

CNN’s Nick Valencia has more from Atlanta:

Video Ad Feedback

e45b687b-2706-4fbd-83aa-f29a2f57c141.mp4

03:14 - Source: cnn

There are approximately 90,735 ballots still outstanding in Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office told CNN.

His office won’t be providing additional updates today detailing how many remaining votes there are to count across the state.

A news conference is scheduled at 10:30 a.m. ET at the Georgia State Capitol.

One lesson Republicans and Democrats can learn after this presidential election is to not paint Latinos with a broad brush, political commentator Ana Navarrotold CNN this evening.

Navarro’s advice comes after Democratic organizers and operativeswarnedthat the party was at risk of a poor performance in Florida’s heavily Cuban Miami-Dade County, and that it hadn’t been reaching nearly enough Latinos in the Rio Grande Valley to turn Texas into a battleground.

Those fears proved to be founded, as Joe Biden fell well short of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 performance in those areas.

It was a different story for Biden in Arizona, where “700,000 Latinosvoted,” Navarro said.

“His total, his average inArizona was 75%,” Navarro said regarding the number of Latinos that turned out for Biden in Arizona this year. “The numbers around the countryhave been much better for JoeBiden than we are talkingabout.”

CNN’s Eric Bradner contributed to this report.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper speaks to Ana Navarro:

Video Ad Feedback

8910c51c-a0a2-4262-a346-98aaca4e2807.mp4

05:06 - Source: cnn

Election officials in Maricopa County, Arizona, are working to release one more tranche of votes before breaking for the night, CNN’s Kyung Lah reports from inside the county’s elections department in Phoenix.

Maricopa County, which is the state’s most populous county, is expected to make the final upload for the night at at 12:30 a.m. ET and then continue with uploads at 7 p.m. every night until all votes are in.

Meanwhile, a crowd of protesters have gathered outside the elections facility along with a number of law enforcement officials who are securing the site.

“There are a lot of red hats, there are a lot of Trump signs and there is a lot of chanting,” Lah reports.

CNN’s Kyung Lah explains:

Video Ad Feedback

98730429-4880-48ce-a8b2-cfeb226e5f03.mp4

01:58 - Source: cnn

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads the race for the presidency with 253 electoral votes. President Trump has 213 electoral votes.

Based on CNN’s latest projections, this is where the race to 270 currently stands.

Trump’s campaign is considering taking legal action in Arizona and Nevada as votes are still being counted, two sources told CNN.

Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votesto win the presidency.

There are still about 20,000 mail-in ballots to be counted in Georgia’s Fulton County,Director of Registration and Elections RichardBarrontells CNN late Wednesday evening.

He added that the county may have to resume counting ballots at some point Thursday.

Fulton County has counted 121,683 ballots as of 11 p.m. ET, and will need several more hours to finish going through the absentee ballots, Barron said.

In a CNN television interview less than two hours ago,Barron thought his team would finalize their ballot count “sometime between” midnight and 3 a.m. ET.

Why this matters: There are 16 electoral votes at stake in Georgia. CNN is yet to project a winner in the state. Joe Biden leads the race for the presidency with 253 electoral votes. President Trump has 213 electoral votes. The candidates each need 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.

A source familiar with the matter says that if Georgia is close, “of course” the Trump camp will ask for a recount if he loses.

It’s currently a 33,000 vote margin and there’s around 90,000 remaining to be counted.

In Georgia, a candidate can ask for a recount if the margin of victory is less than half of one percent.

Earlier today, the Trump campaign announced the intention to seek a recount in Wisconsin.

President Trump’s campaign is considering taking legal action in Arizona and Nevada as votes are still being counted, two sources told CNN.

As Trump’s path to victory has narrowed dramatically, the campaign pursued a tactic the President has often relied on throughout his life; litigation. The campaign has launched legal fights in several battlegrounds, called for a recount in Wisconsin and is now weighing further lawsuits.

Not only are officials laying the groundwork to contest the outcome, they’re also trying to buy themselves time to slow the counting in states where he could ultimately lose, according to the sources.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins walks through the latest:

Video Ad Feedback

e7524fc3-38fb-4913-a040-2d935bb299e3.mp4

01:42 - Source: cnn

An election official wearing a protective mask counts absentee ballots for the 2020 Presidential election at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia, on November, 4.

President Trump started the election with a large lead in Georgia, but as votes continued to be counted overnight, the numbers narrowed.

“372,407 votes at midnight,” John King reported during CNN’s special election coverage. “Then overnight at 1 a.m., it drops to 249,497, continue to count overnight, at 2 a.m. it’s 118,000and change.”

King continued to layout how the “trend line has been against the President” over a 24-hour period.

“As the count continues through the day, 10 a.m. you get to 103,000 and then 9 o’clock tonight, we see it down to 39,000 and then we pop out to where we are nowandit’s 33,000. So that has been a steady trend as they count the votes.”

CNN’s John King explains:

Video Ad Feedback

9d4d3efb-d08c-49b8-b779-6c438c3a4b4e.mp4

03:07 - Source: cnn

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads the race for the White House with 253 electoral votes. President Trump has 213 electoral votes.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said there are about 600,000 outstanding ballots in the state and about 340,000 in Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located.

Based on CNN’s latest projections, this is where the race to 270 currently stands.

Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votesto win the presidency.

A Trump adviser says officials inside the campaign believe they will claw back enough votes in the late returns in Arizona to capture the state by a narrow margin.

“We get AZ,” the adviser said.

But the adviser acknowledged there is no room for error for the President. With Georgia teetering, Arizona is a must win for Trump.

A separate GOP source close to the campaign said resignation is building inside Trump’s team that the election is slipping away.But they’re not ready to accept defeat just yet, the source said.

The adviser said the other obsession for the campaign right now is still Georgia.

“Georgia is a big deal,” the adviser said.

CNN’s Jim Acosta walks through the latest:

Video Ad Feedback

2731c5ec-4cca-4d2b-abc8-189bd99e60c1.mp4

01:58 - Source: cnn

A Biden campaign adviser says they “feel good” about Georgia, along with Arizona and Pennsylvania, as votes continues to come in the state.

They’ve kept a close eye on Fulton County, Georgia, throughout the day as they’re hoping the margins in the state will continue to tighten as more votes come in from the Atlanta area.

Advisers have long viewed Georgia as an expansion state where a win could help complicate Trump’s path to the presidency.

Biden himself paid a visit to the state, where he delivered his closing argument speech, and the campaign deployed its more powerful surrogate Barack Obama there in the final day of the campaign.

Election workers count Fulton County ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, on November 4.

There are still 29,000 mail-in ballots left to be counted in Fulton County, Georgia, said RichardBarron, the county’s elections director.

Barron also told Tuchman that the Fulton County election website would be updated with the ballot counts between 12 a.m. ET and 3 a.m. ET.

“We know that everyone’s looking at us, looking at Georgia, and it could determine the next president,” Barron said.

The election director added that he hasn’t felt any pressure from the presidential campaigns to speed up the counting but praised the poll workers for their hard work.

“I’m very proud,” Barron said. “My staff has been working long hours for many months, since before the June election.”

President Donald Trump speaks on election night in the East Room of the White House in the early morning hours in Washington, DC, on November 04.

President Trump spent the day angrily phoning Republican governors while publicly casting doubt on his own legal strategy that hepersonally instructed aides to carry out.

After Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden last night, Trump instructed aides to begin filing lawsuits almost immediately. Those aides spent most of Wednesday putting together half-baked legal strategies, partly in order to buy them more time as votes were being counted in critical states like Arizona, one source said.CNN has not projected a winner in Arizona.

Trump has been angrily calling Republican governors all day, including Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to two sources.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said there are about 600,000 outstanding ballots in the state and about 340,000 in Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located.

Additional votes just came in from Maricopa County. The state’s most populous county will do another upload at 12:30 a.m. ET and then at 7 p.m. every night until they are done, Hobbs said.

There are about 46,000 votes yet to be counted in Pima County and roughly 18,000 in Yuma County, 13,000 in Coconino County, and less than 1,000 in La Paz County, Hobbs said in an interview on CNN.

Ballots being counted now are early ballots that were received on Monday and Tuesday, she said.Counties are focused on getting ballots processed and tabulated and are not sorting them by party.

Hobbs said she does not have any specific timing on when most of the votes will be counted.“We’ll have a more solid answer about that tomorrow or Friday,” she said.

Additional votes from a key Arizona county just dropped.

The counting in Maricopa County, which contains Phoenix, is underway. So far it shows Joe Biden at 887,457 and President Trump at 802,160, CNN’s Kyung Lah reported.

That is 52% of the vote for Biden, 47% of the vote for Trump in that county, she said.

Why it matters: Maricopa County is the most populous area in the state.

“It is a growing population.How Maricopa goes will mean howArizona goes. You have to win it here if you want to win it in the rest of the state,” Lah said.

CNN’s John King is at the magic wall:

Video Ad Feedback

d5c6f3ce-2bc7-4f47-acfc-9dbbfc3e143d.mp4

01:21 - Source: cnn

As more vote counts are expected in Arizona tonight, Joe Biden’s campaign remains confident in their position in the state.

Advisers expect the margin in Maricopa County could narrow this evening, but they do not believe their current standing will be overcome.

Arizona and Nevada, which the campaign is looking to hold, are states Biden only visited once as the Democratic nominee – which is in contrast to those blue wall states on which they focused the bulk of their time.

Some context: The Biden campaign started the day projecting confidence in that blue wall – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. At this point, two of the three have been called in their favor. Heading into tonight advisers say they remain confident about Pennsylvania with the votes still coming in and remain vigilant about having all the votes counted.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads the race for the White House with 253 electoral votes. President Trump has 213 electoral votes.

With approximately40,000votes between Trump and Biden in Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Wednesday night that there are still more than 122,000 uncounted ballots in the state.

Based on these projections, this is where the race to 270 currently stands.

Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votesto win the presidency.

On Wednesday morning after Election Day, President Trump led in Pennsylvania with over 600,000 votes. As of 8 p.m. ET, his lead has shrunk and he is ahead with less than 200,000 votes. There are still a lot of votes to be counted and there is reason to believe it will help Joe Biden narrow that gap, CNN’s John King said.

Here’s a snapshot of where these remaining votes are coming from:

Philadelphia is currently reporting about 70% of its votes.Currently, Biden is leading in this area with about 79%. In 2016, Hillary Clinton had won the city with over 82% of votes. With this election seeing a higher turnout, “we haveevery reason to believe [the number of votes for Joe Biden] is going to go up and goup substantially, which again,helps Joe Biden narrow thatgap,” King explained.

Montgomery County is reporting about 92% of its votes, withBiden winning nearly 62% of those.With more mail-in ballots being counted, Biden is winning these votes, King added.

Chester County, that is relatively more conservative than Montgomery County and the city of Philadelphia, is also seeing Biden up by 13 -14 points and he could be expected to rack up some more.

In Luzerne County, Trump is leading with 57% of the counted votes. This is where it is possiblefor the President to pick upsome votes, King said, adding that on the other hand, the outstanding votes here could be mail-in votes that have trend towards Biden so far.

Allegheny County, which is home to Pittsburgh, is seeing 89% of its votes reported.With about 11% of the vote still to be counted, Biden is ahead with 58% of the reported votes in his favor.

With Biden closing in on 270 electoral votes, Pennsylvania is a crucial state for Trump to win to stay in the race and keep his path to victory open.

CNN’s John King reports:

Video Ad Feedback

ae9ddd55-52d1-4442-ae52-3f31f93083c1.mp4

04:24 - Source: cnn

With approximately40,000votes between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Wednesday night that there are still more than 122,000 uncounted ballots in the state.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Wednesday evening that there are still 122,535 uncounted ballots in the state.

Some of the counties with outstanding votes told CNN that they will finish counting tonight, while others are expected to stretch into tomorrow.

According to Raffensperger’s office, Georgia has tallied about 26,815 votes in the last 30 minutes.

CNN’s Gary Tuchman reports:

Video Ad Feedback

e3b2d306-bb3d-443e-89c0-72962bbdd2d2.mp4

02:32 - Source: cnn

President Trump’s sustained personal attacks on the late Republican Sen. John McCain, even after he died in 2018, may now be hurting his chances in Arizona, a state he may need to keep the White House, said CNN’s Jake Tapper this evening.

Trump’s “advisers have been begging him for years, ‘just stop attacking and insulting one of Arizona’s favorite sons, Sen. John McCain,’” said Tapper. “…Yet he was incredibly ungracious and then he continued to attack him when he died.”

Tapper pointed out that the late senator’s widow, Cindy McCain, a Republican, endorsed Biden in September, saying Trump had displayed “a lack of character, integrity, a lack of values.”

“There must be so many people in the White House right now who are just tearing their hair out watching these Arizona returns, thinking ‘I told you not to do that,’” added Tapper.

CNN’s Dana Bash added that McCain may be getting a “last laugh” on Trump if in fact Arizona votes for Joe Biden.

“Can you imagine the poetry ofthat if it happens?” she asked.

CNN’s Jake Tapper, Dana Bash and Abby Phillip discuss:

Video Ad Feedback

43580c5c-e884-4c58-93cb-76ff5e581520.mp4

03:30 - Source: cnn

See Also

2024 Senate Election Forecast Maps - 270toWinAnalysis: These are the races that will determine the nation’s direction in 2024 | CNN PoliticsSenate 2024 Election Forecast - Latest Predictions & Polls for Every State — Race to the WHNavigating the 2024 Senate Map: Understanding the Path to270

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads the race for the presidency with 253 electoral votes. President Trump has 213 electoral votes.

Trump’s lead in Georgia has shrunk to about 47,000 votes as more ballots continue to be tallied in Fulton County, home to Atlanta.

Based on these projections, this is where the race to 270 currently stands.

Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votesto win the presidency.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Wednesday afternoon that there are still 149,350 uncounted ballots in the state.

Some of the counties with outstanding votes told CNN that they will finish counting tonight, while others are expected to stretch into tomorrow.

According to Raffensperger’s office, Georgia has tallied about 36,000 votes in the last two hours.

The margin between Trump and Biden has now narrowed to 1% with the latest batch, with Trump clinging to a small lead.

CNN’s Gary Tuchman reports:

Video Ad Feedback

6f3d6272-f942-4095-886d-246847f693f0.mp4

01:06 - Source: cnn

President Trump offered less-than-enthusiastic endorsem*nt of his team’s legal strategy in phone calls with some of his allies on Wednesday, sounding resigned to the plan falling short and questioning why his team hadn’t successfully challenged voting rules before the election even as he remained willing to see it through.

According to a person who spoke to Trump, the President seemed tired after spending the night watching election returns at the White House. Trump spoke to several of his supporters behind closed doors at the White House as his team mobilized to begin the post-Election Day effort.

The President told one person he was willing to let the legal maneuvering proceed but suggested he did not believe it would be successful in the end. While he said he believes he will win in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia,Trump was skeptical at the lawsuits filed by his team.

Trump hinted at his views in a tweet on Wednesday afternoon: “Our lawyers have asked for ‘meaningful access’, but what good does that do?” he wrote from the White House. “The damage has already been done to the integrity of our system, and to the Presidential Election itself. This is what should be discussed!”

Trump’s campaign has been feverishly soliciting funds for the legal effort on its email list. After Trump’s tweet, one campaign adviser questioned why the President would undercut the effort at the same moment he is seeking new money to support it.

A Fulton County Board of Elections official, center, speaks to lawyers and representatives for the Democratic and Republican parties at the Fulton County Registration and Election warehouse in Atlanta, Georgia, on Wednesday, November4.

The Trump campaign is filing a lawsuit to stop vote counting in Georgia, a campaign official said. It is unclear whether the suit will be successful.

Clark went on to say that “a Republican poll observer in Georgia witnessed 53 late absentee ballots illegally added to a stack of on-time absentee ballots in Chatham County. We will not allow Democrat election officials to steal this election from President Trump with late, illegal ballots. President Trump and the Georgia Republican Party have filed suit to require all Georgia counties to separate any and all late-arriving ballots from all legally cast ballots to ensure a free, fair election in which only legal, valid ballots count.”

Separately,David Shafer, the chairman of the Georgia state GOP,tweeted a short time ago, “I have authorized lawyers for the Georgia Republican Party to file an emergency petition against the Chatham County Board of Elections to enforce election laws and prevent the unlawful counting of absentee ballots received after the election.”

Trump advisers are nervously watching the final returns in Georgia, and have been taken aback by Biden’s performance in what was thought to be a GOP stronghold.Both Trump advisers said African American turnout in Georgia for Biden are exceeding their expectations, resulting in a very tight race.

Still, both advisers believe Trump has a better chance of closing the gap in Arizona than Biden has in Georgia.

CNN’s Kaitlin Collins reports:

Video Ad Feedback

fbd87505-2ed7-40e8-8525-c8a8355730a8.mp4

01:13 - Source: cnn

At theState Farm Arena in Atlanta,Georgia, counters and adjudicators are in heavy presence as absentee ballot vote counting is underway.

This is how the process works:

Adjudicators look at ballots that may be controversial because they may be signed incorrectly or they may not properly indicate the intent of the voter. They decide if that vote in question should be counted.

The workers sort the ballots,they then count the ballots, and then elsewhere inthe room, theadjudicators — the Republican,the Democrat and the independent —look out for mistakes.

In the neighboring DeKalb County, they had groupsof four adjudicators. They worked together — oneRepublican, one Democrat, twoindependents. They then vote onwhether a ballot is OK, that its intent can be ascertained. The vote is usually unanimous but if it’s 2-2, they call an election supervisor in the room to break the tie but that’s rarely an issue.

Where the race stands: President Trump is leading in Georgia but his lead has decreased through the day as more absentee ballots get counted.

“There is a mathematical chancethat with the 235,000 votes that needto be counted that somethingcould change in the race.As you know, you have to be verycareful with making thatassumption,” Tuchman reported.

CNN’s Gary Tuchman explains the process and takes viewers behind the scenes:

Video Ad Feedback

d47b45bf-2486-4697-bc15-fb75ebe3825c.mp4

07:17 - Source: cnn

Here’s what we know about the remaining votes in Georgia’s Gwinnett County, a suburban county northeast of Atlanta.

President Trump’s lead in Georgia has shrunk as more votes continue to be tallied in Fulton County, home to Atlanta, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer said this evening.

Despite what Trump may think, there aren’t any “nefarious things going on” with the vote counting process in places like Fulton County, CNN’s John King said.

“Republicans and Democratsand independents [are] in every one ofthese rooms across America, redstate, and blue states countingthe votes,” King said. “In these predominantlyDemocratic counties, populouscounties, Atlanta, FultonCounty, 10% of the votestatewide, will come out ofthis one county, we’ll get more voteslater today.”

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and John King report:

Video Ad Feedback

642b7edc-759b-4055-892c-47abfaabfb85.mp4

02:20 - Source: cnn

Nevada election officials say they expect to release more election results on Thursday from the battleground state where six electoral votes hang in the balance.

Secretary of State Communications Director Jennifer Russell confirmed to CNN officials will provide updated election results Thursday at 12 p.m. ET / 9 a.m. PT. Those results will include additional votes from the state’s two most populated counties.

In pivotal Clark County, home to Las Vegas and nearly 70% of the state’s active voters, early in-person voting and ballots cast on Election Day show former Democratic nominee Joe Biden with a slight edge over President Trump. But thousands of outstanding mail-in ballots could determine the race.

Of the 1.2 million ballots sent to Clark County voters, records show 413,000 have been returned so far, of which officials have processed 337,000. But ballots postmarked by Nov. 3will still be counted if they are received by Nov. 10. It is not known how many more ballots are yet to be received.

Clark County Registrar Joe Gloria confirmed Wednesday afternoon he will not release the number of mail-in ballots dropped off on Election Day, as well as those delivered by the US Postal Service on Nov. 3and 4until Thursday morning.

Asked late Tuesday if mail-in ballots could potentially flip the election, Gloria replied “…it all depends on the margin of victory, but certainly that is a possibility.”

The county is also still processing provisional ballots,those sent to voters overseas, disabled voters and those from new residents. Nevada is one of 19 states that allows same-day voter registration.

In Washoe County, home to the city of Reno and the state’s second most populous county, the registrar of voters said all Election Day in-person votes and ballots received on Tuesday have been processed.

The county registrar said more than 21,000 votes were counted on Election Day and another 9,000 mail-in and ballots placed in drop boxes are being tallied.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf speaks during a news conference offering updates regarding the counting of ballots in the general election, Wednesday, November 4, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Philadelphia’s ballot counting process is an open and transparent one,PennsylvaniaGov. Tom Wolf said during a news conference Wednesday evening when asked about the Trump campaign lawsuit to stop the state’s counting of ballots.

Philadelphia has been streaming ballot processing from the pre-canvassing period, he said.

“I think it’s being live streamed on their website, so I guess you can get it, anybody can get it anywhere in the world, so I’m not sure how that equals a lack of transparency. It seems to me it’s never been more transparent than it is right now,” the governor said

PennsylvaniaSecretary of State Kathy Boockvar said she couldn’t speak to ongoing litigation, but the state will “oppose every effort to at any point shut down the vote.”

All of the votes in Fulton County, the most populous in Georgia which includes Atlanta, will be counted by the end of night, promised the county’s elections director Richard Barron this afternoon.

Barron said there are still 36,000 mail-in ballots to be counted in the county.

He added it would probably be after midnight by the time the ballots make it through adjudication.

The biggest challenge at the moment, according to Barron is limited space in the elections facility. He suggested he may try to squeeze more tables in to the room to allow manual opening of envelopes containing mail-in ballots.

Barron said he expected his team will have counted more than 142,000 votes by the evening’s end.

Watch the Fulton County Election Director’s news conference:

Video Ad Feedback

ed6cd0ca-258f-4848-b3d9-8695bd757ea4.mp4

05:48 - Source: cnn

There has been no formal communication between Joe Biden and President Trump today, a person close to Biden said.

Biden didn’t mention the President in his remarks here, even as he extended an olive branch to Trump supporters and pledged to be the president for all Americans – whether they voted for him or not.

But Biden’s tone was unmistakable today – he did not aggressively go after the President or talk about him in a mocking tone as he often did on the campaign trail. He did not attack him on Twitter. A positive tone was set – even as they put teams of lawyers in place to prepare to challenge Trump’s lawsuits.

If tradition holds, the two men will have to talk at some point – when a winner is known.

The Biden campaign says that if that time comes, they know how to reach Trump – they still have the number of the White House.

The world was well aware that the US presidential election was unlikely to conclude quickly.

Record early and mail-in votingmeant that America’s allies would have to sit tight and wait to see which of the wildly different candidates would occupy the most powerful office on earth for the next four years.

Even if incumbent President Trump were a traditional candidate who could be trusted to respect the election result, any diplomat worth their salt would remain tight-lipped until they knew exactly who they’d be dealing with at NATO, the United Nations and every other international forum. Commenting on another country’s electoral process before it’s complete is not common; neither is the incumbentprematurely declaring victory and making up his own election rules.

This election matters more to US allies than any other in recent memory. It’s frankly impossible to do anything significant on the world stage without the president’s buy-in, and Trump has a clear view of America’s role in the world: He pulled out of the World Health Organization in a pandemic. He talks about withdrawing funding for NATO, music to Russia and China’s ears. He tore up a treaty that stopped Iran from making nuclear weapons and withdrew from an agreement on climate change.

No matter how difficult Trump is to deal with, a good relationship with the White House is essential. It does, however, put allies in a tight spot when Trump decides to attack the democratic process itself. Dominic Raab, Britain’s foreign secretary, has already faced backlash for refusing to condemn Trump’s wild claims. He tweeted sheepishly later that the “UK-US relationship is in great shape and we are confident it will go from strength to strength whichever candidate wins the election.”

The bigger picture: Over the past four years, it’s become clear that Trump has no problem with punishing people he feels besmirch him.

Suggesting that he might be trying to delegitimize the election is probably a swift way to get allies taken off his Christmas card list. So after decades of criticizing other countries when a fair democratic process appears to be under threat, most of America’s friends are waiting this one out in silence.

Allies will be quick to start building relationships with a President-elect Joe Biden if that’s how this shakes out. But right now, they cannot risk upsetting sitting President Trump. And the longer the battle for the presidency goes on, the more awkward that silence could be to maintain.

