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WASHINGTON. — The US presidential election hung in the balance yesterday, with a handful of close-fought states set to decide the outcome in the coming hours or days, even as Donald Trump falsely claimed victory and made unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud.
President Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden both still have possible paths to reach the needed 270 Electoral College votes to win the White House, as states keep counting mail-in ballots that surged amid the coronavirus pandemic. Last night, Biden had 238 electoral votes and Trump 213.
Opinion polls had given Biden a strong lead nationwide for months, but they had shown closer races in battleground states, and the vote did not produce the stinging verdict against the Republican president that the Biden camp had hoped for.
Biden (77) said in the early hours he was confident of winning once the votes are counted, and urged patience.
Trump (74) appeared at the White House soon after to declare victory.
“We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election,” he said, before launching an extraordinary attack on the electoral process by a sitting president. “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 US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop.”
Trump alleged yesterday that there had been “surprise ballot dumps” in states where he had been leading Biden in the race for the White House.
“Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key states, in almost all instances Democrat-run & controlled,” Trump tweeted.
“Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted.”
Trump did not offer any evidence for his allegation of “ballot dumps” and there have been no reports of any irregularities.
The leads in numerous states have shifted back-and-forth between the candidates as votes are counted.
Trump, who overnight prematurely declared himself the winner of Tuesday’s election, has spent months denouncing mail-in ballots, making unsubstantiated claims that they are liable to fraud.
“How come every time they count Mail-In ballot dumps they are so devastating in their percentage and power of destruction?” he tweeted on Wednesday.
The usage of mail-in ballots soared this election amid the coronavirus pandemic and the US Elections Project said a record 65.2 million Americans voted by mail.
The next president will take on the raging disease, which has killed more than 231 000 people in the United States and left millions more jobless, amid a political climate marked by racial tensions and bitter polarisation.
The trio of “blue wall” states that unexpectedly sent Trump to the White House in 2016 — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — remained too close to call. Biden held a slight lead in Nevada, where officials said they would not update the count until today.
Two Southern states, Georgia and North Carolina, were also still in play; Trump held leads in both. A win for Biden in either one would narrow Trump’s chances considerably.
World leaders were in limbo as they waited for clearer results, with most avoiding weighing in amid the uncertainty. In global markets, investors moved to price a greater chance of US policy gridlock. —Agencies.
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter