Hold on tight, folks, and stay strong.
With Joe Biden holding an edge in electoral votes, and millions of likely-Democratic votes still to be counted in the 2020 election, Donald Trump falsely claimed victory in a resentful 2 a.m. speech to his supporters.
Votes, mostly mail-in and absentee ballots in districts expected to be heavily Democratic, remained to be counted in the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, as well as Nevada. Trump’s beloved FOX News has called Arizona for Biden.
Biden’s campaign manager released a statement following Trump’s false declaration: “The president’s statement tonight about trying to shut down the counting of duly cast ballots was outrageous, unprecedented and incorrect. It will not happen. If the president makes good on his threat to go to court to try to prevent the proper tabulation of votes, we have legal teams standing by ready to deploy to resist that effort. And they will prevail.”
The NYT reports: “No news organizations declared a winner between Mr. Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr., and a number of closely contested states still had millions of mail-in ballots to count, in part because state and local Republican officials had insisted that they not be counted until Election Day. Mr. Trump said, without offering any explanation, that ‘we’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court,’ and added: ‘We want all voting to stop.’ No elected leader has the right to unilaterally order votes to stop being counted, and Mr. Trump’s middle-of-the-night proclamation amounted to a reckless attempt to hijack the electoral process as results in key battleground states were still not final, something without precedent in American politics.”
Biden spoke to his supporters earlier, from Wilmington, Delaware, saying “your patience is commendable. We knew that this was going to be long. We believe we’re on track to win this election.”