Democratic and Republican representatives review absentee ballots at the Fulton County Election preparation Center Wednesday, November 4, in Atlanta.

As President Trump’s lead in Georgia narrows, CNN’s John King said Wednesday that “there are enough votes outstanding for Joe Biden to make it up.”

“Joe Biden needs about two-thirds of the remaining votes,” King said during CNN’s special election coverage. “And again, if you look at the statewide numbers you think,okay, there’s no way he’s going to get two-thirds of the remaining vote. But then you think where are they? We know there are still some more.”

CNN’s David Chalian reported a “rough estimate” of 185,000 unaccounted votes in Georgia.

“Donald Trump, on the other hand, he only needs between 31% and33% of that uncounted 185,000 votes in order to hang on to Georgia, keep it in his column, and not let it go to the Democrats. That’s not that big of a percentage, given the fact that overall he’s at 50% of the vote.”

About Georgia: Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Wednesday afternoon that there are still 185,000 uncounted ballots in Georgia. Some of the counties with outstanding votes told CNN that they will finish counting tonight, while others are expected to stretch into tomorrow.

There are 16 electoral votes at stake in Georgia — 270 electoral votes are needed to take the presidency. Biden currently has 253 electoral votes while Trump has 213.

CNN’s John King and David Chalian report:

Video Ad Feedback

3d1d327b-ba95-4a5f-8ec8-68e6221e056d.mp4

04:17 - Source: cnn

Workers prepare mail-in ballots for counting, Wednesday, November 4, at the convention center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Though Pennsylvania has made “excellent progress” in counting ballots,Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar estimates it will be “a matter of days before the overwhelming majority of ballots are counted.”

Speaking at news conference with Gov. Tom Wolf, Boockvar estimated “hundreds of thousands” of ballots would be counted Wednesday night.

Currently, Joe Biden needs Arizona and Nevada to win the US presidency. But even as he closes in on the 270 electoral votes to get there, President Trump still has a path open to be reelected. He will need to “run the table,” CNN’s John King says.

Trump needs to hold his lead in North Carolina, Georgia and Maine’s second congressional district. Once Alaska’s votes get counted, King says he anticipates it to go for the President.

This makes a win in Pennsylvania crucial for Trump to stay in the race and fight for Arizona.

CNN’s John King reports:

Video Ad Feedback

7b6cdccc-dd79-4764-9474-75bed66eab7a.mp4

03:50 - Source: cnn

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads the race for the White House with 253 electoral votes. President Trump has 213 electoral votes.

If Biden maintains his lead in Nevada and Arizona, he will secure the 270 electoral votes needed to take the presidency, CNN’s John King said this afternoon.

Based on these projections, this is where the race to 270 currently stands.

Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votesto win the presidency.

Twitter flagged and labeled atweetsent by President Trump Wednesday evening that prematurely claimed victory in Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania and added a “disputed” label to afollow-up tweetin which the President claimed, without evidence, “a large number of secretly dumped ballots” in Michigan.

In a 16-hour period since the last polls in 2020 US Presidential election closed at 1 a.m., five out of nine tweets posted by the President have been flagged by Twitter.

Many of the tweets received a contextual label after Trump sought to delegitimize the election process and made unverified claims of widespread voter fraud.

Twitter, the White House and the Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The race in Nevada between Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden and President Trump remains very close, CNN’s John King said this afternoon.

Focus has turned to Clark County where “more than70% of the votes cast in Nevadawill come from here,” King said. It is too early to call the state as the votes are still being counted, he said.

“It gets frustrating now.In any event you want to countthe votes but even now when weknow how consequential Nevadaand Arizona are going to be tothe math you want more votes,” King added.

“We’re waiting; 84% in Clark County, which meansyou’ve got a fair amount ofvotes still out, 16%.If Joe Biden keeps thatpercentage, then Joe Biden’sgoing to win the state ofNevada.We just don’t know that until wesee more votes,” he said.

CNN’s John King reports:

Video Ad Feedback

df33867b-623b-4942-860c-4ed1171f058d.mp4

04:16 - Source: cnn

People gather in Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, November 4.

A source close to the White House said it’s becoming apparent that GOP officials are beginning to lose patience with some of President Trump’s behavior as he baselessly claims fraud is robbing him of the presidency.

Trump is“bleeding GOP support,” said the source, who described the President’s complaints as an “ambulance chasing routine.”

The source went on to criticize the Trump campaign for leveling charges of voter fraud in Pennsylvania.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is leading the race with 253 electoral votes. President Trump has 213 electoral votes.

Based on these projections, this is where the race to 270 currently stands.

Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votesto win the presidency.

Joe Biden is holding a call with his campaign’s National Finance Committee shortly, according to two sources familiar, thanking his top contributors for building what unexpectedly became the bright spot of his operation: A major financial advantage over the Trump campaign.

The call underscores the optimism inside Democratic circles at the prospect of Biden winning. After a day of counting, a top adviser tells me their confidence has increased significantly as the day has moved along.

One thing Biden will not have tonight: a victory rally outside the Chase Center. The stage remains set. The red, white and blue neon Biden-Harris signs are still on. Flags are rippling in the breeze, but there will be no fireworks tonight.

Even with an air of confidence, a message has gone out to Biden world: They need to see this through, keeping a close eye on Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona. Legal teams are ready to be deployed, along with other workers if needed.

One thing not being talked about tonight: The Biden transition. It’s been in place for months, as required by law, but it’s a topic that’s off-limits here in Wilmington.

Votes are still being counted in several key states, which could determine the outcome of the presidential race between President Trump and Joe Biden.

We’re still awaiting for results in these states:

Currently, Biden leads the race with 253 electoral votes over Trump’s 213 electoral votes.

Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votesto win the presidency.

Fake Twitter accounts impersonating the Associated Press sowed disinformation online Wednesday by attempting to call election results prematurely, prompting national security officials to issue warnings about the behavior.

Screenshots of one of the accounts showed impostors appearing to call Michigan for Joe Biden. As of this write, the AP has not called Michigan for either candidate. CNN has called Michigan for Joe Biden.

CNN was unable to independently view the impersonator accounts before Twitter removed them from their platform.

AP spokesperson Patrick Maks told CNN, “These are bogus accounts not affiliated with AP.”

The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said it has witnessed multiple reports of social media accounts pretending to be legitimate news outlets calling election results, and that it had anticipated the tactic.

“Don’t fall for it!”tweetedCISA director Chris Krebs, linking to an agency guide telling voters that “malicious actors can use fake personas and impersonate real accounts.”

“Most media accounts on platforms will have a checkmark, so if they’re not verified, dig deeper!” Krebs said in a follow-uptweet.

The tweets mark Krebs’ first public warning of a specific threat affecting the current election.

The accounts in question “were in violation ofour impersonation policy,” a Twitter spokesperson told CNN. “They are permanently suspended.”

Twitter said it has not witnessed any large-scale attempts to impersonate media outlets but that it will suspend any account that attempts to do so.

If Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden maintains his lead in Nevada and Arizona, he will secure the 270 electoral votes needed to take the presidency, CNN’s John King said this afternoon.

Drilling down into the Arizona numbers: The state still has more than 600,000 ballots remaining to be counted, officials tell CNN.

Between 615,000 and 635,000 ballots, possibly more, remain to be counted inArizona, according to the officials.

Biden currently leads Trump by about 93,000 votes statewide, 51% to 47.6%, according toCNN’s latest count. According to informal estimates, Trump would need to win approximately 58% of the outstanding vote to overcome Biden’s lead.

CNN’s John King breaks down the map:

Video Ad Feedback

3769dcfa-4d1a-4584-bed3-017319af57f3.mp4

02:56 - Source: cnn

Maricopa County elections officials and observers watch as ballots are tallied, Wednesday, November 4, at the Maricopa County Recorders Office in Phoenix.

Arizona still has more than 600,000 ballots remaining to be counted, officials tell CNN.

Between 615,000 and 635,000 ballots, possibly more, remain to be counted inArizona, according to the officials.

Biden currently leads Trump by about 93,000 votes statewide, 51.% to 47.6%, according toCNN’s latest count. According to informal estimates, Trump would need to win approximately 58% of the outstanding vote to overcome Biden’s lead.

Roughly two-thirds of the remaining votes to be counted come from Maricopa County, home of Phoenix, which Trump won four years ago 49% to 46% over Hillary Clinton, but where Biden currently holds a lead of about 99,000 votes.

Maricopa elections officials say they have between 428,000 and 446,000 ballots still to count. This includes 248,000 mail ballots that were returned in the last three days before the election; between 160,000 and 180,000 mail ballots returned on Election Day; and 18,000 provisional ballots, according to the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office. County officials said they expect to release updated count numbers around 9 p.m. ET. But they have not said when final results will be released.

The next biggest share of votes come from blue-leaning Pima County, home of Tucson, which has just under 91,000 ballots left to count.

OfArizona’s 13 other counties, five have not posted information about their number of remaining votes to count. Seven of the remaining eight were counties that Trump won over Clinton in 2016; but, all told, they account for about 12% of the known remaining ballots to be counted.

CNN’s Kyung Lah reports:

Video Ad Feedback

31d8efcd-cc34-4d9a-87f8-559dabb3d2d8.mp4

01:36 - Source: cnn

Arizona’s Maricopa County, the most populous county that includes Phoenix,will release two batches of voting results Wednesday night, according to Megan Gilbertson from theMaricopa County Elections Department.

Here’s when they numbers will be released:

There is no estimate on how many ballots each batch will contain.

Among the first ballots counted today are the 248,000 early ballots that were not processed before Election Day. Those ballots will go more quickly as more of them have been taken out of envelopes and signature verified already.

The roughly 160,000 to 180,000 early ballots dropped off on Election Day have not been removed from envelopes or signature verified—these will take time to process.

Election officials in Arizona are tamping down viral claims online that voters who used Sharpie pens on their ballots wouldn’t have their votes counted.

The confusion, fueled largely on social media, has promptedSecretary of State Katie Hobbs totweet: “IMPORTANT: If you voted a regular ballot in-person, your ballot will be counted, no matter what kind of pen you used (even a Sharpie).”In Maricopa County, officials said Sharpies are actually the preferred method of marking ballots.

But the state attorney general’s office said it will look into“hundreds of voter complaints regarding Sharpies at polling locations.”

Some more context: In one video viewedmore thana milliontimes onTwitter– and shared widely onFacebookandInstagram– an unidentified woman claims without proof that poll workers tried to force her to use a Sharpie and that she insisted on using an ink pen, to make sure her vote would count. The video was shot outside the Communiversity at Queen Creek polling site in Maricopa County by Marko Trickovic, who can be heard asking her: “So What they’re doing is they’re telling people to use Sharpies – that way those votes aren’t counted?” She responds, “Yes.”

The woman says four different polling places between “Queen Creek and the edge of Gilbert,” which is near the border with Pinal County, insisted that voters use Sharpies instead of pens. At one point, Trickovic asks her to confirm whether poll workers were “yanking” pens from voters hands. She says, “Yes, they tried to do that to me.”

State Attorney General Mark Brnovichtweetedthat, “We have received hundreds of voter complaints regarding Sharpies at polling locations. Accordingly, we sent this letter to Maricopa County election officials. Let’s get some answers.”

The letter asks the Maricopa County Elections department several questions, including what voting sites used Sharpies and how many ballots were rejected.

Maricopa County officials said poll workers were actually trained to require voters to use Sharpies at voting sites.

As Joe Biden gets closer to the 270 electoral votes to win the presidential election, he talked about how he would be a leader for everyone – not just the people who voted for him –in an address calling for unity and bipartisanship on Wednesday.

“We are campaigning asDemocrats, but I will govern asan American president,” Biden said.“The presidency, itself, is not apartisan institution.It’s the one office in thisnation that represents everyoneand it demands a duty of carefor all Americans and that isprecisely what I will do.”

He talked about the anxiety and division that many Americans feel, saying that although there are opposing views across the country “we have to stop treating our opponents as enemies.”

“It’s time for us to do what wehave always done as Americans – toput the harsh rhetoric of thecampaign behind us, to lower thetemperature, to see each otheragain, to listen to one another,to hear each other again andrespect and care for one another.To unite, to heal, to cometogether as a nation,” he added.

