Georgia race heads towards a recount as Biden's lead in the state jumps to 7,248, with 99% of votes cast counted
Joe Biden's lead in Georgia continued to expand early Saturday - but still not enough to call the extremely tight race that will likely have to be recounted.
Biden overtook Trump in the tally early Saturday morning and now remains ahead by just 7,248 votes, with nearly five million ballots cast statewide.
He holds 49.4% of the state total, compared to Trump's 49.3% - a lead of about 0.08 percentage points.
Georgia holds 16 electoral college votes. If Biden were to win it, he would only need to hold his lead in one of the other three states still at play; Arizona, Nevada or Pennsylvania.
A candidate can request a recount in Georgia if the margin is less than 0.5%. Right now, it is well below that threshold. It is unclear now how many more votes there are to count in total in Georgia, however there are still 1,500 to count in Gwinnett County.
Earlier in the day, election officials said they still had 5,500 mail-in ballots to count, plus as many as 8,000 that could come from overseas military personnel.
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Biden's currently on the cusp of winning the presidency with his 28,000-vote lead in Pennsylvania, worth 20 electoral points. President Trump would have to win every state left on the field to get a second term and Biden is leading everywhere
STATES STILL IN PLAY
PENNSYLVANIA - 20 electoral college votes
Result expected Saturday. 89,000 votes left to be counted.
49.6% BIDEN - 3,337,069
49.2% TRUMP - 3,308,192
Biden leads by 28,877
ARIZONA - 11 electoral college votes
Result expected Saturday. 173,000 ballots left to count.
49.7% BIDEN - 1,604,067
48.8% TRUMP - 1,574,206
Biden leads by 29,861
Fox and the AP called Arizona for Biden on Election Day, but others held back as mail-in votes are counted. Mail-in ballots are trending towards Trump in Arizona.
GEORGIA - 16 electoral colleges votes
Results expected Saturday
49.4% BIDEN - 2,457,540
49.3% TRUMP - 2,454,207
Biden leads by 7,248
NEVADA - 6elecotoral college votes
Result expected Saturday. 124,000 votes to count
49.8% BIDEN - 632,558
48% TRUMP - 606,901
Biden leads by 22,657
A recount does not delay the election result if Biden wins Pennsylvania, which he is poised for after taking the lead from Trump. He can also still win before a Georgia recount if he wins Nevada and Arizona, where he also holds leads.
'As of 10am, there were a little under 5,500 votes to be counted. There are 8,890 military ballots outstanding that will be counted if they are returned by the close of business today. Right now Georgia remains too close to call. We'll have a margin of a few thousand.
'The focus of our office for now remains on making sure that every legal vote is counted accurately. We can begin to look towards our next steps.
'With a margin that small, there will be a recount in Georgia,' he said.
Later, the state's Voting System Implementation Manager, Gabriel Sterling explained why it was taking so long.
'The outstanding ballots are about the same as they are this morning. We will start with the margin. We're looking at a margin of 1,585.
'That's where we stand right now. We do know that today is the today for the military and overseas deadline.
'In the overall side, we have 18,008 that have already been accepted and 8, 410 that are still available to be received.
That doesn't mean there's a bucket ready to be counted; that means there are that many that can be received today.
'It's going to be more than zero and less than 8,410 - somewhere in that range. We don't know exactly how many,' he said.
If Biden claims Georgia today along with any other state, he will win the presidency.
Trump would have to win every state left on the field to get a second term and Biden is leading everywhere.
Biden on Friday morning took a crucial lead in Pennsylvania, where he is ahead by 28,833 votes as of midnight Saturday. If he wins the state today, he will have won the White House.
But Trump is refusing to accept the results, claiming election fraud all-round.
On Friday morning, the state's Voting System Implementation Manager, Gabriel Sterling, said the result would come in 'hopefully today'.
A razor-thin margin and ongoing vote count are what's making the Georgia contest between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden too early to call. A candidate can request a recount in Georgia if the margin is less than 0.5%. Right now, it is well below that threshold
Georgia is a must-win state for Trump, who has a narrower path to victory than Biden
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Georgia has long been a Republican stronghold. Voters there haven't swung for a Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton in 1992. Trump beat Hillary Clinton there by 5 percentage points in 2016. And the state's government is dominated by the GOP.
But the party's grip has loosened. As older, white, Republican-leaning voters die, they are being replaced by a younger and more racially diverse cast of people, many of whom moved to the booming Atlanta area from other states - and took their politics with them.
