US Elections: Trump and Biden focused on three states that could determine White House battle
A Republican election challenger at right watches over election inspectors as they examine a ballot as votes are counted into the early morning hours Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020, at the central counting board in Detroit. Picture: AP Photo/David Goldman
- The three northern industrial states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania could determine who wins the White House.
- President Donald Trump has won in the battleground state of Florida as well as Iowa and Texas.
- Joe Biden has won in Arizona, California, Minnesota and Idaho.
- Joe Biden is leading in the electoral college map - a candidate needs 270 electoral college votes to win.
- Trump has claimed there has been massive fraud in the electionÂ
Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be closely watching three key states in the divisive presidential election that has been overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Neither candidate has the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the presidency during an epic campaign that will shape Americaâs response to the pandemic and foundational questions of economic fairness and racial justice.
The three Northern industrial states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania could now prove crucial in determining who wins the White House.
Earlier, Mr Trump won Florida, a must-win for the President to reach the 270 required for victory, with no Republican having won the White House without the Sunshine Stateâs support since 1924.
It has backed the winner in every election since 1996 and has only gone with the losing candidate twice since 1928.
Mr Biden picked up the first battleground state of the night, New Hampshire, a small prize that Mr Trump tried to steal from Democrats.
Mr Biden won California, the nationâs biggest electoral haul, and other predictable victories including Colorado and Virginia, two former battlegrounds that have become Democratic strongholds. Mr Trumpâs wins included Kansas, North Dakota and other conservative bastions.
Joe Biden has won Arizona and Maine.
Donald Trump said he would go to the US Supreme Court, claiming that there was a âmassive fraudâ in the election.
The president said: âThis is a fraud on the American public, this is an embarrassment to our country.
âWe were getting ready to win this election â frankly we did win this election.
âSo our goal now is to ensure the integrity for the good of this nation. This is a very big moment.
âThis is a major fraud on our nation.
âWe want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we will be going to the US Supreme Court, we want all voting to stop.
âWe donât want them to find any ballots at 4am and add them to the list.â
Donald Trump has claimed that his voters are being âdisenfranchisedâ.
Speaking at the White House he said: âMillions and millions of people voted for us tonight.
âA very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we wonât stand for it. We will not stand for it.â
Joe Biden won one electoral vote from Nebraska, with Donald Trump taking the other four.
Nebraska awards two electoral votes for winning the statewide vote, and one for each of the three Congressional Districts.
Mr Bidenâs victory in the 2nd Congressional District, which includes Omaha â won by Mr Trump in 2016 â takes the Democrat to 224 votes, with his rival on 212 in the race to get to 270, with nine states still to be declared.
Donald Trump has won the state of Texas.
There were no upsets in safe states with both men winning predictable victories early in the night.
In the biggest coup yet for Donald Trump, he was declared the victor in Florida, seen as one of the crucial states with its 29 electoral votes.
The President also won Ohio, Montana and Iowa, another of the swing states he claimed in 2016.
Joe Biden has won the state of Hawaii and in Minnesota where Donald Trump campaigned hard in a state he narrowly lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Mr Biden said he was âon trackâ to win the race for the White House as he addressed supporters in Delaware.
He told supporters âwe are going to win thisâ but warned patience would be needed, and the election would not be over until every vote was counted.
 Joe Biden claimed expected victories in the west coast states of Washington, Oregon and California, the state with the largest number of electoral votes.
Donald Trump has won the state of Idaho.
President Donald Trump has won the states of Kansas and Missouri.
Joe Biden has won the state of New Hampshire.
Polls have closed across the United Statesâ east coast after an epic election campaign fought between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
The night opened with predictable victories for each candidate, with Mr Trump taking Alabama and Oklahoma and Mr Biden winning his home state of Delaware and Virginia, a former battleground that has become a Democratic stronghold.
It is too early to call the results in the 2020 battleground states of Florida, Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Joe Biden claimed the electoral votes for by winning the state and also in the state of , the birthplace of President Donald Trump.
Mr Biden has also won 's three electoral votes and 's nine votes.
Mr Trump, as expected, was declared the winner in and .
He also picked up more electoral votes with expected triumphs in .
The first set of polls have closed as voters in the US election decide between President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden.
Mr Trump has won the state of , taking six electoral votes. He is also expected to take 's 11 votes.
There were no surprises early in the night as media reported Joe Biden as the winner in while Donald Trump was declared the victor in .
Kentucky is reliably conservative, while Vermont is considered one of the most liberal states.
Mr Trump has won and , while Democrat Biden has won and .
It is too early to call in the battleground states of Florida and Georgia.
Mr Trump took 33 electoral votes for winning those four states, while Mr Biden adds 69 electoral votes to his total for winning seven states.
The victor nationwide will be the candidate who claims 270 or more electoral votes.
Polls have closed in Georgia, Kentucky, Indiana, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia.Â
A number of polling stations have closed in Florida, but others will remain open for another hour.
Americans are anxiously awaiting the result of a presidential election overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic after a divisive campaign between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
The first polls closed in parts of Indiana and Kentucky at 11pm Irish time on Tuesday but voting will continue for several hours more as results in key battleground states decide who will take the White House.
The Republican incumbent, Mr Trump said he believes he has a âvery solid chance at winningâ, while his Democratic challenger cautiously said he remains âhopefulâ.
WE ARE LOOKING REALLY GOOD ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. THANK YOU!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2020
Mr Biden, a former vice-president, has painted the election as the âbattle for the soulâ of the nation, saying democracy itself is at stake, while Mr Trump has reprised his âmake America great againâ mantra.
Both men have clashed over the Covid-19 response, as the nation reels from more than 230,000 coronavirus deaths in the US and millions more having lost their jobs.
Mr Trump has sought to downplay the pandemicâs effect, saying the nation is ârounding the cornerâ, while his opponent has accused the president of having surrendered to the disease.
Steady lines of voters flocked to the polls on Tuesday after around 100 million Americans voted early, setting the nation on course for a record turnout figure.
National polls have consistently put Mr Biden ahead, but the race has been close in the battleground states, including Florida, Georgia and Arizona, which hold the keys to the White House.
US President Donald Trump and Joe Biden handed their fate on Tuesday to voters, who will decide which man will steer the country through the surging pandemic that has killed more than 231,000 people, destroyed jobs and reshaped nearly every aspect of American life.
With almost 102 million Americans voting early and millions more waiting in lines on election day, the rancorous campaign across a polarised nation clearly stuck a nerve with the electorate.
âThe most important issue is for us to set aside our personal differences that we have with each other,â said Eboni Price, 29, who rode her horse Moon to her polling station in Houston.
With the worst public health crisis in a century bearing down, the pandemic, and Mr Trumpâs handling of it, became the inescapable focus for 2020.
Mr Trump began the day on an upbeat note, predicting that he would do even better than in 2016, but during a midday visit to his campaign headquarters, spoke in a gravelly, subdued tone.
âWinning is easy,â Mr Trump told reporters. âLosing is never easy, not for me itâs not.â
Democratic nominee Joe Biden kept his eyes on the critical state of Pennsylvania, taking his final pitch to voters in his hometown of Scranton and the Democratic stronghold of Philadelphia.
In battlegrounds, including Florida, Iowa, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, some voters showed up to their polling station before dawn to beat the crowds, but still found themselves having to wait in long lines to cast their ballots.
The election day surge to the polls came even after 102 million Americans voted early, an eye-popping total that that represents 73% of the total turnout of the 2016 presidential election.
Mr Biden entered election day with multiple paths to victory while Mr Trump, playing catch-up in a number of battleground states, had a narrower but still feasible road to clinch 270 electoral college votes.
Control of the Senate was at stake, too: Democrats needed to net three seats if Mr Biden captured the White House to gain control of all of Washington for the first time in a decade. The House was expected to remain under Democratic control.
The record-setting early vote â and legal skirmishing over how it will be counted â drew unsupported allegations of fraud from Mr Trump, who had refused to guarantee he would honour the electionâs result.
Mr Biden visited his childhood home and church in his native Scranton on Tuesday as part of a get-out-the-vote effort before awaiting election results in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.
His running mate, Kamala Harris, was visiting Detroit, a heavily black city in battleground Michigan. Both of their spouses were headed out, too, as the Democrats reached for a clear victory.
Mr Biden and his wife, Jill, started the day with a stop at St Josephâs in Wilmington, Delaware, with two of his grandchildren in tow.
The four then walked to his late son Beau Bidenâs grave, in the church cemetery. Beau, a former Delaware attorney general, died of brain cancer in 2015 and had encouraged the former vice president to make another White House run.
Mr Trump called into Fox & Friends, where he predicted he will win by a larger electoral margin than he did in 2016, when he tallied 306 electoral college votes compared with Democrat Hillary Clintonâs 232.
Mr Trump invited hundreds of supporters to an election night party in the East Room of the White House.
The first polls close at 6pm eastern time in swathes of Indiana and Kentucky, followed by a steady stream of poll closings every 30 minutes to an hour throughout the evening. The last polls in Alaska shut down at 1am eastern time on Wednesday.
The hard-fought campaign left voters on both sides eager to move on, although the result might not be known for days.
A new anti-scale fence was erected around the White House and in city centres from New York to Denver to Minneapolis, workers boarded up businesses lest the vote lead to unrest of the sort that broke out earlier this year amid protests over racial inequality.
Just a short walk from the White House, for street after street, stores had their windows and doors covered. Some kept just a front door open, hoping to attract a little business.
Both candidates voted early and first lady Melania Trump cast her ballot Tuesday near Mar-a-Lago, the coupleâs estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Mrs Trump, who recently recovered from Covid-19, was the only one not wearing a mask as she entered the polling station.
Her spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said the first lady was the only person at the polling station besides poll workers and her staff â all of whom were tested.
Whoever wins will have to deal with an anxious nation, reeling from a once-in-a-century heath crisis that has closed schools and businesses and that is worsening as the weather turns cold.
The campaign has largely been a referendum on Mr Trumpâs handling of the virus.
Mr Trump insists the nation was ârounding the turnâ on the virus. But Dr Deborah Birx, the co-ordinator of the White House coronavirus taskforce, broke with the president and joined a chorus of Trump administration scientists sounding the alarm about the current spike in infections.
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