Joe Biden will win Michigan, CNN projects.

There are 16 electoral votes at stake in Michigan. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and John King report:

Video Ad Feedback

2ab6f730-98b6-4d89-8e7b-ffb94f078944.mp4

02:49 - Source: cnn

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden acknowledged the historic nature of the election and how more than “150 million people cast their votes” this year during a speech in Wilmington, Delaware.

Biden added: “Now after a long night ofcounting, it’s clear that we arewinning enough states to reach270 electoral votes needed towin the presidency.I’m not here to declare that wehave won, but I am here to report when thecount is finished, we believe wewill be the winners.”

Watch the moment:

Video Ad Feedback

14c2ac2c-d7be-4555-a68b-0d15f5e2d1e5.mp4

03:26 - Source: cnn

Joe Biden is speaking now from the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, the same place he accepted the Democratic nomination in August.

“Here, the people rule.Power can’t be taken orasserted.It flows from the people,” Biden said. “And it’s their will thatdetermines who will be presidentof the United States and their will alone.”

“And now after a long night ofcounting, it’s clear that we arewinning enough states to reach270 electoral votes needed towin the presidency,” Biden continued.

he fate of the United States presidency hung in the balance Wednesday morning, as President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden battled for three familiar battleground states, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, that could prove crucial in determining who wins the White House. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

The Trump campaign has filed a lawsuit in Michigan state court demanding the vote count be halted statewide until representatives from the campaign are provided meaningful access to observe mail-in ballots being opened and processed.

Lawyers for the campaign say the secretary of state is violating the Michigan Constitution and Michigan election law by “allowing absent voter ballots to be processed and counted without bipartisan teams and without allowing challengers to observe the process.”

Michigan law provides that poll challengers can monitor officials’ administration of an election to assure that the election complies with Michigan’s Constitution and Election Code.

Ryan Jarvi, press secretary for Attorney General Dana Nessel, responded:

“Michigan’s elections have been conducted transparently, with access provided for both political parties and the public, and using a robust system of checks and balances to ensure that all ballots are counted fairly and accurately.”

Joe Biden is on his way to the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, and he will speak soon from the same place he accepted the Democratic nomination in August.

This will not be an outdoor rally on the stage we saw last night. Flags are blowing in the wind on that stage now, but it will be a formal statement inside the convention center. It will be a presidential-like address, an aide said.

He will be joined by running mate Sen. Kamala Harris.

Biden has spent the morning calling top Democrats, including longtime elected officials across Pennsylvania, to gauge his standing in the state that will determine how long this race for the White House will go on.

An adviser said he will not declare victory, but he will call for the counting to continue – and he will push back against suggestions of fraud.

But for now, the Biden campaign is taking a page from the Florida 2000 playbook: Get out front, have a consistent argument about counting all ballots everywhere. Ron Klain, a veteran of Al Gore’s recount team, is helping guide this strategy for Biden.

“Twenty years later, we are putting in place the lessons learned from Florida,” a top Democratic official says, “and never giving up our position of strength or high ground.”

The Trump campaign is going to the Supreme Court, asking it to intervene ina pending case challenging a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that allowed ballots to be counted after Election Day.

The justices refused to expedite the appeal before the election, but they are still considering whether to take up the case.

“The time has come. Given last night’s results, the vote in Pennsylvania may well determine the next President of the United States,” Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for the President, said in the new filing.

“And this Court, not the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, should have the final say on the relevant and dispositive legal questions,” he said.

Some context: The President is laying the groundwork to challenge the election results in Pennsylvania at the United States Supreme Court.

His attorneys filed a petition with the Supreme Court to insert the President personally as a party to the lawsuit that is currently pending.

The case involves a challenge to Pennsylvania’s mail-in ballot deadline extension — the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is allowing for mail-in ballots to be accepted through Friday at 5 p.m. ET, including ballots without a legible postmark.

The Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 in October, allowing the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling to stand, and did not grant an expedited review of the case in the days before the election.However, the Supreme Court is still deciding whether to take up the underlying case.

CNN’s Pamela Brown reports:

Video Ad Feedback

14762356-1db8-471a-9b2e-d588d1bbc43c.mp4

01:51 - Source: cnn

Election workers count ballots on Wednesday, November 04, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Trump campaign says it’s suing in Pennsylvania over poll watchers and voter ID laws.

Trump deputy campaign manager Justin Clark says in a statement: “Bad things are happening in Pennsylvania. Democrats are scheming to disenfranchise and dilute Republican votes. President Trump and his team are fighting to put a stop to it.”

Clark continues: “We are suing to stop Democrat election officials from hiding the ballot counting and processing from our Republican poll observers — observers whose only job is to make sure every valid ballot is counted, and counted once.”

Clark also writes, “The Trump Campaign is also suing to stop Pennsylvania Democrats from breaking the very law that helps America vote—the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). While HAVA requires that states ensure certain first-time voters provide identification in order to vote, Secretary Boockvar—three days ago—re-wrote Pennsylvania Election Code to abuse her unilateral executive fiat and move the deadline for absentee and mail-in voters to provide missing proof of identification well past the deadline.”

CNN teams in Pennsylvania are checking to see if the suit has actually been filed.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said of the lawsuit: “I think that’s probably moreof a political document than alegal document.”

Shapiro told CNN’s Jake Tapper: “There is transparency in thisprocess.The counting has been going on.There are observers, observingthis counting and the countingwill continue.I recognize that right now thecampaign wants to spin, theywant to say whatever they’regoing to say. But, Jake, here’s the deal.The campaign is over.”

He said the state “will not let anythinginterrupt that process ofcounting” of votes.

Some context: Early Wednesday, Trump attempted to claim victory in the presidential race and called for a halt to legitimate vote counting that is underway around the country. He currently holds a lead in Pennsylvania, but counting continues in the state. Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said that the majority of the ballots in her state could be counted “significantly sooner” than Friday.

See Pennsylvania Attorney General’s response on CNN:

Video Ad Feedback

43fc0ff0-a9c3-4793-825d-6e1dfb5f5dc0.mp4

02:12 - Source: cnn

An election personnel examines a ballot as vote counting in the general election continues at State Farm Arena, Wednesday, November 4, in Atlanta.

Georgia is one of the battleground states that is still counting ballots as the winner of the presidential election is still unknown.

President Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden are battling to reach 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.

Here are some of the major counties that are still counting. Most of these are absentee ballots:

DeKalb County

Fulton County

Cobb County

Forsyth County

Houston County

USPS’ Kevin Bray, who’s in charge of all mail processing during the 2020 election, testified in court Wednesday that the US Postal Service will continue to implement extraordinary measures to deliver ballots in time to count through Saturday.

This is important because some states allow properly postmarked ballots to be counted if they arrive after Election Day.Those ballots must be postmarked on, or before, Election Day.

Bray said that USPS, through Saturday, would continue to utilize the express mail network— it guarantees delivery by one to two days — and what they call “local turnaround” that allows for local ballots to be delivered the same or next day.

Election officials huddle around a table as absentee ballots are processed at the central counting board, Wednesday, November 4, in Detroit.

The Trump campaign has released a statement saying it has filed a lawsuit in Michigan asking the state to halt counting until it receives “meaningful access” to observe the opening of ballots and the counting process.

CNN teams in Michigan have not seen evidence that the suit has actually been filed but continue to check.

While the Trump campaign has said that lawsuit has been filed in the Michigan Court of Claims, docket clerk for the Court of Claims, Morgan Adams, told CNN that the court has not received the filing.

Election workers count ballots on November 4 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar told CNN on Wednesday that the state could end up in a recount situation once all the ballots are counted, but it’s not “inevitable.”

President Trump currently leads former Vice President Joe Biden in Pennsylvania by about 458,915 votes with about 80% of the vote reported.

“In Pennsylvania there’s an automatic recount if the race is within 0.5 percent difference between the winner and the person in second. So in 2016, I believe the final results were 0.7 percent, so there was no automatic recount. Today remains to be seen,” she said.

“I think we’ll know more by the end of the day where we see where we are,” Boockvar added.

Watch the moment:

Video Ad Feedback

f20fec6e-5457-4fc5-8e25-445788f7064e.mp4

00:43 - Source: cnn

A Trump campaign adviser said the President is the driving force behind nearly all of the rhetoric from the campaign questioning the legitimacy of the election and the ballot counting process.

Aides are encouraging Trump to stay in the fight, but Trump doesn’t really need the nudge, the adviser said.Trump wants to fight it out until the end, the adviser added.

The adviser said the President has been livid watching Biden’s lead increase in states like Michigan and Wisconsin.

The adviser acknowledged that it is unlikely Trump will close the gaps in Arizona and Wisconsin, not to mention Michigan which is viewed as an even tougher challenge for the President.CNN has projected Biden will win Wisconsin.

The adviser added that campaign officials remain furious with Fox for calling Arizona, saying they believe the race there is very tight and was called too early by Fox.

The margin in the vote count between presidential candidates is substantial enough that it is “highly unlikely” there will be a legal challenge against absentee ballots received after 8:00 p.m. Tuesday night, the Minnesota secretary of state said.

During a Wednesday press conference, Secretary of State Steve Simon said that about 240,000 requested absentee ballots haven’t been received, but that number is most likely inflated. This number could include those who requested a mail ballot but decided to vote in-person, or requested one and didn’t vote at all.

Right now, Biden is leading by approximately 230,000 votes in Minnesota, and the remaining absentee pile would be unlikely to dramatically change his vote count, Simon said. He also noted that there is no new litigation filed against his office as of this morning.

Some background: The absentee ballots that haven’t been received previously played a crucial role since a federal appeals court ruled last week that any ballots received after 8:00 p.m. on election night must be segregated.

As of now, the late ballots will be segregated but included in the total vote count. The Secretary of State’s officewould only remove them completely if there was a legal challenge against them, according to Simon.

A new order from Judge Emmet Sullivan instructs USPS to conduct two sweeps for ballots in Texas.

Lawyers for the NAACP asked for the order, which Sullivan granted.

It instructs USPS to conduct two sweeps in all Texas processing plants for ballots postmarked on Election Day or earlier.

The first sweep must start immediately; the second must take place at 4 p.m. ET.

Any ballots postmarked on or before Election Day found in the sweeps must be delivered to election officials by 5 p.m. ET, according to the order.

The order also requires USPS to report on how many ballots were found during those Texas sweeps.

USPS’ Kevin Bray, who is in charge of all mail processing during the 2020 election, told the court that the instructions had already been sent to postal employees in the Lone Star State.

In post offices, the order instructs the USPS to remind all managers that ballots should implement local turnaround, which skips normal processing procedures so that ballots can be delivered immediately.

This order is important because Texas allows for the counting of ballots that arrive by 5 p.m. Wednesday (November 4) as long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day.

Joe Biden will win Wisconsin, CNN projects.

There are 10 electoral votes at stake in Wisconsin. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Who won in 2016: President Trump carried the state and won the general election.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and John King report:

Video Ad Feedback

38bd9553-cffd-42c6-a3f0-93437c53795e.mp4

00:50 - Source: cnn

Municipal workers extract Luzerne County ballots from their envelopes, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

It’s past 2:00 p.m. on the East Coast, and votes are still being counted in several key states where CNN is yet to project a winner. President Trump and Joe Biden are battling to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

Here’s where things stand this afternoon:

Michigan

Pennsylvania

Arizona

Georgia

Nevada

North Carolina

The US Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobbying group, is urging patience and trust in the democratic system and pledging to “work with” the winning candidate.

The US Chamber of Commerce’s CEO Thomas J. Donohue called for faith in “our systems” and trust in the “local officials who oversee the elections in their communities,”according to a statement on Wednesday.

“Democracy will do its work—and we will be ready to do ours,” said Donohue in a statement.

He continued:

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar speaks with CNN on November 4.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said that the majority of the ballots in her state could be counted “significantly sooner” than Friday. Boockvartold reporters earlier today that there are “millions of ballots” in the state still to be counted.

“The closer the race, the longer it takes to know a winner, but I think, as I’ve been saying all along, I think the overwhelming majority of ballots could be counted by Friday and actually at this point it’s looking like it’s going to be significantly sooner that that,” Boockvar told CNN’s Erin Burnett.

