Trump continues to claim he is being cheated in extraordinary press conference

In an extraordinary White House press conference late on Thursday, the president said: 

“If you count the legal votes I easily won. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.” 

Vice President Mike Pence showed his support for Mr Trump’s statement on Twitter.

He said: “I Stand With President Donald Trump. We must count every LEGAL vote.”

I Stand With President @realDonaldTrump. We must count every LEGAL vote.

— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) November 6, 2020

The presidential election remains too close to call after polls closed on Tuesday, but former vice-president Mr Biden remains the favourite after winning three key battleground states.

Pennsylvania was expecting to announce its result by the end of the day. If it goes to Mr Biden, so would the White House.

Top Republicans call for patience on vote counting in split with Trump

11pm: Some high-profile Republicans have distanced themselves from Donald Trump’s attempts to falsely declare victory in the election and halt vote counting in Pennsylvania and other states.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Trump ally who won re-election on Tuesday in Kentucky, told reporters that “claiming you’ve won the election is different from finishing the counting”.

The comments by the Republican lawmakers were rare, public rebukes of Mr Trump, who has demanded — and generally received — loyalty from fellow Republicans throughout his four-year term.

Most take pains to avoid directly criticising Mr Trump, even when they find his conduct unhelpful or offensive to their values and goals.

Mr Trump’s tweets declaring victory and calling for officials to “STOP THE COUNT” were an early test of how strongly he can keep Republicans in line as he tries to challenge the voting process in court.

'Democracy is sometimes messy': Biden urges 'calm' as vote counting continues

9.30pm: Democrat Joe Biden said he has “no doubt” that he will win the presidency and urged the public to “stay calm” as the votes are counted.

Speaking in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, Mr Biden said: “Each ballot must be counted and that’s what we’re going to see going through now, and that’s how it should be.

“Democracy is sometimes messy, it sometimes requires a little patience as well but that patience has been rewarded now for more than 240 years with a system of governance that’s been the envy of the world.

“We continue to feel very good about where things stand, we have no doubt that when the count is finished senator Harris and I will be declared the winners.

“So, I ask everyone to stay calm, all the people to stay calm, the process is working, the count is being completed and we’ll know very soon.”

I spent the afternoon attending briefings on the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and the state of the economy. Tune in as I provide an update on these briefings and efforts to count every vote. pic.twitter.com/duoDWfzf5C

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 5, 2020

Optimistic Biden urges supporters to 'stay patient and stay calm'

8pm: Joe Biden’s campaign is expressing optimism at the ultimate result of the election but warning supporters to “stay patient and stay calm” as vote counting continues.

Mr Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said, on a briefing call with reporters that “the story of today is going to be a very positive story” for their campaign, but cautioned that as the counting continues, “we need to allow it to get done and get done well”.

She says the campaign expects their lead to fluctuate in some states as more votes come in.

Ms O’Malley Dillon also charged that legal challenges by President Donald Trump’s campaign to halt vote counting in some states and seek a recount in Wisconsin are a “flailing strategy” that are an “attempt to distract and delay” from the results of the election.

Neither Mr Biden nor Mr Trump has yet passed the threshold of 270 in the Electoral College that determines the victor.

Several key states were too early to call — Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada.

Donald Trump continued his Twitter protest at the election process.

The US President said: “All of the recent Biden claimed States will be legally challenged by us for Voter Fraud and State Election Fraud.

“Plenty of proof – just check out the Media. WE WILL WIN! America First!”

All of the recent Biden claimed States will be legally challenged by us for Voter Fraud and State Election Fraud. Plenty of proof - just check out the Media. WE WILL WIN! America First!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2020

Trump continues vote counting protest as Biden closes in on victory

4pm: Donald Trump continued to protest at votes being counted in the US presidential election with Joe Biden just one battleground state away from being able to claim victory.

President Trump has already filed legal action in several states to try to stop vote counting and repeatedly attempted to question the legitimacy of the process.

Democrat challenger Mr Biden again stressed that “every vote must be counted” as the process of tallying results following Tuesday’s election continued.

After securing victories in Wisconsin and Michigan, the Democrat had 264 electoral college votes and needed to secure one of Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina or his home state Pennsylvania to reach the necessary 270 to win the White House race.

Mr Trump, however, must win all four states, and has begun legal action in three of them to either stop the counting of votes or insist his team be provided greater access to scrutinise the process.

In characteristic Twitter messages he said “STOP THE COUNT” adding “ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED” – a message which carried a warning from the social media firm about content which is “disputed and might be misleading”.

STOP THE COUNT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2020

ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2020

Elections are run by individual state, county and local governments and Mr Trump’s public comments have no impact on the tallying of votes across the country.

The Trump campaign requested a recount in Wisconsin and filed lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia.

On Wednesday, former vice president Mr Biden said he expected to win the presidency but stopped short of outright declaring victory.

“I will govern as an American president,” Biden said. “There will be no red states and blue states when we win. Just the United States of America.”

The bitterly fought election and the protracted results process have added to tensions on the streets in some American cities.

Police in Seattle and Portland arrested more than a dozen people as hundreds took to the streets to demand a full count of all presidential election votes and a halt to President Trump’s court challenges.

Pro-Trump supporters have also converged on vote-counting centres in cities such as  Detroit and Phoenix.

Biden needs one more battleground state to claim presidency

Joe Biden stands on the brink of winning the presidency, needing to clinch just one more battleground state to defeat President Donald Trump.

Mr Biden already has won the fiercely contested prizes of Michigan and Wisconsin, part of the “blue wall” that slipped away from Democrats four years ago.

Two days after election day, neither candidate has amassed the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.

But Mr Biden’s victories in the Great Lakes states have him at 264, meaning he is one battleground state away from becoming president-elect.

Mr Trump, with 214 electoral votes, faced a much higher hurdle.

To reach 270, he needed to claim all four remaining battlegrounds: Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Nevada.

With millions of votes yet to be tabulated, Mr Biden already had received more than 71 million votes, the most in history.

At an afternoon news conference on Wednesday, the former vice president said he expected to win the presidency but stopped short of outright declaring victory.

“I will govern as an American president,” Mr Biden said.

“There will be no red states and blue states when we win. Just the United States of America.”

It was a stark contrast to the approach of Mr Trump, who early on Wednesday morning falsely claimed that he had won the election.

Mr Trump’s campaign engaged in a flurry of legal activity to try to improve the Republican president’s chances and cast doubt on the election results, requesting a recount in Wisconsin and filing lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia.

Statewide recounts in Wisconsin have historically changed the vote tally by only a few hundred votes; Mr Biden led by more than 20,000 ballots out of nearly 3.3 million counted.

For four years, Democrats have been haunted by the crumbling of the blue wall, the trio of Great Lakes states — Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — that their candidates had been able to count on every four years.

But Mr Trump’s populist appeal struck a chord with white working-class voters and he captured all three in 2016 by a combined total of just 77,000 votes.

The candidates waged a fierce fight for the states this year, with Mr Biden’s political persona resonating in working class towns while his campaign also pushed to increase turnout among black voters in cities like Detroit and Milwaukee.

It was unclear when a national winner would be determined after a long, bitter campaign dominated by the coronavirus and its effects on Americans and the national economy.

But even as Mr Biden’s prospects improved, the US on Wednesday set another record for daily confirmed coronavirus cases as several states posted all-time highs.

The pandemic has killed more than 233,000 people in the United States.

Mr Trump spent much of Wednesday in the White House residence, huddling with advisers and fuming at media coverage showing his Democratic rival picking up battlegrounds.

Mr Trump used his Twitter feed to falsely claim victory in several key states and amplify unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about Democratic gains as absentee and early votes were tabulated.

Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said the president would formally request a Wisconsin recount, citing “irregularities” in several counties.

And the campaign said it was filing suits in Michigan and Pennsylvania to halt ballot counting on grounds that it was not given proper access to observe.

Still more legal action was launched in Georgia.

At the same time, hundreds of thousands of votes were still to be counted in Pennsylvania, and Mr Trump’s campaign said it was moving to intervene in existing Supreme Court litigation over counting mail-in ballots there.

The campaign also argued that outstanding votes still could flip the outcome in Arizona, which went for Mr Biden, showcasing an inconsistency in its arguments over prolonged tabulation.

In other closely watched races, Mr Trump picked up Florida, the largest of the swing states, and held onto Texas and Ohio while Mr Biden kept New Hampshire and Minnesota.

Beyond the presidency, Democrats had hoped the election would allow the party to reclaim the Senate and boost its majority in the House.

But while the voting scrambled seats in the House and Senate, it ultimately left Congress much like it began — deeply divided.