Shortly before 1 a.m., Trump took to Twitter to accuse Democrats of trying to steal the election, without offering any proof at all. Then, just after 2:20 a.m., Trump addressed the nation.
President Donald Trump: “This is a major fraud on our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4:00 in the morning and add them to the list, OK? It’s a very sad — it’s a very sad moment. To me, this is a very sad moment. And we will win this. And as far as I’m concerned, we already have won it.”
Despite the president’s charge, no evidence of fraud has emerged in any state. Historically, no state reports final elections results on election night. Election authorities in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan had repeatedly warned prior to Election Day that it could take days to count the record number of early votes. Across the country, over 101 million people cast early votes — either in person or by mail — shattering previous records.
At the time of this broadcast, Biden is leading in Wisconsin by just over 20,000 votes, with an estimated 97% of votes reported. Biden also maintains a slim lead of about 8,000 votes in Nevada. Nevada’s election division announced that no more results will be given until 11 a.m. Eastern on Thursday.
Trump is leading in Pennsylvania by more than 600,000 votes, but the race remains too close to call. Election officials in Philadelphia are expected to report results from early voting at 9 a.m. In Michigan, Trump is leading narrowly by about 26,000 votes, but the heavily Democratic city of Detroit is expected to take until Wednesday night to complete its count of absentee ballots. Trump is also leading in Georgia and North Carolina.
The Associated Press and Fox have projected Biden to be the winner in Arizona, but other networks say the race is still too close to call.
In the popular vote, Biden has a commanding lead of over 2.2 million votes, and the figure is expected to keep growing as more ballots are counted. It is possible Biden could become the third Democrat in the past 20 years to win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College.