When asked if there is a priority to get the vote count done quick in larger population areas like Philadelphia, Boockvar said:

Watch the exchange:

Video Ad Feedback

d06ef263-dc92-4ed4-ad4f-af003e788055.mp4

01:35 - Source: cnn

Joe Biden is raising money for his campaign’s election protection efforts as the campaign braces for possible legal fights, sending a tweet encouraging supporters to “chip in to power the new Biden Fight Fund.”

Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris sent a similar plea on Twitter, saying their work “could stretch on for weeks.”

Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign, said the call for a recount in Wisconsin by the Trump campaign is an attempt to “claw back” a defeat and called the Trump campaign’s messaging “a bit scrambled.”

Bauer went on to declare that Biden “has won Wisconsin,” and he believes the Democratic nominee is at 270 electoral votes. CNN is yet to call the race in Wisconsin.

“He lost in Wisconsin, he lost in Michigan, he lost in Pennsylvania, he lost in Arizona I could mention a couple other places, like the congressional district in Nebraska, which he also lost to Joe Biden, having won previously, and now all of a sudden we’re talking recount,” Bauer said.

Again, CNN has not yet called the race in Wisconsin, nor the races in Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Arizona.

Bauer went on to slam President Trump, saying, “I think it’s pretty clear that from last night and today that thePresident understands he’s in a different position, which is he’s trying to claw back this defeat and trying to turn it into legal action, into a victory.”

He said that he is optimistic about Biden’s chances in Wisconsin, going on to say, “he has won Wisconsin.”

“I’m highly optimistic. I think Biden is going to win Wisconsin, I think he has won Wisconsin, I think we’re at 270 electoral votes and above, and he’ll be the president-elect,” Bauer said.

People wait outside a polling place to cast their ballots on November 3 in Media, Pennsylvania.

There were several voting issues reported to nonpartisan voting rights groups in Pennsylvania butpeople turned out and were able to cast their ballot, despite “significant obstacles” to do so, according toSuzanne Almeida, interim executive director for Common Cause Pennsylvania.

Among the issues reported to nonpartisan groups were several instances of voters feeling intimidated by armed constables wearing Kevlar vestsand “carrying guns on their person in a way that made voters feel…reallyreallyuncomfortable,”SalewaOgunmefun, Civic Engagement and Political Manager at the Center for Popular Democracy, said.

“An election is successful when every single eligible voter is able to cast their ballot and have equal access to a positive experience at the polling place. We did not see that yesterday, so that being said, we also did not see a disaster,” Almeida said at aPennsylvania Election Protection Coalition news briefing.

There were also “language access issues” reported in York, Berks and Lehigh Counties where volunteers assisted ininterpreting for voters,Ogunmefunsaid.

There were some voting victories, saidWitold Walczak, legal director of ACLU of Pennsylvania.

This is the first general election following one of the biggest election reforms in the state, Act 77, which, among other things,shortened the period between the registration deadline and Election Day,Walczak said.

“On a positive note, we actually got way fewer complaints from voters who had registered to vote” despitethe registration deadline being shortened from 30 days to 14 days, according toWalczak.

CNN has reached out to thePennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) and the governor’s office for comment on constables but has not yet heard back.

County Boards of Elections in the still “too close to call” state of North Carolina continue to process absentee ballots that are coming in, as well as provisional ballots cast in-person on Election Day.

Wake County Board of Elections External Communications Manager, Stacy Beard, tells CNN staff are processing provisional and absentee ballots “right now as we speak.”

“But it won’t be until at least Tuesday that the absentee results are released, and it will be sometime next week that the provisionals will be released although you will find out how many provisionals we got. The State Board will get those and report those probably by end of day today,” said Beard.

As of this morning, the North Carolina State Board of Elections reported that there are approximately 117,000 outstanding absentee by mail ballots. This number does not account for people who may have voted or mailed their ballot on Election Day. It is also possible many of these voters did not cast a ballot at all.

Wake County, a Democratic stronghold in North Carolina, has thousands of absentee ballots that have yet to be returned.

“There are still 14,000 [outstanding ballots] in our system that have no status whatsoever. We have not received them yet. We have not spoiled them. They’re just out there,” said Beard. “I can’t tell you how many of those will come back.”

“There’s no way of predicting. Did people just wait until the last minute? Did they throw them away?” she added.

Biden campaign senior adviser Anita Dunn stressed again this afternoon that the campaign is confident that they will receive 270 electoral votes, saying that Joe Biden will declare victory once the campaign believes they have reached that number, regardless of whether news outlets have called those races.

Asked if Biden would declare victory even if all the states’ results had not yet been called by the networks, she replied, “If we feel comfortable that he has 270 electoral votes, yeah.”

The Trump campaign says it will “immediately” request a recount in the battleground of Wisconsin. But under Wisconsin law, a campaign can’t petition for said recount until the Wisconsin Election Commission completes the canvass from county election boards.

CNN’s David Chalian breaks down Trump campaign’s request:

Video Ad Feedback

d654461f-760b-420d-99dc-f8471b01debf.mp4

01:34 - Source: cnn

US Postal Service Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testifies during a hearing before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on August 24 in Washington, DC.

A federal judge was so angered by the US Postal Service’s inability to sweep its facilities for ballots yesterday afternoon, following a court order to do so, that he said he will want answers under oath from Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.

He said he was not pleased the USPS couldn’t comply with the Election Day court order, and didn’t notify him until the court’s deadline passed that they didn’t have personnel on site in facilities to look for ballots in the mid-afternoon.

Sullivan has put in place several court orders requiring the Postal Service to explain how much election mail it’s failing to process daily, especially in states with low performance, which includes parts of key battleground states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

The court’s order on Tuesday for an additional sweep was in response to reports of lower performance in some areas —where strict deadlines for absentee ballots to get to elections boards approached — and questions about what happened to 300,000 ballots without final scans before their delivery.

“Someone may have a price to pay about that,” the judge said about the USPS’s failure to sweep facilities an additional time on Tuesday.

“It’s your clients,” Sullivan told a Justice Department attorney representing the USPS. “I am concerned about your clients, each and every one starting at the top of the food chain.”

Joseph Borson, representing USPS, told the judge the reason the postal service didn’t conduct the sweeps was that “it took some time for this information to get to the right people.”

CNN’s Ana Cabrera reports on USPS developments:

Video Ad Feedback

f0eabe9b-4bf6-4b0b-8d09-51755632dc15.mp4

02:12 - Source: cnn

President Trump’s campaign is signaling to its allies it plans extensive legal challenges in states where vote margins are currently slim, including Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien told campaign surrogates in a telephone call this morning that campaign lawyers are already in those states in anticipation of filings, a person familiar with the matter said.

Trump campaign officials told allies on the call that the first likely step would be requesting recounts in states including Wisconsin and Michigan.

Trump also signaled before the election his lawyers would intervene in Pennsylvania shortly after the election, and officials have told Trump allies they anticipate a filing there in the next few days. It wasn’t yet clear yet what would constitute the legal challenge in Pennsylvania.

Trump campaign lawyers are currently on the ground in several other states, including North Carolina and Georgia, officials familiar with the matter said.

Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks with CNN on November 4.

Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said he hopes to have a full result from his state by the end of today, even with about 200,000 ballots yet to be counted.

“That’s what we’re pushing for,” Raffensperger told CNN’s Erin Burnett.

He noted that the bulk of votes are coming from larger populated areas like Fulton County and Dekalb County.

“Some fast growing counties have like 7,000. It’s really statewide, but they are working really diligently today to finish up and get all the absentee ballots scanned and tabulated,” Raffensperger said.

Georgia is a key battleground state where CNN has not yet projected a winner.

Georgia secretary of state estimates timeline for state’s results:

Video Ad Feedback

958411e7-d006-4243-b5ea-f088675de774.mp4

01:48 - Source: cnn

Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe.

Wisconsin’s chief election official said all votes have now been counted statewide, except for a small town with fewer than 300 voters.

Meagan Wolfe, the administrator of the Wisconsin Election Commission said she misspoke earlier this morning when she told a different news outlet that all of the unofficial results were in from municipal clerks across the state.

Wolfe said that, to her knowledge, all votes have been counted statewide, “except for one township of less than 300 voters, and they are working to get their ballots finished and posted.”

“We have no reason to believe there are any other ballots that have not yet been counted and included as part of those unofficial totals,” Wolfe said.

What comes next: Wolfe said the state’s official results won’t be certified until December 1, despite nearly all of the jurisdictions reporting voting totals.

Now, the municipalities start the process to double check the results, she said.

“Today at 4:00 is actually thedeadline for municipalities tostart their canvass process androute their materials over tocounties where they start theircertification process at thecounty level,” Wolfe said, adding that once those ballots are certified at the local and county levels, they are then checked by the state.

This is important because if either campaign legally challenges the election results, they will have to wait until December when the results are official.

“All this publicly observable. You can watch in your local communities. If you’re skeptical about the process, engage,” Wolfe said.

“I feel 100% confident in the election that they conducted,” she added.

Municipal workers process ballots on November 4 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Officials in Luzerne County in Northeastern Pennsylvania hope to finish counting mail-in ballots by late today or early tomorrow morning, according to County Manager David Pedri.

Pedri said volunteers have counted approximately 37,000 of the 57,066 ballots received by the time polls closed on Election Day.

He said additional staff has been added to deal with the count and it is proceeding at a pace of about 3,000 mail-in ballots per hour.

As of Wednesday morning, the county’s website showed President Trump leading former Vice President Joseph Biden by 27,598 votes with 20,066 remaining to be counted.

Luzerne backed Barack Obama in 2012 but supported Donald Trump in 2016.

CNN has not projected a winner in Pennsylvania.

Despite the confidence the Trump campaign projected in a call with reporters this morning, not everyone was feeling optimistic waking up on Wednesday as President Trump’s pathway appeared to narrow.

“We are clearly in a corner here,” one senior official said.

But the official cautioned that the campaign is not yet out of the game, and campaign officials have continued to claim both publicly and privately that they think they have shot if they can get Arizona and Nevada into their column.

That looked unlikely in the case of Arizona heading into the early hours of the morning, but the campaign’s internal math was better than public polling in several places and so that’s given them hope that their projections in this case could be more accurate than projections that show Biden taking the state.

On the campaign call this morning, officials said they ultimately expected to see the final tally in Arizona reflect a thin margin of victory for Trump. And the campaign was seething last night over what they felt was Fox News’s premature call of Arizona for Biden.

But claiming the pathway to victory runs through Arizona and Nevada appears to be different than the campaign’s long-standing hope to win by holding onto the Midwest, which seems to be slipping away as Wisconsin and Michigan totals creep toward Biden.

CNN has not projected a winner in Arizona.

The Trump campaign outlined a strategy to selectively attempt to stop vote counts in states based on where the math works for the President during a conference call, CNN’s White House correspondent John Harwood reported.

“So, what they’re going to try to do is keep counting in places where they’re behind and try to make up the deficit, but in places like Philadelphia where Joe Biden is making up ground, trying to disqualify votes that would advantage him,” Harwood told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

Harwood noted that this strategy is not a “tenable” one, especially if you look at the 2000 election and Bush v. Gore.

CNN’s John Harwood analyzes Trump campaign’s strategy:

Video Ad Feedback

e7b1fa56-35a9-4dfb-8911-1ac25b252411.mp4

02:14 - Source: cnn

President Donald Trump speaks from the White House early on November 4 in Washington, DC.

The Trump campaign is desperately fundraising the day after the election for resources to wage legal battles against election results, something he highlighted as he sowed doubt in election results over the past few months.

The campaign has sent out six emails to supporters since midnight asking for money. Each of the solicitations has included the false claim that Democrats are trying to “steal” the election.

There is no evidence of nefarious activity surrounding the election count.

At a rally in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on the eve of Election Day, Trump said campaign lawyers “will be going in and they’ll be fighting.”

Joe Biden will win at least three of Maine’s electoral votes, CNN projects.

There are four electoral votes at stake in Maine. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

Maine allows electoral votes to be split. In Maine, two of four electoral votes go to the statewide winner and one electoral vote goes to the winner in each of the two congressional districts.