Overall, demographic trends show that the state´s electorate is becoming younger and more diverse each year. Like other metro areas, Atlanta´s suburbs have also moved away from Republicans. In 2016, Hillary Clinton flipped both Cobb and Gwinnett counties, where Biden is currently leading.
In 2018, Democrat Stacey Abrams galvanized Black voters in her bid to become the country´s first African American woman to lead a state, a campaign she narrowly lost.
Many political analysts say it's not a question of if but rather when Georgia becomes a swing state. That much was clear in the closing weeks of the campaign as Biden; his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris; and former President Barack Obama barnstormed the state. Trump, too, visited the state to play defense
Biden's lead in Nevada grows by more than 22,000 votes as the count drags on at excruciating pace with at least 124,000 outstanding ballots
Joe Biden's lead in Nevada has grown to more than 22,000 as the ballot count there drags on with at least another 124,000 votes left to count.
With more than 1.2million ballots counted, Biden held a 22,657 vote lead Friday evening - a roughly 1.79 percentage point edge over Trump.
But even after about 93% of the estimated vote had been tallied, an estimated 124,500 votes remain, which could eat into Biden's advantage.
Of those outstanding, 58,000 are mail ballots and 66,500 voter registration ballots, according to the secretary of state's office.
As it stands, Biden remains ahead with 49.8% of the vote in the state over Trump's 48%.
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Election officials in the state said they would release more results Saturday at noon EST.
Why it is taking them so long to get through the remainder remains largely unanswered.
One of the only reasons they've given is that they don't know how many mail-in ballots they will receive through the weekend but they won't say when they are going to stop accepting them.
If Biden wins Nevada and its 6 electoral college points, as well as Arizona, he will have won the election. He doesn't, however, need it to claim victory.
Any ballot that was posted by November 3 will be counted if it arrives by November 10 - Tuesday - at 5pm. The majority of the ballots are coming from Clark County, where Las Vegas is.
Biden is also leading in Pennsylvania, which carries 20 electoral college votes and would land him the White House. A result is expected there at some point on Friday.
A recount has been called in Georgia - where Biden leads but only by just over 4,300 votes - and in Arizona, where he leads by just over 29,000. His lead in Arizona is shrinking.
Arizona was called for him on Wednesday morning by Fox and the AP but with 250,000 votes still outstanding, it remains in play for Trump. If Biden loses Arizona, he has 259 electoral college votes. He'd need another 11 from either Georgia - which holds 16 - North Carolina - which holds 15 - or Pennsylvania - which holds 20 - to win.
It's unclear when North Carolina will announce, but it is expected to go to Trump as it did in 2016.
Trump's team is crying fraud and they say they have 'evidence' that 'tens of thousands of votes' had been cast there fraudulently.
Nevada law states that to be eligible to vote, a person has to have been a resident of the state for at least 30 days before the election.
That does not necessarily mean that they have to have been physically in the state for the 30 days preceding the election.
Trump's people also claim that many of the votes in Nevada came from people who no longer live there, or were cast under the names of deceased people.
Biden's lead in Arizona shrinks again, falling below 30,000 as Trump claws back some of the vote with 173,000 ballots left to count
Joe Biden's lead in Arizona has fallen below 30,000 after Trump slightly narrowed the gap during a dump of mail-in ballots Friday night.
Biden currently remains ahead by 29,861 votes, with a 49.6% hold of the total vote, compared to Trump's 48.7%.
It comes after officials on Friday night released the results of the 69,000 ballots counted in Maricopa County that reduced Biden's standing by about 7,000.
There were approximately 173,000 ballots left to count in the state as of 11pm, with 92,000 coming from Maricopa, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs told CNN.
They include 47,000 provisional ballots which will not be counted until Wednesday, she said. The next update will not come until 11am Saturday.
On Friday afternoon Hobbs said that they would only be working through only 61,000 per day - an excruciatingly slow pace when the entire country and world are waiting for the results.
It means they may not finish until 12am on Sunday.
Biden is leading in every other state. He snatched the lead from Trump in Pennsylvania on Friday and is now ahead by more than 28,000 votes.
He is likely to be called the winner there soon with the remaining votes coming from Allegheny County, which includes Democratic strongholds of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
If Biden wins Pennsylvania today, he no longer needs any of the other states to claim the 270 electoral college votes he needs to claim the White House. If Trump wins Arizona, he still needs every other state in play which seems increasingly unlikely.
In Georgia, the pair are neck-and-neck and a recount has been called because the margin is so thin. In Nevada, Biden is ahead by about 22,000 votes.
Arizona has a long political history of voting Republican. It's the home state of Barry Goldwater, a five-term, conservative senator who was the Republican nominee for president in 1964.
John McCain, the party's 2008 presidential nominee, represented the state in Congress from 1983 until his 2018 death.
But changing demographics, including a fast-growing Latino population and a boom of new residents - some fleeing the skyrocketing cost of living in neighboring California - have made the state friendlier to Democrats.
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Arizona has a long political history of voting Republican. It's the home state of Barry Goldwater, a five-term, conservative senator who was the Republican nominee for president in 1964.
John McCain, the party's 2008 presidential nominee, represented the state in Congress from 1983 until his 2018 death.
But changing demographics, including a fast-growing Latino population and a boom of new residents - some fleeing the skyrocketing cost of living in neighboring California - have made the state friendlier to Democrats.
About 100 Trump supporters gathered again in front of the Maricopa County election center in Phoenix, Thursday night, with some carrying military-style rifles and handguns. Arizona law allows people to openly carry guns.
Authorities at the center used fences to create a 'freedom of speech zone' and keep the entrance to the building open. The crowd took turns chanting - 'Count the votes!' and 'Four more years!' - and complaining through a megaphone about the voting process.
They paused to listen as Trump spoke from the White House, where he repeated many of his groundless assertions of a rigged vote.
They whooped and clapped when the president said, 'We're on track to win Arizona.'
It comes after the AP and and Fox News had both called Arizona early on Wednesday morning, claiming there was no possible way for Trump to claw it back from him - a move which was later called into question.
Arizona holds 11 crucial electoral college votes which, when giving them to Biden now, poises him for the White House with 264 of the 270 that he needs.
Supreme Court orders all late mail-in ballots to be counted separately in Pennsylvania as Biden extends his lead to more than 28,000 as he edges to victory
Joe Biden has taken the lead in the key state of Pennsylvania with 28,877 votes.
Biden is now ahead with 49.6% of the votes compared to Trump's 49.2%.
There are about 89,000 ballots still to count.
If Biden holds on to his lead here then he will be the 46th President of the United States - even if he loses every other state that is still in contention.
He currently has 253 electoral votes, compared to Trump's 213, meaning he can win the presidency in one of two ways.
If he wins Pennsylvania, he gains 20 votes and no longer needs either Arizona or Nevada. But if he wins Arizona - which has 11 electoral college votes - and Nevada - which has 6 - he no longer needs Pennsylvania.
Trump, who held a 675,000-vote lead early Wednesday, prematurely declared victory in the state on election night, only to see his lead evaporate in the coming days. By early Friday, Trump's lead had slipped to about 18,229 votes before the state flipped blue later in the morning.
One reason for the tightening race is that under state law, elections officials are not allowed to process mail-in ballots until Election Day.
It's a form of voting that has skewed heavily in Biden's favor after Trump spent months claiming — without proof — that voting by mail would lead to widespread voter fraud.
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If Biden holds on to his lead here then he will be the 46th President of the United States, even if he loses every other state that is still in contention.
Trump cannot win on Pennsylvania alone; with 214 electoral college votes, he'd still need to pick up either Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona or Nevada - the four other states where a result is yet to be officially confirmed.
Results are expected to be in for Pennsylvania by Friday.
If there is less than a half percentage point difference between Biden and Trump's vote total, state law dictates that a recount must be held.
Meanwhile, Trump sued Pennsylvania to undermine whatever election result is returned.
Voting was temporarily halted in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh on Thursday as a result of the legal row. A judge intervened and dismissed the federal motion.
The Trump campaign had a brief legal victory in Pennsylvania on Thursday when a judge ruled ballot observers can watch officials count ballots within six feet. Representatives of both campaigns were in the room to watch the counts but at a further distance because of the coronavirus. A county judge agreed with the Trump campaign but the state Supreme Court rejected it.
The situation in Pittsburgh is complicated by about 30,000 outstanding ballots, where a vendor sent the wrong ballots to voters and had to reissue new ballots with the correct races.
Poll workers now have to examine these ballots to make sure that people don't vote twice, or, if they sent in the wrong ballot, they didn't vote in races they aren't eligible for.
They cannot legally be counted until Friday when Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh sits, swears in a special board to examine these ballots, as required by law.