US Election: Trump opens lawsuits as path to victory narrows

Donald Trump and Joe Biden each claim to be ahead in the US presidential election, even as the final outcome hangs on a razor’s edge and both sides ramp up for legal action.

The Trump campaign is challenging vote counts in the key states of Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

The BBC projects Mr Biden won Michigan. US media forecast he took Wisconsin. No result has emerged in Pennsylvania.

Winning all three of these Rust Belt states would hand Mr Biden victory.

Mr Biden stopped short of declaring he had won, but said he was confident he was on course to defeat Donald Trump.

Overall turnout in Tuesday’s election was projected to be the highest in 120 years at 66.9%, found the US Election Project.

Mr Biden had the support of 70.5 million voters, the most won by any presidential candidate ever. Mr Trump has pulled in 67.2 million votes, four million more than he gained in 2016.

The bitter election race was dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, which hit a new record high of 103,000 daily cases in the US on Wednesday, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

On Wednesday afternoon, Mr Biden told reporters in Wilmington, Delaware: “When the count is finished we believe we will be the winners.”

He added: “I will govern as an American president. The presidency itself is not a partisan institution.”

The Democratic challenger said he was feeling “very good” about Pennsylvania, although the campaign of Republican President Trump said it was “declaring victory” in the state on the count of “all legal ballots”.

Senior Trump campaign aide Jason Miller said: “By the end of this week it will be clear to the entire nation that President Trump and Vice-President Pence will be elected for another four years.”

Mr Biden has the edge in the race to accumulate the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House. The Democrat has 243 votes, while the Republican has 214.

In the US election, voters decide state-level contests rather than a single, national one. Each US state gets a certain number of electoral college votes partly based on its population and there are a total of 538 up for grabs.

Source: BBC
-Agencies