Who won in 2016: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the state with three electoral votes. President Trump received one electoral vote.

Watch moment of CNN’s latest projection:

Video Ad Feedback

b1790711-051d-4ac0-b5d4-4319e87d88d3.mp4

01:03 - Source: cnn

Postal inspectors only found 13 ballots in the Election Day sweeps of underperforming processing facilities, according to an affidavit authored by Postal Inspector Daniel Brubaker.

On Tuesday Judge Emmet Sullivan of the US District Court of the District of Columbia ordered the United States Postal Service to sweep all processing facilities by 3 p.m. ET in a number of states, including some critical battleground states.

In an affidavit authored by Postal Inspector Daniel Brubaker, theUS Postal Servicereports they found only 13 ballots in the sweeps – all were in Pennsylvania.Ten ballots were found in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, processing facility and another three ballots were found in the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, processing facility.

Upon their finding, Brubaker says they were immediately processed and sent for delivery yesterday.

There is a federal court hearing at noon to update the various parties about the issue.

Some background: The court had ordered the USPS to sweep processing facilities that had low ballot processing scores in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, New Hampshire, Maine, South Carolina, Florida, Wisconsin and Arizona.

In another affidavit filedby Kevin Bray,the USPS official in charge of mail processing during the 2020 election,thePostal Servicesaidadditional, pre-planned sweeps are currently underway at nearly allprocessing facilities that had low ballot processing scores in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, New Hampshire, Maine, South Carolina, Florida, Wisconsin and Arizona.

Both postal inspectors reiterated that it was not practical to start the sweeps during the court-mandated time – between 12:30 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. – on Election Day.They said that it was impossible to communicate, and move, postal inspectors to facilities in that short amount of time.

Also, they said that those sweeps would be ineffective because processing plants are most active in the late afternoon and evening, during the time-frame the USPS had already scheduled their routine Election Day sweeps.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson speaks with CNN on Wednesday, November 4.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson reiterated that “tens of thousands” of ballots still need to be counted in the state, including in the larger jurisdictions of Detroit, Flint, Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids.

Benson asked for patience from voters. She said the process right now is “the beginning of thefirst tabulation.”

Boards at the county and state level, comprised of both parties, will review the counts of the entire election before results are officially certified, she explained.

“When we have the firstunofficial tabulation, which wehope will come some time in thenext 24 hours, we will finalizeofficial protocols movingtowards an official tabulation,which could take even more time,” Benson said.

The world is watching, like Americans learning patience, fearful of what may come next.

Ireland’s Foreign Minister Simon Coveney cautioned that the US election “most definitely is not over,” while in Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon – who is no fan of President Donald Trump – reacted to the President’s overnight call to stop counting ballots, by saying, “what’s most important right now is the integrity of American democracy. All votes should be counted”

In Northern Ireland, Trump’s right-of-center fans are not giving up hope that he’ll win the election. But they are also urging restraint, with Ian Paisley Jr of the Democratic Unionist Party saying, “politics should never be fought in the court room”

Meanwhile, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, the Trump-leaning Dominic Raab, received a goading from prominent UK news anchor Andrew Neil who pushed back on the minister’s inference that the presenter’s information was coming from pundits, not Democratic Party sources.

In an on-air heated exchange, Raab told Neil the British government is ready and prepared to work with both Biden and Trump.

But for a brief moment this morning it seemed the tensions infecting US politics had leapt across the Atlantic which is, of course, the fear of many.

An election worker counts ballots at State Farm Arena on Wednesday, November 4 in Atlanta.

About 200,000 ballots are left to be counted in Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said.

Speaking at a press conference at the Georgia Capitol on Wednesday, Raffensperger said “every legal ballot will be counted.”

Of the approximately 200,000 votes yet to be counted in Georgia, Raffensperger said between 52,000 and 54,000 of them are from Dekalb County. About 74,000 of those are from Fulton County, with 43,000 more early votes that need to be counted. About 7,000 votes have yet to be counted in Forsyth County.

Raffensperger said officials will immediately begin their work today to certify this election.

“My team has sent a reminder to counties to get all, let me repeat, all results counted today,” Raffensberger said.

Several top Republicans, including those close to Senate Republican leaders, are privately dismissive of President Trump’s suggestion that ballots shouldn’t be counted after Election Day.

They point to several states, including Alaska, where ballots will be counted for up to 10 days. Sen. Dan Sullivan is among those on the ballot who wants those ballots to be fully counted.

The question, of course, is whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or other Republican senators will say this themselves.

It’s the day after Election Day, and CNN has not projected a winner in nine states across the country.

Right now, Joe Biden has 224 electoral votes, and President Trump has 213. Remember: It takes 270 votes to win the presidential election.

These are the nine states that have not yet been called, whose electoral votes are still up for grabs:

Oakland County Clerk Lisa Brown told CNN that the county is waiting on absentee ballots from two precincts to be able to report out their unofficial total.

Brown shared that the two precincts are in Oakland Township, which has a population of roughly 19,000 people. Brown said that the township had approximately 9,000 absentee ballots throughout its eight precincts, and has received the returns from six of those eight precincts. She did not have an exact number, but guessed that the remaining absentee count was around 2,500.

Oakland County is located about 30 miles northwest of Detroit and is the second most populous county in Michigan.

A worker checks with an election supervisor at the central counting board in Detroit on November 4.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has widened his lead in Michigan, one of the key remaining states in the race for the White House.

With a new batch of votes coming in, Biden now holds a wider edge over Trump, with more than 30,000 more votes, though only 92% of the votes are estimated to have been tabulated at this point.

“This is very significant,” said CNN’s Anderson Cooper, noting that “it had been about 10,000 or so votes, the difference between them.”

“The fact that his lead is wideningand they still have votes tocount in Wayne County is anencouraging sign for the Bidencampaign,” said King, noting that it “doesn’t get you the finish line,but it’s encouraging.”

CNN’s John King breaks down Biden’s widening lead in Michigan:

Video Ad Feedback

84c6780e-1f0b-4bb3-af40-f1a8fed029e1.mp4

02:31 - Source: cnn

Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Elections Board Chief Clerk Lee Soltysiak testified in court today that 2,700 absentee ballots in the county as of Sunday were considered to have issues and were likely to not be counted.

Some were truly defective ballots, with missing secrecy envelopes or other issues, while the vast majority were ballots that never actually reached a voter and had been returned to the elections board.

This number came up during a hearing this morning that is still ongoing about whether county officials should have given voters an opportunity to cure defective absentee ballots.

Why this is important: The election is far from over and all eyes are on the battleground states right now. There are millions of votes outstanding in key stateslike Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan — ballots that were cast before Election Day that have yet to be counted.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said on Wednesday that “we may not know the results today.”

Stay patient: That’s the message from Pennsylvania as the Keystone State continues counting votes.

Boockvar noted that while nearly half of the state’s mail-in ballots have been tabulated, “there are still millions of ballots left to be counted.”

Four years ago, during the 2016 presidential race, Pennsylvania had 260,000 ballots cast by mail. Four years later, amid a global pandemic, the 2020 figures will shatter that mark.

“I don’tknow what the totals are going to end upat, but somewhere between 2.5million and 3 million ballots,” said Boockvar, noting that her state “will be at ten times thenumber of mail ballots” for this election.

Boockvar’s primary message as the tabulations continue? “We are going to accurately countevery single ballot.”

Pennsylvania secretary of state gives update on state’s ballots:

Video Ad Feedback

caca6a20-1520-4e4e-bc92-003bdfee4e24.mp4

03:49 - Source: cnn

Joe Biden will address the American people today as the nation awaits election results.

As votes continue to be counted, New York City could have the highest turnout ever in a presidential election, according to the city’s deputy mayor.

About 1.2 million people voted in-person on election day, with a cumulative turnout of 2.3 million people voting so far, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

There are still “hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots, more to be counted,” de Blasio said.

Deputy Mayor Phil Thompson said “yesterday could equal or surpass the highest turnout we’ve ever had in a presidential election in NYC, and this is during the pandemic, which meant you know people had to take extra precautions.”

While the election is “clearly too close to call” on the presidential level, what is clear is “we had both a huge amount of participation and a clean and fair election all over this city all over this nation,” de Blasio said. “That is a fact,” he added.

He said officials were worried about a lot of things, including interference from foreign nations, hacking or voter suppression efforts, and violence.

“We didn’t see any of those things thank God,” he said.

Here’s how the voting numbers break down, according to Thompson:

Vote counting is still underway in Pennsylvania, and Gov. Tom Wolf says there are about 3 million mail-in ballots being counted. This may delay the result so much so that “we may not know the results even today,” he said.

The state is crucial for either presidential candidate’s path to 270 electoral votes to win the US presidency. Pennsylvania is one of nine states where CNN has not yet projected a winner.

He also assured that Pennsylvanians can “haveconfidence in the outcome ofthis election.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf discusses timeline of results:

Video Ad Feedback

5c885231-a4c4-4fed-a9a6-cb7bd621a8ee.mp4

02:54 - Source: cnn

A volunteer processes absentee ballots at the TCF Center in Detroit, Michigan, on November 4.

Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell told CNN on Wednesday she is growing more confident that Joe Biden will pull out a win in Michigan once all the votes are counted. But the Democratic congresswoman said that the narrow margin, and continuing urban-rural divide, should deeply worry Democratic leaders.

Dingell, who represents Ann Arbor and areas south of Detroit, has been far more skeptical of the likelihood of Biden winning Michigan over the last month, in large part because of the level of Trump support in rural parts of the state.

Rural pockets of Michigan used to be home to so-called Dingell Democrats, more conservative and independent voters who backed the late Michigan congressman John Dingell, Debbie Dingell’s husband. But many of those voters slipped away from Democrats over the last decade, highlighted by Trump’s overwhelming win of places like Monroe County, Michigan, in 2016.

The fact that this trend continued with Biden, a candidate who was seen as the best positioned Democrat to woo these voters, should worry top Democrats, Dingell said.

The state of Michigan has set a new voter turnout record with at least 5,107,896 votes, according to a CNN tally. This total includes all presidential candidates on the ballot in Michigan, not just former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump.

The record was previously set in 2008 with5,039,080 votes when former President Barack Obama won the state, according to official results from the Michigan secretary of state website.

In the lead up to Election Day, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson had been predicting the state would reach a record-breaking turnout.

“We are on track to see record breaking turnout,” Benson told reporters Tuesday.

President Donald Trump speaks in the early hours of November 4.

The Trump campaign argued to reporters on a conference call Wednesday that President Trump is in a “very, very, very good position” to win the election as the votes continue to be counted in key battleground states.

First, some context: CNN has not projected a winner in nine states across the country — Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Maine, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Votes are still being counted, and there is still a pathway to victory for both President Trump and Joe Biden

The Trump campaign is arguing that mail-in ballots still to be counted will break in Trump’s favor. That directly contradicts the President’s assertion overnight that ballots should stop being counted. Again, the ballots still being counted are perfectly legal. The campaign believes they will win Arizona by a narrow margin, as well as Pennsylvania.

He claimed without evidence that Democrats are “pushing to count late ballots” because “if we count all legal ballots, we win.”

Wisconsin, Stepien said, is a “tight race within one percent,” which, he said, is “recount territory.”

In Michigan, he said there are outlying Republican counties and they are “confident in a pathway that includes Michigan.”

In Nevada, “late breaking math helps us in Nevada.”

The campaign continued to push back on Arizona, which has been called by some other outlets in favor of Biden. CNN has not made a projection in Arizona.

“Late arriving votes cast closest to election day are the ones being counted now,” Stepien said, adding that they expect about half a million votes left to be counted, and between 2/3 and 70% of those ballots “are coming to the President.”

“That math adds up to a margin of around 30,000 votes in the president’s favor,” Stepien said, adding that Arizona “will come the president’s way.”

In Pennsylvania, Stepien said, they also believe remaining ballots will “exceed the splits we’ve seen to this point.”

The call just wrapped with no questions.

America does not yet know who the next president will be, yet US stocks opened decidedly higher Wednesday morning.

Market analysts believed a delayed election outcome would cause widespread uncertainty, which is typically the enemy of Wall Street.

The market isn’t showing signs of panic, though, perhaps because it had already priced in the fact that the election may not be decided anytime soon.

