Biden on brink of victory in cliffhanger White House race, to address nation
People celebrate Joe Biden's lead outside of the Philadelphia Convention Centre in Pennsylvania on Friday. AFP
Gulf Today Report
Democrat Joe Biden was on the brink of winning the White House on Friday after taking the lead in the potentially decisive state of Pennsylvania but President Donald Trump showed no signs of being ready to concede defeat and his campaign insisted the bitterly contested race is "not over."
Pennsylvania, and its 20 electoral votes, would be enough to vault the 77-year-old Biden past the magic number of 270 votes in the Electoral College, which determines the presidency.
With some 40,000 votes remaining to be counted in Pennsylvania, many from heavily Democratic areas, Biden opened up a 12,400-vote lead over the Republican incumbent, according to real-time state election results.
Biden currently has at least 253 electoral votes and is leading in three other states — Arizona, Georgia and Nevada — where ballots from Tuesday's election continue to be counted.
The Biden campaign said the former vice president would deliver an address to the nation on Friday evening, from his home city of Wilmington, Delaware.
"It is clear that the Biden-Harris ticket will win the White House," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a reference to the Democratic nominee and his running mate Senator Kamala Harris, the first Black woman on a major party ticket.
Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, welcomed what she called the "strong mandate" given to "President-elect Biden" and called him a unifier who will "bring people together."
While his reelection hopes may be fading, Trump, 74, was making it clear that he is not ready to accept defeat, launching unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud during an extraordinary White House appearance on Thursday and claiming that he had actually won.
Trump, 74, has sought to portray as fraudulent the slow counting of mail-in ballots, which surged in popularity due to fears of exposure to the coronavirus through in-person voting. As counts from those ballots have been tallied, they have eroded the initial strong leads the president had in states like Georgia and Pennsylvania.
States have historically taken time after Election Day to tally all votes.
Trump fired off several tweets in the early morning hours on Friday, reiterating the complaints he aired earlier at the White House. "I easily WIN the Presidency of the United States with LEGAL VOTES CAST," he said on Twitter, without offering any evidence that any illegal votes have been cast.
Twitter flagged the post as possibly misleading, something it has done to numerous posts by Trump since Election Day.
Offering no evidence, Trump lambasted election workers and sharply criticised polling before the election that he said was designed to suppress the vote because it favored Biden.
Several major US television networks cut away from live coverage of Trump's event over concerns of disinformation and there were signs of cracks in support within his Republican Party.
Representative Will Hurd called Trump's call to stop vote-counting "dangerous and wrong," while Rupert Murdoch's long supportive New York Post called Trump's allegations "baseless."
Biden also maintained slim advantages in Arizona and Nevada. In Arizona, his lead narrowed to about 47,000 early on Friday and in Nevada he was ahead by about 11,500 votes.
As the country held its breath for a result in the White House race, Georgia and Pennsylvania officials expressed optimism they would finish counting on Friday, while Arizona and Nevada were still expected to take days to complete their vote totals.
Supporters of President Trump ramped up demonstrations against an election they believe was rigged or being stolen on Thursday night.
While Biden, a Democrat, called for calm and patience, Republican Trump, without offering evidence, said his opponents were engaging in fraud and election theft, accusations he has been making long before Election Day.
“I can tell you that my wife and my mother are very concerned for me,” said Joe Gloria, the registrar in Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas. He said his staff was bolstering security and tracking vehicles coming and going from the election offices.
Trump supporters gathered in front of a city building in Milwaukee, where votes were being counted, blasting country music, waving flags and carrying signs reading "Recount" and "Rigged".
In one of the five US battleground states Arizona, where votes were still being counted in the too-close-to-call race between Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden, Trump supporters massed outside the Maricopa County Elections Department in Phoenix.
In Phoenix, Detroit and Philadelphia, groups of Republican supporters have gathered at vote tabulation sites, decrying counts that showed Democrat Joe Biden leading or gaining ground.
While the protests have not been violent or very large, local officials were distressed and concerned by the relentless accusations.
On Thursday, about 100 Trump supporters gathered again in front of the Maricopa County election center in Phoenix. Authorities used fences to create a “freedom of speech zone” and keep the entrance to the building open. The crowd took turns chanting - “Count the votes!” and “Four more years!” - and complaining through a megaphone about the voting process.
They paused to listen as Trump spoke from the White House on Thursday night, repeating many of his groundless assertions of a rigged vote.
They whooped and clapped when the president said, “We’re on track to win Arizona.” The Associated Press has called Arizona for Biden.
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In Atlanta, roughly 100 chanting Trump supporters gathered outside State Farm Arena as votes were being counted. Several Atlanta police officers monitored the scene.
Tom Haas, 50, who said he was visiting Atlanta from Chicago on business, said he was convinced Trump had won the election. “There’s obvious voter fraud, and it’s coming out of the larger Democratic-run cities,” he said. “Atlanta is one of them.”
“Our democracy is under attack,” he said, echoing Trump's language. We’re losing America because we’re losing a fair election for the nation.”
In Detroit, a few dozen Trump supporters gathered outside the city’s convention centre on Thursday morning as election workers counted absentee ballots inside. The protesters held signs that read, “Stop the steal” and “Stop the cheat.”
Meanwhile, Facebook banned a large group called “Stop the Steal” that Trump supporters were using to organize protests against the vote count. Some members had called for violence, while many falsely claimed Democrats are stealing the election. The group had amassed more than 350,000 members before Facebook took it down.
