With the U.S. 2020 presidential election in a dead heat, incumbent President Donald Trump said early Wednesday morning (Nov. 4) that he has won the election and said he will take counting practices in some states to the Supreme Court. Trump’s Democratic rival, Joe Biden, earlier Wednesday expressed confidence in his victory and insisted that the election would not be over until all the counting was done.
Trump held a press conference at the White House around 2:20 a.m. Wednesday. He said he had already won Georgia and North Carolina, and predicted he would also win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, the key “battleground states.
At the time of Trump’s speech, none of the major U.S. media had drawn any conclusions about the outcome of the presidential election in these five states. At press time, North Carolina and Georgia had crossed 90 percent of the vote total, with Trump slightly ahead, but still close to Biden.
“Suddenly everything stopped. It’s a scam on the American public, and it’s an embarrassment to our country,” Trump said, “We were on track to win this election; frankly, we’ve won this election.”
Trump said, “Our goal now is to ensure the integrity of the election for the good of the country… We want the law to be applied in the proper way. So we’re going to go to the U.S. Supreme Court and we want all the voting to stop, and we don’t want them to suddenly find ballots at 4:00 in the morning and add them to the rolls.”
Before Trump’s speech, Biden was the first to address supporters in Wilmington, Delaware, early Wednesday morning. He said, “We know this (ballot opening) is going to go on for a long time, but who knows we could go on into tomorrow morning and possibly longer.”
“I feel good about where we are,” Biden said, “and I’m here tonight to tell you that we think we’re on the road to victory.”
As of Wednesday morning’s press time, the presidential race was tight. The Associated Press says Trump took the closely watched “battleground state” of Florida, which has the most electoral votes of any of the swing states at 29. Both Trump and Biden made several campaign trips to Florida during the campaign period.
Trump said of the Florida race, “We not only won, we won big!
Due to the neo-crowning epidemic, early voting is being held across the United States, lowering the threshold for voting by mail. According to the Associated Press, 103 million ballots have been cast around the country before Election Day on November 3. Voter turnout in this year’s election is expected to be much higher than in previous years.
Voting and counting in U.S. elections is largely organized by the states. This year’s surge in mail-in ballots, coupled with the fact that some key battleground states (such as Pennsylvania) have allowed some ballots received after Election Day to be listed as valid, adds many variables to the tally, and it is unclear when the final outcome of the presidential election will be known.
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