Here’s where things stand this morning:

Growth stocks have performed well under the Trump administration and a second term could herald more of the same fruitful environment. At the same time, betting markets are still very clearly favoring Joe Biden to win, which would likely lead to more government stimulus.

President Trump is currently ahead in Pennsylvania by about 618,000 votes, but that lead is not insurmountable for Joe Biden because of “what’s outstanding, basedon where it’s outstanding, andbased on the method in whichthat vote was cast outstanding,” CNN’s Phil Mattingly explains.

About 1million — and possibly more — absenteevotes are yet to be counted.

That matters because Democrats expect big turnout in places like Philadelphia, counties around Philadelphia and Alleghany County, which is home to Pittsburgh. It’s not happened yet but that’s largely because of the votes that haven’t been counted yet.

Remember: There was still a big voter turnout for President Trump in western Pennsylvania counties. So the outstanding vote doesn’t mean that Biden isgoing to catch up. It just meansthat there is an opportunity forthe Biden campaign in the state.

CNN’s Phil Mattingly breaks down Trump’s lead in Pennsylvania:

Video Ad Feedback

fe803486-1f3c-4791-a8ed-4876b23dc296.mp4

02:25 - Source: cnn

Many Democratic operatives last night were dreading the coming hours because it appeared Trump was on his way to victory.

But as the sun rose on Wednesday morning, many of those same operatives are growing more confident, primarily because of how much mail-in and absentee vote is yet to be counted.

Here is part of the reason:

“We feel good,” a senior Biden campaign adviser told CNN’s MJ Lee on Wednesday morning. “We’re going to win today.”

That hope was echoed by others.

“Democrats have just come through a long night of the soul. When a lot of Democrats went to bed last night, they were very, very depressed,” said David Gergen, an adviser to four president and CNN contributor. “But today, this morning, in this dramatic turn about, Democrats are now seeing much brighter rays out there.”

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro urged voters to be patient as the state counts all its ballots, saying that the state will get a “clearer picture” by the end of the day, but cautioned all results will be known “bythe end of the week.”

Shapiro said that volunteers and clerks from Pennsylvania communities have been awake around the clock to tabulate votes.

“We said all along thatwe were going to secure andprotect and count the vote.We accomplished the first two —the vote was secured andprotected — and now we’re goingthrough this laborious processof counting,” he said.

Shapiro said he expects numbers to fluctuate, but voters can have “confidence” in the counting process.

“These votes are going to betabulated, they’re going to becounted, and at the end of theday, the will of the people ofPennsylvania is going to berespected,” Shapiro said.

Pennsylvania attorney general urges patience:

Video Ad Feedback

1f482b23-5b2b-493f-8410-23abd8fbb103.mp4

03:27 - Source: cnn

The presidency

It’s the morning after Election Day, and CNN has not yet projected who will win the presidency. Votes are still being counted in Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Maine, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

At this hour, both candidates still have pathways to get to 270 electoral votes – the number of votes needed to win the presidency.

Based on the races called so far, this is where the race to 270 stands right now:

The Senate

In the Senate, Republicans have dramatically narrowed the path for Democrats to take back the majority, preventing upsets in red states such as South Carolina, Iowa and Montana. But with much of the vote still being counted, Democrats could still win four of these remaining races — and the White House — to take the Senate majority.

Here’s a look at the states where Senate seats are still up for grabs:

The House

Republicans had a better night than expected holding on to some of their House seats. At least two incumbent Democrats were ousted by GOP challengers, and more could come asmany races are yet to be called.

On the Democratic side, all four congresswomen of “the Squad” — Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts — won reelection.Since taking officein January 2019, the lawmakers, all women of color, have electrified the progressive base thanks to their social media savvy but have also attracted controversy, most notably over their criticism of the US relationship with Israel.

You can view real time results of the House races here.

Here’s a look at where the balance of power in congress currently sits:

As vote counting continues in key battleground states, a Biden official tells CNN they believe things are “moving to a conclusion – and moving to a conclusion in our favor.”

The official also offered these broad outlooks on some of the key outstanding battleground states:

One top adviser to Biden expressed confidence they would emerge victorious today.

But while the Biden campaign urges patience as votes continue to be counted, some have expressed disappointment the campaign was unable to deliver a swift and resounding verdict against President Trump in the hours after polls closed.

“Disappointed there isn’t a complete repudiation of Trump,” one source close to the campaign said. “But I think we will still win.”

If you went to sleep last night at a decent hour, you woke up this morning to a very different presidential race.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden jumped out ahead of President Trump in Michigan at around 9 a.m. ET, as the counting continues there and in Wisconsin. Biden, as big loads of absentee ballots were tabulated, took a lead in the Badger State at a little before 5 a.m. ET.

Still, the state of the race remains uncertain. Trump gave a speech overnight – when his situation looked much rosier than this morning — in which he made an awkward claim to having won the election. He had not. And, as the counting continues apace, he is further away from victory now than he was then.

Going forward, Democrats are confident that they’ll continue to gain ground in the Upper Midwest.

The reason: Absentee ballots are breaking overwhelmingly for Biden, who would need around 75% of what remains to be counted in Pennsylvania to overcome Trump’s current lead.

Biden and his team will also have their eyes on Georgia. There aren’t many outstanding votes, but they’re all in Atlanta and its suburbs – areas where Biden has shown strength and could be expected to help him to further narrow the race for Georgia.

Philadelphia City Hall is seen on the morning of November 4.

With a lot of the nation’s attention on Pennsylvania, a senior state official said while President Trump has a sizable lead, the outcome is far from certain.

Where things stand: According to publicly available information from various countries, as of this morning there were 1.4 million absentee ballots still to be counted. The margin of difference between Trump and Joe Biden currently stands at just over 618,000 with 75% of the state’s votes counted.

A majority of mail-inballots — 65%—sent in in Pennsylvania were from registered Democrats, although that doesn’t mean all would have voted for Biden.

Philadelphia and state officials are scheduled to brief the press within the hour on the progress of the counting.

Detroit election workers work on counting absentee ballots at the TCF Center in Detroit, Michigan, on November 4.

Votes are still being tabulated in key states. Here’s a closer look at the numbers in closely watched counties in those states.

“The simple fact is there arestill votes to be counted … votes cast legally still to becounted in states where themargins are thin,” according to CNN’s Jim Sciutto.

In Georgia, 8% of the vote remains to be counted.

Fulton County, Georgia

DeKalb County, Georgia

In Michigan, 14% of the overall vote still needs to be counted. The Michigan secretary of state told CNN that “hundreds of thousands” of votes still need to be counted in the state as a whole.

Wayne County, Michigan

“In both those states, it’surban areas that tend to favorDemocrats. The question, ofcourse: Is it enough to turn theresults in those states, andultimately given their positionas battleground states in thiselection, to turn the electionoverall?” Sciutto said.

In Wisconsin, 3% of the vote remains to be counted, while in Pennsylvania, 25% remains. Pennsylvania allows mail-in votes to be received and counted up until Friday.

CNN has not projected a winner in nine states across the country — Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Maine, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

CNN’s Phil Mattingly mapped out a potential path for Biden:

If Trump wins Alaska, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Georgia, and if Biden holds on to his lead in Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona and Maine, and overtakes Trump in Michigan, that’s Biden’s path, Mattingly said.

Mattingly also mapped out a potential path for Trump:

If Trump wins Pennsylvania, hold his lead in Michigan and flips Nevada, because it’s currently a very close race, he will have the votes he needs.

“[He] doesn’t need towin Georgia, needs to dig intosome Democratic territory, andneeds to somehow manage to holdoff Joe Biden in the state ofMichigan, and hang on to a verysizable lead right now inPennsylvania, and he’s over 270,” Mattingly said.

CNN’s Phil Mattingly lays out paths to 270 for both Biden and Trump:

Video Ad Feedback

cb628c20-a6ed-4ec7-97c9-015d819cbc21.mp4

04:22 - Source: cnn

Fulton County, Georgia, has just begun counting absentee ballots. They started at 8:30 a.m. ET Wednesday after stopping Tuesday night at 10:30 p.m ET.

An estimated 48,000 absentee ballots are still outstanding.

Fulton County is Georgia’s most populous county with more than a million inhabitants.

Roughly 79,000 absentee mail ballots are still uncounted in DeKalb County.They are scheduled to start counting at 11a.m. ET this morning.

It’s the morning after Election Day, and it’s still too early to project a winner in the presidential race.

Votes are still being counted in Alaska, Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

As the sun comes up on a long night of tracking votes, a Biden campaign aide said the campaign is confident it’s on the right track based on the states they’ve won and what’s yet to be counted

According to a source close to the campaign, the campaign always thought this would be a close race, pointing to campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon’s tweet a few weeks ago warning of a tight race.

“We have the burden of relying on the vote that takes the longest to count,” the source said. Even so, this person and the campaign remain optimistic when all votes are counted, Biden will be declared the winner.

CNN’s Jessica Dean reports from Biden campaign headquarters:

Video Ad Feedback

7478d2fe-af1c-4b5f-a68f-8ee8886e496a.mp4

01:13 - Source: cnn

The counting of votes is still underway in Wisconsin.Throughout much of the night, PresidentTrump was ahead by over 100,000 votes, but now, with 97% votes reported, JoeBiden is ahead by nearly 21,000votes.

What happened? The answer lies in mail-in voting, according to CNN’s Phil Mattingly.

Milwaukee County, home to the city of Milwaukee, is a major urban center and the biggestcounty in Wisconsin. It’s also home to about 16% of the state’s population.

The same happened in Brown County. President Trump still holds a lead in this Republican county, but Biden has received a boost via mail-in voting in Green Bay, which has a Democratic base.

The same was seen in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Mattingly points out.

Remember: This points right to the red or blue “mirage” that was expected in several states due to the unprecedented levels of mail-in ballots and early voting due to the coronavirus pandemic.

As a result, in some of the most competitive states,early results may look too rosyfor formerVice President Biden, before falling back down to earth and becoming more representative of the true outcome. In other states, Trump could see early leads that slowly narrow as more ballots are counted.

This won’t be a sign of fraud or irregularities. Rather, it’s just a reflection of how states count votes. Some states process early ballots first, and will report those early in the night, while others save them for last.

CNN’s Phil Mattingly explains Biden’s competitive lead in Wisconsin:

Video Ad Feedback

a7b64b22-1509-483a-85cf-1fd0a505b225.mp4

02:13 - Source: cnn

It’s the morning after Election Day and ballots are still being counted in some states.

As of early Wednesday morning, it was still too close to call in Alaska, Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Based on the races called so far, this is where the race to 270 stands right now:

Biden holds the lead in the Electoral College at this stage in the count, with 224 electoral college votes. Donald Trump has 213 electoral college votes.

Both candidates still have pathways to get to 270 electoral votes – the number of votes needed to win the presidency.

See latest breakdown of states with narrow margins:

Video Ad Feedback

1a5683e7-9e4e-4ab3-b990-dad6104ae193.mp4

02:10 - Source: cnn

For the second time in two years, Democrats are a whisper away from turning Georgia blue.

In 2018, Republican Brian Kemp narrowly defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams to become governor. Now, the presidential race remains too close to call hours after the polls closed. The outstanding votes almost entirely come from parts of Biden-friendly Atlanta and its suburbs.

Biden supporters wait for former President Barack Obama to speak at a rally as he campaigns for Joe Biden at Turner Field in Atlanta, on Monday, November 2.

With more than 90% of the estimated vote in, Trump leads the former vice president by a little more than 118,000 votes. But with Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett Counties, among others, still yet to complete their counts, the race remains in the balance – contrary to Trump’s claim early Wednesday morning that he’s already won it.

No Democratic presidential nominee has won in Georgia since 1992, when Bill Clinton defeated incumbent George H.W. Bush. Barack Obama came close. Hillary Clinton, in 2016, got closer. Abrams, in the gubernatorial campaign, came within 1.4 percentage points of victory in a race marred by evidence of voter suppression.

Democrats’ slow and steady climb has been fueled by a rapidly diversifying electorate and suburbs that are, at once, growing and becoming increasingly hostile to Republican candidates. The state GOP has compounded the issue, refusing so far to expand Medicaid under Obamacare while Gov. Brian Kemp, in 2019, signed a so-called “heartbeat bill,” one of the country’s most restrictive abortion laws.

Sensing opportunity, vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris, who was joined by Abrams, and Obama both visited the state in the final push ahead of Election Day. Sensing a tight race, Trump also visited over the weekend.

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris addresses the crowd during a campaign rally in Duluth, Georgia, on Sunday, November 1.

Biden’s fate could be decided over the next day, as the final votes are tabulated. But the political world will keep its eyes on Georgia for weeks to come. Both Senate races – one a special election – could be headed to runoffs early next year.

No matter who wins the presidency, those races have the potential to decide the balance of power in the US Senate for the next two years.

Read more here.

A worker with the Detroit Department of Elections sorts through absentee ballots at the Central Counting Board in the TCF Center in Detroit, on November 4.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said “hundreds of thousands” of absentee ballots remain to be tabulated in the state.

“We’reon track to have a much morecomplete picture, if not the vastmajority of jurisdictions,reporting out by the end oftoday,” she told CNN’s Don Lemon.

Absentee ballots are still being counted in cities like Detroit, Flint and Grand Rapids, she added.

Votes are still being counted in key states across the US, and while Democrats seem to have “really run up the score in a lot of big metros,” CNN analyst Ron Brownstein said “Trump’s hold on Trump country looks utterlyunshakable.”

Democrats consolidating majormetros but haven’t expanded their margin in the suburbs, Brownstein noted.

“It’s just the reality that weare living in a time where wehave this trench between twovery different coalitions thatwant very different things andvery different visions of whatAmerica is,” he added.

CNN’s Ron Brownstein analyzes latest trends:

Video Ad Feedback

48d38cd4-292f-472f-bc36-9cb72dcf55b2.mp4

01:54 - Source: cnn

It’s the day after Election Day, and CNN has not yet projected a winner in the presidential race.

There’s no rule that a winner has to be declared on election night. In fact, it’s happened in recent memory.

Here is a breakdown of when CNN projected the last five presidential elections:

Police officers separate supporters of George W. Bush and Al Gore during demonstrations in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC on Dec. 1, 2000. The court was hearing arguments from lawyers for Bush and Gore in the dispute over Florida''s presidential election ballots.

So, while Trump has repeatedly said we should know the winner on Election Night, that’s just not factually true. In fact, under federal law, states have until Dec. 8 to count ballots and settle disputes. Some states have earlier deadlines.

Related: Here’s what CNN does before it projects races. It’s not magic, it’s math.

CNN’s Chris Cuomo and Phil Mattingly address President Trump’s claims:

Video Ad Feedback

59f45ff1-9d64-4445-bb3b-16dc65ae9000.mp4

00:56 - Source: cnn

Votes are still being counted in Michigan’s Wayne County, which is also home to the city of Detroit.

County clerk Cathy M. Garrett declined to give a specific time frame on when we can expect it to be completed.

The county has 43 municipalities, she added.

Wayne County clerk gives update on counting process:

Video Ad Feedback

e4bc02e7-e493-4a6a-af3d-96b86e65b192.mp4

02:27 - Source: cnn

Philadelphia election workers process ballots at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, on Tuesday, November 3.

Philadelphia started with 350,000 mail-in votes on the morning of Election Day and the final count is expected to be up to 400,000, Philadelphia City commissioner Al Schmidt told CNN.

“At 8 p.m. last night, when the polls closed, we reportedour first 75,000 [votes.]And about an hour ago, wereported another 65,000 ofthose,” he said Wednesday, adding that there are “hundreds of thousandsof mail-in ballots yet to count.”

He explained how the counting process works in Philadelphia:

“There was never a break inthis process,” he added, saying the workers are going to “continue day andnight until we get every one ofthose votes counted.”

He also noted that Pennsylvania allows votes to be received and counted up until Friday, if the ballot was mailed before or on Election Day.

“If everything keeps up, we’llhave the total results in thenext couple of days,” he said.

But with the number of votes yet to be counted, he urged viewers to have patience saying it will take some time.

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie listens as President Trump speaks during a news conference at the White House on September 27.

Former New Jersey governor and top Trump ally Chris Christie voiced disagreement overnight with President Trump’s election night remarks prematurely declaring victory and attacking legitimate vote counting efforts. Christie said Trump “undercut his own credibility.”

He continued, “I disagree with what he did tonight. And I think Sarah is right that, you know, there comes a point where you have to let the process play itself out before you judge it to have been flawed. And I think by prematurely doing this, if there is a flaw in it later, he has undercut his own credibility in calling attention to that flaw.”

Christie, who said he was speaking from his experience as a former US attorney, argued that Trump had made a “bad strategic decision” and a “bad political decision.”

“And it’s not the kind of decision you would expect someone to make tonight who holds the position he holds,” he added.

Watch President Trump’s election night statement:

Video Ad Feedback

dab60932-c92c-47e0-a7d7-8eb979b04823.mp4

03:38 - Source: cnn

The tightening of the vote between President Trump and Joe Biden in Michigan comes down to Wayne County, where Detroit and the surrounding suburbs are located, CNN’s Phil Mattingly explained.

“It showsthe effect of major urbancenters that are Democraticstrongholds where there’s majorvote outstanding,” Mattingly said.

Wayne County — the largest county in the state — is about 18% of the voting population.

CNN’s Phil Mattingly walks through latest numbers out of Michigan:

Video Ad Feedback

43685025-95e0-4ecc-8120-1935d909904b.mp4

02:38 - Source: cnn

It’s the morning after Election Day, and Pennsylvania is one of nine states across the country where CNN has not projected a winner.

Pennsylvania’s counties have starkly different plans for when they will begin processing their mail-inballots, with Democratic strongholds moving to get them counted as quickly as possible while other areas plan to tally in-person Election Day votes first.

Unlike most states, Pennsylvania law does not allow officials to start processing early ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day.

While Philadelphia and other areas started work on their mail-in votes at 7 a.m. sharp yesterday, swing counties like Erie and red ones like Cumberland were waiting until after the polls close or even until this morning to begin.

The election is far from over withmillions of votes outstanding in key stateslike Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan — ballots that were cast before Election Day that have yet to be counted.

Based on CNN’s current projections, Joe Biden has 224 electoral votes while President Trump has 213 electoral votes.

Reminder:Each candidate needs270 electoral votesto win the presidency.

CNN’s Chris Cuomo breaks down key races to watch:

Video Ad Feedback

af949c74-324d-48d9-880d-f6bd4230e22a.mp4

03:10 - Source: cnn

Voters have been deciding more than just who will sit in the White House. States have weighed several different issues this election, such as whether to legalize marijuana, limit access to abortion, reform voting and more.

Here are some of the top ballot measures states voted on:

Arizona, New Jersey, South Dakota vote to legalize recreational marijuana

Voters have approved ballot measures to legalize recreational marijuana in Arizona and New Jersey, and both recreational and medical use in in South Dakota, CNN projects.

South Dakota will be the first state ever to approve medical and recreational marijuana measures at the same time.

Results have not yet been determined for Montana’s ballot questions on recreational marijuana and Mississippi’s medical marijuana measure.

The initiatives would only be the first step in the process, said John Hudak, deputy director at the Brookings Institution, where he specializes in state and federal marijuana policy.

After voters approve the measures, he said, the state legislatures normally would need to set up regulatory structures within each state. Currently,11 states have legalized full, adult marijuana use.

You can read more detail on each state’s marijuana ballot here.

Voters line-up to cast their ballots in Billings, Montana, on Tuesday, November 3.

Louisiana voters approve amendment limiting abortion protections

Louisiana voters approvedProposed Amendment No. 1by 62% to 38%, according to CNN projections.Should Roe be overturned, the amendment would preventthe state courts from declaring abortion restrictions unconstitutional at the state level.

The stateisn’t the first to amend its constitution this way —AlabamaandWest Virginiadid so in 2018, as didTennesseein 2014.

The Louisiana ballot measure marked another attempt by the state to restrict abortion. TheUS Supreme Court struck down in Junea Louisiana restriction barring doctors from performing the procedure unless they had admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, and a decision from a federal appellate court prevented the state’s“heartbeat” abortion ban, passed last year, from going into effect.

Colorado voters reject a ban on abortion beginning at 22 weeks of pregnancy

In Colorado, voters rejectedProposition 115by a 59% to 41% vote, according to CNN projections. It would have banned abortion beginning at 22 weeks of pregnancy. The measure included exceptions to save the life of the pregnant woman but not for instances of rape or incest. Doctors who continue to perform abortions at 22 weeks wouldhave faceda fine up to $5,000.

The results maintain Colorado as one of seven states that do not bar some abortions past a specific point in pregnancy, according todatafrom the abortion-rights research group the Guttmacher Institute.Datafrom the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s office shows that women from more than 30 states havetraveled to Colorado to access abortions.

Follow live updates on the congressional race here.

Workers with the Detroit Department of Elections process ballots at the Central Counting Board in Detroit, Michigan on November 4.

It’s the morning after Election Day, and CNN has not projected a winner in nine states across the country.

Right now, Joe Biden has 224 electoral votes, and President Trump has 213. Remember: It takes 270 votes to win the presidential election.

These are the nine states that have not yet been called, whose electoral votes are still up for grabs:

Workers process polling materials at the Clark County Election Department after polls closed in North Las Vegas, Nevada, on November 3.

With Joe Biden and President Trump in a tight race in Nevada, “the big question right now iscomposition,” according to CNN’s Phil Mattingly.

While populous Clark County — where Las Vegas is located — is currently reporting more than three-quarters of the vote, it’s unknown right now if the remaining vote to be counted is via mail-in ballots or in-person voting.

Joe Biden has an edge in Washoe County, where Reno is located, which is traditionally a tossup county, Mattingly explained. Hillary Clinton won the county, but narrowly, back in 2016.

Meanwhile, Trump takes a big lead in the rural counties of the state. “Donald Trump wins the rurals, and he blows them out of the water,” Mattingly said.

A statue of former U.S. President George Washington is seen outside the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on November 3, in New York.

US stock futures swung wildly early Wednesday as the prospects of a quick, decisive result to the election fadedand President Trump made baseless claims about the vote, leaving investors on edge.

Dow(INDU)futures plunged more than 400 points, or 1.5%, after Trump prematurely claimed victory and said he would go to court to prevent legitimate votes from being counted.

Stocks later pared back losses but remain jumpy in premarket trading. Dow futures were down just 0.1% at 3:30 a.m. ET, while S&P 500 futures rose 0.6%. The Nasdaq Composite, an outlier throughout the night, surged 2.5%.

Uncertainty is the enemy of markets. Investors had hoped that early results would point to a clear winner sooner rather than later, avoiding the nightmare scenario of a contested election.

All of the ballots from Milwaukee County have now been counted, Milwaukee County elections director Julietta Henry reported early this morning, just minutes after the lead in the state had flipped from President Trump to Joe Biden.

The only exception are provisional ballots, which are due on Friday.

She said there have been no reports of irregularities in the county.

“There weren’t any irregularities in Milwaukee County,” she said. “We were anticipating finishing up tonight between 3:00 A.M. and 6:00 A.M. And I think we’re right on target, with the 4:00 completion time.”

See Milwaukee County elections director share numbers live on air:

Video Ad Feedback

f0396c60-3f4d-4da4-8675-cd3bb15506e5.mp4

02:54 - Source: cnn

Election officials count absentee ballots in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, early on November 4.

Joe Biden hastaken a lead in Wisconsin right now, CNN’s Phil Mattingly says.

“Joe Biden has started to turn Wisconsin blue — for the moment,” Mattingly said.

He emphasized that the situation was fluid and subject to change. Before new information came in, “Trump was up by 109,000 votes,” Mattingly reported.

In 2016, President Trump won Wisconsin by 22,000 votes, CNN’s Chris Cuomo said.

Longtime GOP Sens. Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham kept their seats and members of “The Squad” won reelection on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Alabama Sen. Doug Jones lost his reelection bid, allowing Republicans to pick up a seat.

Based on CNN’s current projections, this is how the balance of power in Congress is shaping up:

Votes are still being counted in several key states across the US, and no winner has been determined in the presidential election.

If you’re just reading in, here’s what you need to know about the race: