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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Joan E Greve, Maanvi Singh, Tom McCarthy and Martin Belam

Joe Biden nearer to threshold for victory but race still too close to call - as it happened

Latest coverage continues on our new live blog here:

Donald Trump’s press secretary Kayleigh McEnany is pushing out this tweet on the latest numbers coming out of Arizona.

Jennifer Medina at the New York Times has this though – suggesting that Trump still faces an uphill battle to clinch the state:

Trump would have to receive at least 57 percent of votes that remain to be counted in other parts of the state as well, including counties that tend to vote Democratic.

Biden’s narrow edge underscored a profound political shift in Arizona, a longtime Republican bastion that has lurched left in recent years, fueled by rapidly evolving demographics and a growing contingent of young Latino voters who favor liberal policies.

For months, Trump has seeded doubt about the legitimacy of mail-in ballots, laying the groundwork for the vague conspiracy theories about fraudulent ballots that he tweeted wildly about throughout the day Wednesday.

Trump’s claims are perfectly suited to people who share what Whitney Phillips, a professor of communications at Syracuse University, calls a deep distrust of institutions and “a general sense that there are people who are out to get people who look like us” – such as the so-called “Deep State”.

This mindset has been prevalent in recent months amid the rise of QAnon and Covid-skeptic communities, Phillips said. “In some ways, the sensationalist child-eating, blood-drinking QAnon stuff distracts from the really corrosive part of the narrative, which is the idea that liberals, scientists and Jews are all coming to get you, so you better go get your guns.”

Phillips views Trump’s failure to debunk or denounce conspiracy theories as preparations for selling this latest conspiracy theory. “In the past few months, Trump started using the deep state by name; he started specifically engaging with and embracing QAnon,” she said. “That underlying frame – ‘don’t trust “them”’ – was the groundwork for his efforts to contest the election.”

Notably, this disinformation effort remains a top-down approach. “We’re not talking about misinformation from the grassroots or foreign actors, said Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, at a Wednesday morning election debrief. “It’s known influencers.”

Read more of Julia Carrie Wong’s report here: Will Trump’s false election claims gain steam? Disinformation experts weigh in

If you are wondering how Arizona went from being called for Joe Biden, to now appearing to be in play, then this Arizona Republic report explains. In a contrast to the scenes that unfolding up in the ‘rust belt’, the late counted mail-in ballots are breaking for the president. They report:

As Maricopa County released the results from 140,000 more ballots on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, president Donald Trump received almost the exact share he would need to charge back to win Arizona’s 11 electoral votes and potentially reelection.

Trump won the batches of ballots from Maricopa County counted Wednesday and early Thursday by a roughly 57-40 margin over former vice president Joe Biden.

Those votes — likely early ballots sent to the county on Monday and Tuesday — narrowed Biden’s lead over Trump in Arizona to 68,000 votes, when his lead had been more than 90,000 votes earlier Wednesday.

Paul Bentz, a Republican pollster with the consulting firm HighGround, said Trump needs to win 57.6% of the 470,000 votes that the Arizona Republic estimates remain to be counted.

“That’s almost exactly what he got in the first batch,” Bentz said. “He could do it.”

NBC News are carrying an interesting demographic analysis of the voting pattern of Black men in the US election this year. Their exit poll tells them:

Support for the Democratic presidential candidate reached a new low among Black men this year. Eighty percent of Black men supported Joe Biden, down slightly from Hilary Clinton’s 82 percent in 2016 but significantly down from Barack Obama’s level of support.

There were a few groups that appear to have driven this shift toward president Donald Trump among Black men. Over half of Black men (52 percent) who identified as ideologically conservative cast their vote for the president, and 1 in 3 Black men living in the Midwest also voted for him. 22 percent of Black men with bachelor’s degrees and 20 percent of Black men with advanced degrees also supported him.

Read more here: NBC News – Black men drifted from Democrats toward Trump in record numbers, polls show

Ishaan Tharoor rounds up for the Washington Post this morning something that seems abundantly clear. Whatever the final outcome of the 2020 US election, it has in no way been a national repudiation of the previous four years. Indeed, Donald Trump has polled more votes than he did in 2016. Tharoor writes:

One clear outcome of the U.S. election is the end of a particular delusion. In 2019, much of the bow-tied and gown-wearing Washington establishment gathered at the ritzy White House Correspondents’ Association dinner to hear Ron Chernow, the acclaimed presidential historian, deliver a keynote address. In his remarks, he characterized the turbulence of President Trump’s term in office as a “topsy-turvy moment” and a “surreal interlude in American life.”

But the inescapable reality of the election results is that Trumpism remains a powerful current in American politics. It’s akin to political tendencies in other parts of the world where strongmen have co-opted democracies. The president’s brand of demagogic nationalism, his ceaseless campaigning through every year of his term and his unrepentant embrace of divisive messaging and tactics have clearly mobilized tremendous support.

“Trump over-performed in myriad polling measures. There would be no landslides, only squeakers and clenched jaws — and, possibly, court fights,” wrote my Washington Post colleague Monica Hesse. “Win or lose, Trumpism will not have been swept into the dustbin of history; it will remain all over the furniture. It’s part of the furniture.”

Indeed, it may wholly define right-wing politics in the United States for years to come.

Read more here: Washington Post – Trumpism is here to stay

Of course, the longer it takes to get a result, the easier it is for conspiracy theories to get a hold on social media. Welcome to #Sharpiegate in Arizona.

Social media posts have been suggesting that election officials in Maricopa County provided voters with Sharpie pens, which interfered with ballots being recorded, specifically those for president Donald Trump. There is no evidence for this.

Arizona election officials confirmed that Sharpies were used in voting, but they said that would not invalidate a ballot. The Maricopa County Elections Department tweeted on Election Day that voting centers use Sharpies so that ink does not smudge when ballots are counted.

“New offset columns on the ballots means bleed through won’t impact your vote!” they tweeted in an informational video.

Still, one video with more than 821,000 views showed a woman speaking about how four different polling places were using Sharpies and a man asks her if “those ballots are not being counted” and “are invalid.”

“They are invalidating votes is what they are doing,” the man says. He went on to suggest voters use a ballpoint pen instead.

Here are some of the pictures of protests and exhausted election workers that have been coming through on the wires today as we get slowly closer to finding out who will be in the White House on Inauguration Day on 20 January 2021.

A worker with the Detroit Department of Elections takes a break after sorting through absentee ballots in Detroit.
A worker with the Detroit Department of Elections takes a break after sorting through absentee ballots in Detroit. Photograph: Elaine Cromie/Getty Images
Portland police patrol the streets trying to disperse protests.
Portland police patrol the streets trying to disperse protests. Photograph: Christian Monterrosa/EPA
Donald Trump supporters gather to protest the election results at the Arizona State Capitol.
Donald Trump supporters gather to protest the election results at the Arizona State Capitol. Photograph: Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images
Election officials, poll watchers and challengers monitor the counting of Grand Rapids absentee ballots at DeVos Place in Michigan.
Election officials, poll watchers and challengers monitor the counting of Grand Rapids absentee ballots at DeVos Place in Michigan. Photograph: Cory Morse/AP
Detained demonstrators are taken to the police station by buses at the end of protest marches against racism and issues with the presidential election, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Detained demonstrators are taken to the police station by buses at the end of protest marches against racism and issues with the presidential election, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photograph: Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images
Supporters of president Donald Trump protest the Nevada vote in front of the Clark County Election Department, Las Vegas.
Supporters of president Donald Trump protest the Nevada vote in front of the Clark County Election Department, Las Vegas. Photograph: John Locher/AP
Police officers are silhouetted as they stand guard at a subway station during a protest in Los Angeles.
Police officers are silhouetted as they stand guard at a subway station during a protest in Los Angeles. Photograph: Ringo HW Chiu/AP
Election protestors gathered at the Times Square in New York City.
Election protestors gathered at the Times Square in New York City. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

One of the things with a US election is that it is a highly decentralised system, and until the Electoral College actually meets to vote until mid-December, we don’t have an ‘official’ result. In truth, those votes aren’t actually even properly counted until the Senate meets on 6 January. It probably made more sense as a system in the 1800s when news took a lot longer to travel.

It has become tradition that ‘decision desks’ make a call that states have been won by one candidate or the other when enough votes have been counted. States that are too close to call – like Nevada and Georgia are at the moment – are, well, literally too close to call.

The Guardian uses the data collected and analysed by the Associated Press (AP) as the source for when we will call election results. There are a number of other highly reputable election “decision desks” in US media, including NBC, Fox News and others. They may call races earlier or later than AP. That may be why you are seeing slightly different totals on different news outlets for the race.

Our current total of 264 electoral votes for Joe Biden includes the fact that AP have called Arizona for the Democratic nominee. Not all decision desks have yet.

Associated Press have issued this guide to all of the states they have called. This is what they say about Arizona:

The AP called the race at 2:50am. EST Wednesday, after an analysis of ballots cast statewide concluded there were not enough outstanding to allow Trump to catch up. With 80% of the expected vote counted, Biden was ahead by 5 percentage points, with a roughly 130,000-vote lead over Trump with about 2.6 million ballots counted. The remaining ballots left to be counted, including mail-in votes in Maricopa County, where Biden performed strongly, were not enough for Trump to catch up to the former vice president.

The Trump campaign disagree. Biden’s lead is down to around 68,000 votes in the state, with 88% of the votes counted. It’s worth keeping an eye on.

Power can’t be taken or asserted, it flows from the people, and it is their will that determines who will be the president of the United States, and their will alone. I’m not here to declare that we’ve won. But I am here to report that when the count is finished we believe that we will be the winners.

That was Joe Biden last night, addressing the American people as we wait to find out who has won the White House. He went on to say:

So once this election is finalised and behind us, it will be time for us to do what we’ve always done as Americans. To put the harsh rhetoric of the campaign behind us, to lower the temperature, to see each other again, to listen to one another, to hear each other again, to respect and care for each other.

What we know so far…

Here’s a quick summary to catch you up with what we know so far…

  • Joe Biden has won more votes than any US presidential candidate in history – but the race for the White House remains too close to call.
  • Based on the states that Associated Press (AP) has called, Biden needs just one more state to get over the 270 threshold in the Electoral College to be declared the winner.
  • Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Alaska remain to be called. Biden has a narrow lead in Nevada, and Democrats believe he will overhaul Trump’s lead in at least one of Georgia or Pennsylvania as the last remaining votes are counted. Trump will take Alaska, and currently leads in North Carolina.
  • There’s a slight question mark over the status of Arizona. AP and conservative Fox News have called it for Biden, other news organisations aren’t so confident yet of the result, and the Trump campaign are still predicting they will ultimately win there. Biden’s lead there has narrowed to around 68,000 votes.
  • Trump supporters protested at a Detroit vote-counting site, and outside a Phoenix election center. The crowd called upon Michigan election officials to “stop the vote”. In Phoenix, Trump supporters demanded the opposite, telling officials keep counting as Biden’s lead narrowed.
  • Twitter flagged more of Trump’s tweets for pushing misinformation about the election results. The president shared a tweet thread this evening trying to “claim” multiple battleground states that he has not won. Obviously, those “claims” have no legal standing in a US election.
  • You can find our full live results service here.
  • We also have the full results for Congress, where the Democrats’ attempt to flip the Senate appears to have faltered.
  • The election isn’t the only story in town. Yesterday the US set a new world record for daily coronavirus cases, with 102,831 recorded. There were 1,097 Covid deaths.

I’m Martin Belam, and I will be with you for the next few hours – you can get in touch with me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.

Updated

Let’s pause and consider what happened in Nebraska’s second congressional district, where Joe Biden picked up a single electoral vote. You will by now know that Nebraska is one of two states, the other being Maine, to split its electoral votes. The last time the Nebraska district (which is basically the city of Omaha and environs) went Democrat was in 2008 for Obama.

On Tuesday the district swung again – shifting the most of any battleground since the 2016 election in fact, says the congressional races editor of the Cook Political Report:

It does not look like that extra electoral vote is going to matter for Biden, although in some scenarios it could have been crucial to breaking a possible 269-269 electoral college tie. But surely nice for Biden to have it. So how did he get it?

Did that huge Trump rally in Omaha a couple weeks ago where everyone got stuck in the freezing dark for hours afterwards convince them to vote for Biden? Probably not and a lot of the crowd was from neighboring Iowa anyway.

There is some serious progressive organization and funding in Omaha, and the district has swung before, sending representatives from both parties to Congress (although this time they reelected the Republican for a serious ticket split).

The conservative National Journal flagged the fight between Trump and Nebraska Republican senator Ben Sasse:

Perhaps Trump should have emulated Sasse instead of publicly feuding with him if he wanted to ensure he won all of the state’s electoral votes.

Here’s part of the story of how and why the state splits its vote:

Did you know that much of the stress, agitation and uncertainty about the election result in the United States over the past two days did not have to happen?

That the drawn-out ballot counts we saw and are seeing in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania do not owe to the races being particularly close in those states, which they were not, but to artificially produced bottlenecks?

The long counts are another kind of voter suppression, the product of rules imposed in those states by Republican-controlled legislatures that in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania allowed for no early processing of the mail-in vote – despite the pandemic – and in Michigan allowed for only one day of early processing.

The sense of there being a dynamic in these races in which Biden “came from behind” is artificial, the result of vote tallies from densely and highly populated, disproportionately Democratic areas – ie, cities – taking longer.

Everyone saw this problem coming. They also saw how Trump would attempt to take advantage of the uncertainty by stealing the election, which he is, although the effort, as historically dangerous and destructive as it is, does not look particularly brilliant.

Elections officials from both parties in the states in question pleaded with the Republican legislatures for more time to process votes early, as they do in other states with Republican-controlled legislatures such as Ohio, Florida and yes, Arizona, where the race happens to have been truly close.

The Wisconsin race looks like the sides could be separated by as little as one point, but that’s not unusual for Wisconsin. Biden appears to have won Michigan by more than two points – not a razor margin – and the same appears to be the case in Pennsylvania, where Biden appears to be doubling Trump’s 2016 margin of victory in the state at least, maybe tripling it, although obviously we’re awaiting the final tally.

A couple weeks ago the Guardian asked Tom Ridge, a former Republican governor of Pennsylvania who is a strong Trump critic and democracy advocate, about why local election officials in Pennsylvania, who are nonpartisan public servants doing hard work for not much compensation under intense pressure, were not given more time beforehand to process the ballot.

Ridge blamed partisan poison leading to a failure in negotiations between the Democratic governor and Republican legislature to set new rules.

“I had hoped that both the Republican legislature and the Democrat governor could put aside their differences and at least, at the very minimum, let these local election officials who by the way are both Republican and Democrat, begin the pre-canvassing before election day, with a clean bill,” Ridge said, continuing:

There is no inherent political advantage one, to absentee voting – this is not one party or the other doesn’t have an advantage

There’s no reason for the governor and the legislature not to enable local officials to begin the simple act of processing, not even counting but processing those ballots, to verify and validate signatures.

If they were interested in the legitimacy of an outcome, and I know both are, there’s no reason whatsoever that they can’t begin the processing.

And it’s a political stalemate in my mind unworthy of Pennsylvania voters.

The political environment is toxic, and certainly the president has contributed to that.

But on Wednesday the Republican majority leader of the Pennsylvania House had the temerity to blame Democrats for the vote- counting backlog:

The replies to the tweet are pretty rich – and be warned that many of them are NSFW.

Vigo County in western Indiana has voted for the winner of the presidential race every time since Eisenhower. This year, Vigo went narrowly for Trump. And here’s what the congressional races editor at Cook Political Report thinks of that:

One important question in Georgia is whether Republican incumbent senator David Perdue ends up with less than 50% of the vote, which would throw the election into a runoff between him and Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff. The other race for US senate in Georgia is already going to a runoff, which is the reason the Democrats still have the slightest crack-in-the-door chance of coming away with 50 senate seats.

With that last batch of results, Perdue is positively hanging by his fingernails with 50.7% of the vote.

The journalist Daniel Nichanian, who runs the Political Report over at The Appeal, one of the best sources out there for information about local elections, is traking results in Georgia out of Fulton county (Atlanta) and Dekalb county (Atlanta burbs).

When all the votes are counted, Joe Biden might be the first presidential candidate to produce a blue Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992 (Clinton lost the state in 1996 and not even Barack Obama could grab the state in his huge 2008 result coming up 200,000 votes short).

It’s a squeaker

Updated

Wait, is this a “count the votes” rally or a “stop the count” rally?

Georgia is drawing closer to finishing the job:

Updated

Today so far

That’s all from me for now. My colleague Tom McCarthy will continue to bring you live elections updates. Here’s a recap of the day, from me and Joan E Greve:

  • Joe Biden is six electoral college votes away from becoming the next president of the United States. With his wins in the pivotal swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin, Biden has secured 264 electoral votes to Donald Trump’s 214 votes. The Democratic nominee needs to win just one more state to capture the White House.
  • The counts are close in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, as officials continue tabulating ballots. Trump is leading in Pennsylvania and Georgia, but Biden is narrowing the gap. The AP and other news organizations, including conservative network Fox News, declared Biden the victor in Arizona yesterday – a remarkable win for the Democrat in a traditionally Republican bastion. But as the state processed more ballots today, Biden’s lead has shrunk to 79,000 votes.
  • The president’s re-election campaign launched lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Georgia. The Trump campaign said it would sue to challenge an extension for counting Pennsylvania’s absentee ballots, which the supreme court previously upheld. The campaign also is filing a lawsuit that alleges with zero evidence that 53 invalid ballots were counted in Chatham County.
  • Trump supporters protested at a Detroit vote-counting site, and outside a Phoenix election center. With echoes of the 2000 “Brooks Brothers riot” in Florida, the crowd called upon Michigan election officials to “stop the vote”. In Phoenix, Trump supporters demanded the opposite, telling officials keep counting as Biden’s lead narrowed.
  • Twitter flagged more of Trump’s tweets for pushing misinformation about the election results. The president shared a tweet thread this evening trying to “claim” multiple battleground states that he has not won. Obviously, those “claims” have no legal standing in a US election.

Updated

Despite conflicting reports, reporters in Maricopa county have confirmed that vote counting is continuing, though reporters were asked to leave as pro-Trump protestors crowded outside an elections center.

The Associated Press and several other news organizations declared Joe Biden the victor in Arizona yesterday. But Biden’s lead has been narrowing as more votes are counted, placing Donald Trump in striking distance to overtake the Democrat.

Read more about how the Maricopa, a conservative bastion, became an election battleground:

The states we’re watching:

  • Pennsylvania, where Trump leads Biden by 164,000 votes, with uncounted ballots remaining in Democratic-leaning Philadelphia county.
  • Georgia, where Trump is leading by about 28,000 votes, with counting ongoing.
  • Arizona, where Biden is leading by 79,000 votes - but Trump has been narrowing the gap. The AP declared Biden the victor here yesterday, but there’s a chance Trump could overtake the Democrat as more ballots are counted.

Updated

Sheriff's deputies station in Maricopa county elections center amid protests outside

In Maricopa county, Arizona, sheriff’s deputies have stationed inside an elections center while protesters crowded outside.

Vote counting continues in this key district, as Joe Biden has maintained a narrowing lead in Arizona. Many protesters wore “Make America Great Again” hats and some carried signs baselessly alleging fraud. Some were armed, per local reporters.

The Associated Press and other news organizations including Fox News declared Biden the victor in Arizona yesterday, but Trump has been inching closer to a tie.

Whereas Trump-allied demonstrators in Michigan crowded an election center to demand that officials stop the vote count, many demonstrators in Phoenix are demanding the opposite – that officials keep counting as Trump’s odds look rosier.

Ralliers also reportedly sang YMCA by the Village People, and chanted of their desire for a Trump win.

Updated

Trump supporters and right-wing protesters clashed with “Count the Vote” protesters outside the Clark county election headquarters in Las Vegas.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden are running neck and neck in Nevada as officials continue to tabulate vote counts. Biden leads by less than one point, and the state could decide this election. Updated results are expected tomorrow.

Updated

Regardless of the US presidential election outcome, Trumpism lives on

When all the votes are counted, the presidential election may deliver defeat for Donald Trump. But it did not deliver defeat for Trumpism.

Democrats had hoped that four years of turmoil, attacks on norms and institutions and mendacity – plus a pandemic that cost 230,000 lives – would result in a quick, clean and overwhelming repudiation of the 45th president.

That would have been clarifying about the direction of the country, a warning to the Republican party that it must take its 2013 “autopsy” report off the shelf and reinvent itself.

But on another miserable night for pollsters, it did not turn out that way. Trump proved resilient and increased his vote in Florida, Texas and other states. He found even more white working-class voters than last time and chipped away at Democratic support among Latinos. His cult-of-personality campaign rallies were as enthusiastic and rambunctious as ever.

His victory in 2016, it turns out, was no fluke attributable to Vladimir Putin or James Comey. In 2020 his sexism, racism and lie-telling have been legitimised and emboldened.

When some Americans protested “This is not who we are”, Trump voters replied: “This is exactly who we are – and we’re not going anywhere.”

“The so-called moral outrage around Trump’s presidency did not produce any substantive shift in his Republican support,” tweeted Eddie Glaude, a professor at Princeton University and author of Democracy in Black. “In fact, he expanded his base among white voters. Trump continues to flourish in the intersection of greed, selfishness and racism.”

Now, if Trump wins the election, Trumpism wins. But if Trump loses the election, Trumpism wins too.

Read more:

Lois Beckett reports from Detroit:

Facebook removed the Michigan anti-lockdown group that helped coordinate the volatile pro-Trump “stop the count” protest today outside of the main ballot-counting location in Detroit.

The protest drew comparisons to the “Brooks Brothers riot” during the 2000 election in Florida.

Here’s a look at all those “count the vote” protests across the US:

Gary Peters, a first-term Democratic senator from Michigan, has eked out a re-election.

Joe Biden, right, with Senator Gary Peters, center and former President Barack Obama, left, at a rally at Belle Isle Casino in Detroit on 31 October.
Joe Biden, right, with Senator Gary Peters, center and former President Barack Obama, left, at a rally at Belle Isle Casino in Detroit on 31 October. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP

In a race that was tighter than expected for Peters, he ultimately prevailed over John James, a Detroit businessman and rising star Republican. James, 39, ran for Senate in 2018 as well – back then boasting that he supported Trump “2,000 percent”. This year, he projected more of a moderate stance to compete with Peters, 61, a centrist who has touted his bipartisan record.

The AP declared Joe Biden the winner in Michigan, with final vote tallies pending.

Updated

Police trapped protesters marching through Minneapolis, reports Fox 9, and law enforcement have arrested demonstrators in Portland, Oregon, as activists around the country take to the streets demanding that officials count every vote and end police brutality.

More than 500 protesters in Minneapolis have been told they’re being arrested, reports Karen Scullin of Fox 9. Activists from a coalition of groups including Black Lives Matter, climate justice groups and immigrant rights groups have been marching peacefully. The demonstration was organized by Twin Cities for Justice 4 Jamar in coordination with the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Regression. A second group of activists demanding action on a number of issues including climate and policing joined in. The protest was reportedly planned before Tuesday’s tight election.

In Portland, some people were taken into custody after a few reports of smashed windows. Groups there were mainly demanding that every vote is counted.

Updated

What are the paths to victory for Trump and Biden?

Paths to victory remain in the US presidential race for both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, but Biden has more ways to win and appears to be running stronger state to state, based on the places – cities, mainly – where large absentee votes have yet to be counted.

Biden leads the electoral college vote tally 264-214 after he was declared the winner in Michigan and Wisconsin on Wednesday and Trump gained one vote in Maine. Adding Alaska for Trump – which had not been called but where the result is not in doubt – gives the president 217.

From there, four states remained to be called as Wednesday evening approached in the US: Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.

Trump’s paths

For Trump to find the 53 electoral votes he needs, he would need to win Pennsylvania, plus all three other states.

But a huge Democratic vote share remained to be tallied in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, meaning Trump could have difficulty hanging on to a narrow lead gained elsewhere in the state.

Biden’s paths

Biden has more paths to find his remaining six electoral votes. One path lies through Pennsylvania, which would net 20 votes.

Without Pennsylvania, Biden could win by winning Nevada, where he held a clear but narrow lead. A Biden victory in either of the two reddest states in the mix – Georgia or North Carolina – would almost certainly foretell wins elsewhere and a Biden victory.

Read more:

Updated

The US justice department told federal prosecutors today that the law allowed the government to send armed officers to ballot counting locations, the New York Times reports.

The information was relayed via email, according to three sources who spoke with the Times:

The email created the specter of the federal government intimidating local election officials or otherwise intervening in vote tallying amid calls by President Trump to end the tabulating in states where he was trailing in the presidential race, former officials said.

A law prohibits the stationing of armed federal officers at polls on Election Day. But a top official told prosecutors that the department interpreted the statute to mean that they could send armed federal officers to polling stations and locations where ballots were being counted anytime after that.

The statute “does not prevent armed federal law enforcement persons from responding to, investigate, or prevent federal crimes at closed polling places or at other locations where votes are being counted,” the official, Richard P. Donoghue, told prosecutors in an email that he sent around 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

This messaging from the justice department is a worrying development as Donald Trump demands that officials stop counting votes, and his campaign launches a series of lawsuits to dispute the legal, democratic process of counting votes cast by Americans.

Read more here.

Updated

Protesters demand all votes be counted

Across the US, protesters – most aligned with Democratic and progressive causes – are demanding that officials “count every vote”.

Demonstrators gathered outside Dallas City Hall in Texas.

Donna Akers, left, of Grand Prairie, Lucy Cantu of Grand Prairie, center, and her sister Guadalupe Neidigh of Georgetown, Texas, participate in protest organized by Dallas Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression outside Dallas City Hall. The results of the presidential election are not yet complete and they wanted to voice their concerns that every vote be counted.
Demonstrators participate in protest organized by Dallas Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression outside Dallas City Hall. Photograph: Tom Fox/AP
Benny De La Vega carries the American flag as he places candles on the words “Count Every Vote” marked in chalk on the pavement during a rally at Dallas City Hall.
A man carries the American flag as he places candles on the words ‘Count Every Vote’ marked in chalk on the pavement during a rally at Dallas City Hall. Photograph: Smiley N Pool/AP

In Michigan, where earlier in the day, a rightwing, anti-lockdown group crowded outside a ballot counting site in Detroit, demonstrators marched to demand that officials complete the count.

A crowd takes part in a Count Every Vote rally in downtown Grand Rapids, Mich. The rally featured a march back and forth from Rosa Parks Circle to Calder Plaza with speakers at both sites.
A crowd takes part in a Count Every Vote rally in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan. Photograph: Cory Morse/AP

And in Portland, Oregon protesters marched across an overpass with signs that spelled out their slogan.

Protesters hold letters that spell Count Every Vote as they cross an overpass while marching in Portland, Ore.
Protesters hold letters that spell Count Every Vote as they cross an overpass while marching in Portland. Photograph: Marcio José Sánchez/AP

Updated

In Phoenix, Trump supporters have gathered at the state capitol.

The crowd is chanting “Shame on Fox,” after Fox News declared Biden the winner in Arizona. “More votes are being counted tomorrow at Phoenix City Hall, and we need as many patriots to show up and have a presence outside as possible,” said the Tea Party Patriots group organized the event.

The Trump campaign has adopted a self-contradicting stance of calling for officials to stop counting ballots in states the president is in danger of losing, and keep counting in states like Arizona, where Joe Biden’s lead is narrowing as more votes are tallied.

In Pennsylvania, vote counting is expected to continue for a few more days.

Donald Trump is in the lead, by about 3 points or 187,000 votes, but the difference between votes cast for Trump and those cast for Joe Biden has been shrinking with each batch of results released. Almost 80% of the votes counted today were for Biden, observed my colleague Nina Lakhani – who is out reporting in the state.

With 107,751 votes remaining to count, Donald Trump’s lead over Joe Biden in Georgia is down to 37,322 votes.

An employee of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections processes ballots in Atlanta.

An employee of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections processes ballots in Atlanta. Photograph: Brandon Bell/Reuters

“We have long anticipated – and said publicly – that counting would most likely take place into Wednesday night and perhaps Thursday morning. We’re on pace to accomplish that responsibly, ensuring that the voice of every eligible voter is heard,” said Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. “It’s important to act quickly, but it’s more important to get it right.

Biden's lead narrows in Arizona

After Maricopa county, Arizona released a latest batch of election results, Joe Biden’s lead in the state narrowed. The two presidential candidates are now just 79,000 votes apart. More results are expected in three hours.

Maricopa – the state’s most populous county – accounts for the lion’s share of votes in Arizona.

The ballots that county officials are currently processing include absentee votes that arrived over the weekend. Maricopa has long been a conservative stronghold, but a number of factors – including demographic shifts, a cultural transformation in the suburbs, and a decade of progressive Latino-led activism – has turned the state into one of the most hotly contested political battlegrounds.

The Associated Press – whose results the Guardian uses – and several other news organizations declared the contest a win for Biden, but NBC and other organizations have maintained that the race is too close to call.

Read more about Maricopa County:

Updated

Chris McGreal reports from Des Moines, Iowa:

America’s rural heartland stuck firmly with Donald Trump on Tuesday, dashing Joe Biden’s hope of a decisive victory that would have allowed him to claim he had reunited the country, as well as undercutting Democratic expectations of winning the US Senate.

Results across the midwest showed the US still firmly divided as Trump again won a solid victory in Iowa, a state that twice voted for Barack Obama, and the Republicans held on to crucial Senate seats targeted by the Democrats.

Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, a close Trump ally, proclaimed that the Democrats were now history in her state as the president’s base turned out in force.

“We have proven without a doubt that Iowa is a red state,” she told a rowdy victory rally in Des Moines where few Republicans wore masks.

Trump was ahead in Iowa by more than seven points with over 90% of the vote counted, a victory just two points short of his 2016 win.

In Iowa and Missouri, Trump’s support in rural counties generally held up or strengthened. In some states that delivered him victory. In others, such as Wisconsin, Biden triumphed after a surge of urban votes.

But the president’s solid performance in rural America could cost the Democrats control of the Senate after what the party regarded as its best shot at two midwestern seats in Iowa and Kansas flopped.

Read more:

Indiana Republican – and Trump loyalist – Victoria Spartz has won her congressional election against Democrat Christina Hale, in another blow for Democrats anticipating a “blue wave” in the suburbs.

Spartz quashed hopes that suburban and white women voters alienated by Donald Trump and his handling of the pandemic would propel more Democrats to Capitol Hill. Spartz was victorious in a seat vacated by Republican Susan W Brooks, who is retiring.

Hale is a centrist who campaigned on her ability to work with Republicans – pointing to her collaboration with Mike Pence when he was Indiana governor and she a state legislator. Still, Spartz cast her opponent as a socialist and pushed her pro-business stance to win over voters in Indianapolis and its suburbs.

Updated

The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) has condemned the US decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

“While expected, today’s action by the United States represents a gut punch to the global effort to save our planet for future generations, and a clear dereliction of the federal government’s trust and treaty responsibilities to tribal nations to protect the ecosystems our communities and cultures depend on for their survival,” said the NCAI president, Fawn Sharp.

“Indian country is on the front lines of climate change. Native people disproportionately experience its impacts, from the loss of subsistence hunting and fishing ecosystems that nourish our people, to changing weather patterns that harm our traditional plants and medicines, to the forced relocation of a growing number of our tribal communities,” the NCAI Climate Action Task Force added in a statement.

Six south-east Alaska tribes are also currently disputing the Trump administration’s decision to allow logging in Alaska’s Tongass national forest, the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest. Read more about that’s at stake, from Cassidy Randall:

Updated

Fate of climate crisis hangs on election as US exits Paris agreement

The United States on Wednesday officially became the only country in the world refusing to participate in global climate efforts, with the fate of the crisis hanging on the still uncalled presidential election.

Donald Trump as of Wednesday has withdrawn the US from the Paris climate agreement, an international pact to try to avert dangerous temperature increases that are already leading to more extreme weather and threaten to shrink world food supplies, force millions to flee their homes and deprive many of basic human rights. Trump’s administration set the US exit in motion a year ago, but it didn’t automatically take effect until 4 November.

The deal was meant to keep temperatures from rising more than 1.5C to 2C above the average before industrialization. Already, the Earth is more than 1C hotter than it was before industrialization, largely because of humans burning fossil fuels. This last year has demonstrated how the climate crisis will touch the lives of every American, with more heatwaves, intense wildfires, record hurricanes, rising seas, floods and droughts.

Trump’s challenger, Joe Biden, would immediately rejoin the agreement and push lawmakers to spend big on green infrastructure to try to reverse the economic downturn from the pandemic.

Read more:

Lois Beckett reports from Detroit:

The Trump campaign had announced in the early afternoon that it was filing a lawsuit to stop the count in Michigan, alleging that campaign officials had not been given adequate access to observe the ballot-counting process, a claim the secretary of state called “meritless.”

While Stop the Count protesters outside the building claimed that there were insufficient numbers of Republican ballot challengers inside and that they were not being allowed to enter and replace them, the Associated Press reported from inside the building that “Poll watchers from both sides were plentiful Wednesday.” While protests outside the building, as well as within the building, were tense and volatile at times earlier in the afternoon, they did not stay that way.

By later in the afternoon, while more than 100 people stayed milling outside the building, the number of people actively chanting back and forth was small, and at times protesters started shouting about other issues, like abortion.

And by early evening, with the Associated Press, Fox News and the Detroit Free Press all calling Michigan for Biden, both inside and outside the ballot-counting room were quiet.

Lois Beckett reports from Detroit:

A Michigan anti-lockdown Facebook group helped coordinate a volatile pro-Trump “stop the count” protest today outside of the main ballot-counting location in Detroit, a protest that drew comparisons to the “Brooks Brothers riot” during the 2000 election in Florida.

Chris Steffes, 22, from Corunna, Michigan, told The Guardian he came to the ballot-counting center after he saw a call for more Republican ballot challengers on social media, including a Facebook post from Stand Up Michigan, a group that organized protests against some of Michigan’s public health restrictions.

The Stand Up Michigan Facebook post falsely claimed that Biden was leading Trump by 18 votes with 94% of precincts reporting. In fact, Associated Press data had showed Biden leading Trump by more than 30,000 votes throughout the morning. NBC News also reported the link between “Stand Up Michigan” group and the “Stop the count” protest, based on posts inside a private “Stand Up Michigan” Facebook group.

Steffes was one of a small group of people who loudly chanted “stop the count” outside Detroit’s TCF Center, in a milling crowd of more than 100 people. While ballot challengers from both parties were already inside observing the election count, Stefffes said he thought “normal people” should also be allowed to verify the election process and get answers on some of the questions swirling about the ballot process.
Other protesters outside the ballot-counting location said they had heard about the need for more ballot challengers through various channels, sometimes secondhand: an email one man’s wife received, a text another man’s sister received, a message from someone at a Trump campaign group in Macomb County.

While he did not mention Stand Up Michigan, Rob Phail, who said he had left work to attempt to become a ballot challenger, also mentioned his concerns about coronavirus and freedom in Michigan in explaining why he had come to protest outside the ballot counting location.

More on the Trump campaign’s effort to stop counting votes in Georgia:

The campaign is filing a lawsuit that alleges that “a Republican poll observer in Georgia witnessed 53 late absentee ballots illegally added to a stack of on-time absentee ballots in Chatham County”.

The Trump campaign is asking officials for an accounting of those 53 ballots - though they offer no evidence the ballots were invalid.

So far, mail-in or absentee ballots have broadly favored Democrats – driving the Trump campaign to seek to stop vote counting while the president is ahead. There are about 150,000 uncounted ballots in Georgia, and Joe Biden is trailing Trump by just 47,000. The exceedingly close race could propel Biden to victory if the uncounted votes break his way.

Updated

In Chicago, demonstrators marched past a building named for the president and shouted “count every vote” as the Trump campaign seeks to throwout legitimately cast ballots.

Protesters held their phones up to shine symbolic light on Republicans’ efforts to stop vote counts, reported Stacy St Clair of the Chicago Tribune.

Dozens of events are planned across the nation to demand a fair election, many organized by local groups affiliated with Protect the Results, a coalition of grassroots organizations and labor unions. Crowds gathered and marched in Detroit, Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore.

Updated

US tallies 100,000 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday – a new record

As the nation awaits election results, more than 100,000 have tested positive for Covid-19, per the COVID Tracking Project.

Cases are surging in nearly every state, with major cities including Omaha, Nebraska pausing elective surgeries to free up staff and resources to treat coronavirus patients. Hospitals in Arkansas are facing shortages of healthcare workers and midwestern states including Minnesota and Indiana have set single-day records for new infections. South Dakota – where officials have not enacted a mask mandate – is seeing some fastest growth in the country for new cases, recording nearly 1000 new cases per day.

Trump's lead in Georgia shrinks

With more votes in populous, Democratic counties left to be counted, Donald Trump’s lead in Georgia has shrunk to 47,000 votes.

An employee of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections processes ballots in Atlanta, Georgia.
A worker processes ballots in Atlanta, Georgia. Photograph: Brandon Bell/Reuters

Fulton county said they will be announcing the results of 36,000 votes by midnight tonight – so far, 72% of voters in that county have favored Biden. If the trends hold, Biden is expected to pick up more votes by tonight.

Rick Barron, the Fulton county elections director, said they are bringing in “more bodies” to help the counting efforts.

Updated

Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh – reporting from the west coast.

The Trump campaign has filed a lawsuit seeking to pause the vote count in Georgia, the AP reports, as officials continue counting tens of thousands of ballots in the state.

“We’re trying to make sure every ballot is counted,” said Rick Barron, the Fulton County Elections Director. “We expect this to go probably around midnight or more.”

‘We’re going to finish tonight,” he added. “Whatever it takes.”

Many of the uncounted ballots are absentee votes cast in large counties including Fulton, Chatham, Cobb, and DeKalb. In Fulton, a burst pipe yesterday delayed the counting of 50,000 ballots.

Georgia’s 16 electoral votes are hanging in the balance as mail-in votes are processed. Joe Biden has been eating into Donald Trump’s lead as more absentee votes are counted. Fulton, which encompasses the state capital of Georgia, Atlanta, overwhelmingly favors Biden – so does DeKalb.

Overall, Biden is trailing Trump by about 1 point in Georgia.

Updated

Today so far

That’s it from me for now. I’m handing over the live blog to my west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, for the next few hours.

Here’s where the US presidential election stands:

  • Joe Biden is just six electoral votes away from becoming the next president of the United States. With his wins in the pivotal swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin, Biden has secured 264 electoral votes to Donald Trump’s 214 votes. The Democratic nominee needs to win just one more state to capture the White House.
  • The president’s reelection campaign launched a lawsuit against Pennsylvania, where Trump’s lead has steadily declined as more mail-in ballots are counted. The Trump campaign said it would sue to challenge an extension for counting Pennsylvania’s absentee ballots, which the supreme court previously upheld.
  • A protest of Trump supporters emerged at a Detroit vote-counting site. With echoes of the 2000 “Brooks Brothers riot” in Florida, the crowd called upon Michigan election officials to “stop the vote.” The AP called Michigan for Biden this evening.
  • Twitter flagged more of Trump’s tweets for pushing misinformation about the election results. The president shared a tweet thread this evening trying to “claim” multiple battleground states that he has not won. Obviously, those “claims” have no legal standing in a US election.

Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Journalists gather outside the White House after election day.
Journalists gather outside the White House after election day. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Donald Trump seems to be objecting to his legal team’s strategy for challenging his losses in Wisconsin and Michigan by demanding access to vote-counting sites.

“Our lawyers have asked for ‘meaningful access’, but what good does that do? The damage has already been done to the integrity of our system, and to the Presidential Election itself. This is what should be discussed!” Trump said in a new tweet.

The blog has gone over this many times, but there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the presidential election, and election officials in multiple battleground states have defended the integrity of their vote counts.

The president’s comment that “the damage has already been done” could signal Trump is starting to see the writing on the wall, as Joe Biden inches closer to 270 electoral votes.

Updated

The Guardian’s Kari Paul reports:

PayPal has apparently cut ties with MyMilitia, a social media platform connecting people who want to learn about and form armed militias around the US.

Someone posted on the site’s forum that PayPal “nuked” its donation account. The user said supporters can no longer donate to the group via the link on its website, which previously linked to its PayPal page and now leads to an empty error page.

The user who posted about the shut down said “we will be switching to a new method of donating soon.”

A spokesman told the Guardian an account banned on Paypal will also be banned from using Venmo, a money service owned by PayPal that has been floated by MyMilitia users as a possible donation alternative.

The removal marks the latest move in a battle to deplatform violent right wing groups. In another thread on the site, an alternative fundraising platform called “GiveSendGo” has raised more than $500,000 in legal defense funds for Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17 year old who shot multiple protesters in Wisconsin earlier this year and killed two. Rittenhouse’s bail has been set at $2m.

Crowdfunding platform GoFundMe removed fundraisers for Rittenhouse earlier this year for violating its policies. GiveSendGo, a Christian crowdfunding site, confirmed to the Guardian that hosting a fundraiser for a mass shooter does comply with its policies “as an acceptable campaign”.

Joe Biden, joined by Kamala Harris, speaks one day after Americans voted in the presidential election.
Joe Biden, joined by Kamala Harris, speaks one day after Americans voted in the presidential election. Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Joe Biden is not declaring victory in the presidential race ... but he is displaying a very high level of confidence by launching his transition website.

“The American people will determine who will serve as the next President of the United States. Votes are still being counted in several states around the country,” the website’s homepage, at buildbackbetter.com, says.

“The crises facing the country are severe — from a pandemic to an economic recession, climate change to racial injustice — and the transition team will continue preparing at full speed so that the Biden‑Harris Administration can hit the ground running on Day One.”

Although the Democratic nominee has emphasized every valid vote needs to be counted, his decision to launch a transition website is clearly meant to signal he views his declaration of victory as all but a formality at this point.

As a reminder, the Guardian is not yet declaring a winner in the presidential race. Biden still needs six more electoral votes to hit 270 and win the White House.

Updated

With Michigan in Joe Biden’s column, the Democratic nominee needs only one more state to hit 270 electoral votes and win the presidency.

Nevada seems like the most likely state to seal the race, given Biden currently holds a narrow lead there. Nevada is expected to provide an updated vote count tomorrow morning.

However, Biden has also been chipping away at Donald Trump’s lead in Georgia, and most of the votes left to be counted in the state come from Democratic-leaning counties. Stay tuned.

Updated

Biden flips Michigan

It’s official: the AP has declared Joe Biden to be the winner of Michigan and its 16 electoral votes, flipping another “blue wall” state away from Donald Trump.

The Democratic nominee’s electoral vote count now stands at 264, leaving him just six votes short of winning the presidency.

If Biden can maintain his lead in Nevada, he will hit 270 exactly, defeating Trump and becoming the 46th president of the United States.

Shortly after speaking in Wilmington this afternoon, Biden also expressed confidence about his chances of winning Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes, as the counting continues there.

Ellen Weintraub, a commissioner of the Federal Election Commission, weighed in on Donald Trump’s attempt to “claim” battleground states that remain too close to call.

And Weintraub confirmed that, no, he cannot do that. “That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works,” she said in a tweet.

Much to the president’s apparent chagrin, election officials in key swing states have pledged to count every valid vote cast by election day before finalizing their official results.

Updated

The Guardian’s Kari Paul reports from Oakland:

Twitter has quickly flagged several misleading tweets in which Donald Trump lies about his standing in states that have not yet declared a winner.

Trump said that he has “claimed, for Electoral Vote purposes”, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan. In case you need clarification, a candidate is not allowed to “claim” a state arbitrarily. A state is awarded to him or her based which candidate gets more votes. See also: how democracy works.

Michigan has been called by some outlets for Joe Biden, not Trump. While it appears Trump is ahead in the other states he mentioned – Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina – none of them have officially declared a winner.

Twitter placed its warning stating “official sources may not have called the race when this was tweeted” on the tweets almost immediately and prevented them from being retweeted without context.

After initially stating it would not stop candidates from declaring victory in individual states, but only if nationwide victory is prematurely declared, Facebook has apparently reversed its stance. It has begun to add labels to such posts stating that “the winner of the 2020 US presidential election has not yet been projected”.

It did so with Trump on Wednesday, placing labels on posts that that use the same language, claiming victory in four states where the winner has not yet been called, including one in which Biden is expected to win.

Updated

The White House has called a lid for the evening, meaning the president will not be making any public appearances for the rest of the day.

But Donald Trump has continued to tweet his baseless gripes about the election results, as Joe Biden inches toward the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

Meanwhile, the counting of valid ballots continues in several key battleground states that will determine the winner of the presidential race.

The Guardian’s tech reporter Kari Paul reports from Oakland:

Twitter placed a misinformation warning on a tweet from Donald Trump’s son declaring the president had won reelection in Pennsylvania — but not until after at least 14,000 people had retweeted it.

Eric Trump tweeted at 12:28 pm PST “We have won Pennsylvania!” despite the state’s presidential race having not been called yet.

Similarly the “Team Trump” account for Trump’s reelection campaign did not get a citation for tweeting “President Donald Trump wins Pennsylvania” before the race was called. That post was retweeted more than 13,000 times before it was labeled.

Twitter added a warning to both tweets saying “official sources may not have called the race when this was tweeted.” Twitter’s flagging of such tweets makes it so that users cannot share them without adding context, to slow the spread of misinformation.

Facebook has also been labeling posts from the president’s team declaring victory in Pennsylvania, where results still have not been finalized as the state continues to count ballots.

People react to the news of presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden winning Michigan, after Election Day in Washington.
People react to the news of Joe Biden winning Michigan, after election day in Washington. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters

No, he can’t do that. After multiple networks called Michigan for Joe Biden, Donald Trump shared a tweet thread saying he was establishing a “claim” on the battleground state, as well as Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, all of which remain too close to call.

“We have claimed, for Electoral Vote purposes, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (which won’t allow legal observers) the State of Georgia, and the State of North Carolina, each one of which has a BIG Trump lead,” Trump said in the thread.

“Additionally, we hereby claim the State of Michigan if, in fact ... there was a large number of secretly dumped ballots as has been widely reported!”

Fact-check: the president cannot unilaterally declare himself the winner of multiple battleground states with many votes still left to be counted. Also, the ballots being counted are valid votes cast by election day.

The vote-counting continues in all these battleground states, and the results of those counts will determine the winner of the presidential race – no “claims” necessary.

Updated

The Guardian’s Lois Beckett is at the TFC Center in Detroit, where more than a hundred Trump supporters have gathered, demanding to be let in to the office where the city’s final ballots are being counted.

Several other networks -- including Fox News, ABC News and NBC News -- have called Michigan for Joe Biden, but we await the official call from the AP.

The Guardian’s Nina Lakhani reports from Northampton county, Pennsylvania:

Donald Trump is throwing everything at Pennsylvania - the crucial swing state he won by just over 44,000 votes in 2016.

Trump’s team has just announced an appeal to the Supreme Court in an attempt to circumvent the state supreme court and stop mail-in ballots which arrive over the next few days from being counted. This happened shortly after his son falsely declared victory in Pennsylvania, where 20 precious electoral college votes are on the line.

Eric Trump and his wife Lara Trump arrive to hear Donald Trump speak in the East Room of the White House.
Eric Trump and his wife Lara Trump arrive to hear Donald Trump speak in the East Room of the White House. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Why? Because Trump’s lead in Pennsylvania has been steadily falling all day - it currently stands at about 320,000 compared to 600,000 this morning - with just under a million more votes, mostly mail-in ballots in urban centers like Alageny and Philadelphia counties, still to be counted.

“I feel very good about Pennsylvania, almost all the remaining votes to be counted are mail-in ballots, and we’ve been winning 78% of those,” Joe Biden said a few minutes ago at a press conference in Wilmington.

Biden is right: in Pennsylvania, Democrats returned almost three times as many mail-in votes as Republicans.

Worth noting that Biden has prevailed in pivotal Northampton county - which almost always votes for the presidential winner - but only by a whisker (less than 1%).

CNN has projected Joe Biden will win Michigan and its 16 electoral votes, further narrowing Donald Trump’s path to victory.

The Guardian is not yet calling the race because the AP has not declared Biden to be the winner in Michigan, but results show the Democratic nominee has pulled ahead in the crucial battleground state.

Joe Biden expressed optimism about his chances of victory, saying he was “confident we’ll emerge victorious” once every valid vote is counted.

The Democratic nominee emphasized that, despite the contentious nature of the race for the White House, the presidency “demands a duty of care for all Americans.”

“I will work as hard for those who didn’t vote for me as I will for those who did vote for me,” Biden said.

Pivoting to the election results, Biden emphasized “every vote must be counted.”

“We, the people will not be silenced,” Biden said, characterizing his potential win as “a victory for the American people.”

With that, Biden and Kamala Harris departed without taking questions from reporters.

Updated

Biden: 'When the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners'

Joe Biden is now addressing the nation from the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, appearing alongside Kamala Harris.

“My fellow Americans, yesterday once again proved democracy is the heartbeat of this nation,” Biden said.

The Democratic nominee said it was “clear” he would hit the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

“I‘m not here to declare that we won, but I am here to report that when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners,” Biden said.

The Guardian has not declared a winner in the presidential race because, as of now, neither nominee has reached 270 electoral votes. However, Biden does seem to have the clearer path to victory at this point.

Updated

As we wait for the final results from battleground states, Jonathan Freedland and David Smith run through the latest results from the presidential race.

Updated

Protest emerges at vote-counting site in Detroit

A protest of apparent Trump supporters has emerged at a vote-counting site in Detroit, where valid ballots continue to be counted.

As the protesters demanded access to the building to observe the vote count, they chanted, “Stop the vote.”

Election officials have pledged to count every valid ballot cast by election day in Michigan, where Joe Biden has pulled ahead to a narrow lead over Trump.

The scene in Detroit was reminiscent of the 2000 “Brooks Brothers riot,” which disrupted vote-counting in Florida as the presidential race remained too close to call for weeks after election day.

Updated

Joe Biden is expected to soon address the nation about the state of the presidential race in Wilmington, Delaware.

With Wisconsin being called for Biden and Michigan moving in his direction, the Democrat’s team has voiced optimism about the ultimate result.

Updated

Trump team falsely declares victory in Pennsylvania

Donald Trump’s re-election campaign is falsely declaring victory in the key swing state of Pennsylvania, which remains too close to call.

Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said on a press call: “We are declaring a victory in Pennsylvania.”

The president’s son echoed that message in a tweet:

Fact-check: Trump has not won Pennsylvania as of now, and more than 1m valid ballots must still be counted in the state.

Election analysts have said, based on the results seen so far, that Joe Biden is on track to win the state.

More importantly, Biden doesn’t necessarily need to win Pennsylvania for a victory in the presidential race. With Wisconsin in his column, Biden could hit 270 electoral votes by simply holding onto his leads in Nevada and Michigan.

Updated

Trump campaign says it is suing to halt vote-counting in Pennsylvania

Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has said it is also suing to halt vote-counting in Pennsylvania, after announcing a similar lawsuit in Michigan.

“Bad things are happening in Pennsylvania,” deputy campaign manager Justin Clark said in a statement. “Democrats are scheming to disenfranchise and dilute Republican votes. President Trump and his team are fighting to put a stop to it.”

There is no evidence Democrats are attempting to “disenfranchise” Republican voters. Pennsylvania election officials continue to count valid ballots cast by election day.

The Trump campaign said it would also sue to challenge the ruling upholding an extension to count Pennsylvania absentee ballots that were postmarked by election day.

“As the President has rightly said, the Supreme Court must resolve this crucial contested legal question, so President Trump’s Campaign is moving to intervene in the existing Supreme Court litigation over the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s unlawful extension of the mail-in ballot receipt deadline,” Clark said.

But the supreme court already rejected a request from Pennsylvania Republicans to overturn the extension last week.

Donald Trump’s allies are trying to push the claim that the president is on track to win Arizona, a state that the AP and Fox News have already called for Joe Biden.

Fox News has said its Decision Desk stands by its Arizona call, arguing the last batch of the state’s votes will not split the way Trump’s team insists it will.

Even election analysts who have not yet made a definitive call on Arizona have expressed skepticism that Trump could pull off a victory there.

It’s worth noting that Joe Biden’s current margin of victory in Wisconsin, in terms of raw vote count, is almost identical to Donald Trump’s margin there in 2016.

As of now, Biden leads Trump in Wisconsin by 20,517 votes.

In 2016, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin by 22,748 votes.

So Biden has clawed back at least one state in Democrats’ “blue wall,” but Wisconsin seems destined to have more extremely close presidential races in the years to come.

With Wisconsin in Joe Biden’s column, the Democratic nominee could win the election solely by holding onto his leads in Nevada and Michigan.

If Biden won both Nevada and Michigan after securing Wisconsin, his electoral vote count would be 270, the exact number needed to capture the White House.

Michigan officials continue to count valid ballots, although Donald Trump’s reelection campaign said it has filed a lawsuit to “halt counting” in the state.

Nevada is expected to provide an update on its vote count tomorrow morning.

Election officials count absentee ballots in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Election officials count absentee ballots in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has already said it will “immediately” call for a recount in Wisconsin.

However, with Joe Biden ahead by more than 20,000 votes in Wisconsin, a recount is unlikely to change the final result in the state.

Even the president’s allies, like former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, have said they think the state is definitively lost for Trump.

Updated

Biden wins Wisconsin

The AP has called Wisconsin and its 10 electoral college votes for Joe Biden. It is the second state to be flipped from Republican to Democrat, following the call of Arizona for the Democratic nominee early this morning. (Biden has also flipped the lone electoral vote from Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district.)

Meagan Wolfe, the administrator of the Wisconsin elections commission, said in a briefing that the state believed it had all unofficial results, except for a small township of 300 people. (Biden currently leads by about 20,000 votes.)

The announcement from Wisconsin aligns with the Biden campaign’s statements that they are optimistic the race is moving in their direction. Biden’s electoral vote count is now up to 248, meaning he will win the election if he can maintain his leads in Nevada and Michigan.

Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has already said it will “immediately” call for a recount in Wisconsin, but given the margin in the race, a recount is unlikely to change the final result.

Earlier today the Democratic chair in the state, Ben Wikler, had a tweet labelled as misleading by Twitter when he claimed the state had been won by Biden at around 7:20am ET.

Incidentally Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has said they expect an unofficial vote count by the end of the day. The state is, she said, still counting “tens of thousands” of ballots.

CNN has projected Joe Biden will win Wisconsin and its 10 electoral votes.

The Guardian goes by AP’s race calls, so we are not yet declaring a winner in the state, but the news is certainly a good sign for Biden’s chances of victory.

Updated

Advisers to Donald Trump’s reelection campaign -- including the president’s son, Eric Trump -- will hold a press conference in Philadelphia in about an hour, as Pennsylvania remains too close to call.

“Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. will host a press conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with Eric Trump, Trump 2020 Senior Advisor Lara Trump, Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, and campaign Senior Advisor Corey Lewandowski at 3:30 pm EST,” the campaign said in a press release.

The campaign made no mention of Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, joining the press conference, but he said he was also headed to Philadelphia.

Quick fact-check on Giuliani’s tweet: there is no evidence of “massive cheating” in Pennsylvania or any other battleground state.

There is also no evidence that Pennsylvania Democrats are trying to “steal” the race. Election officials in the state continue to count valid ballots cast by election day.

Trump campaign files lawsuit to 'halt counting' in Michigan

Donald Trump’s reelection campaign said it had filed a lawsuit to halt the counting of ballots in the swing state of Michigan.

“President Trump’s campaign has not been provided with meaningful access to numerous counting locations to observe the opening of ballots and the counting process, as guaranteed by Michigan law. We have filed suit today in the Michigan Court of Claims to halt counting until meaningful access has been granted,” campaign manager Bill Stepien said in a statement.

“We also demand to review those ballots which were opened and counted while we did not have meaningful access. President Trump is committed to ensuring that all legal votes are counted in Michigan and everywhere else.”

Joe Biden has narrowly pulled ahead in Michigan, giving him the advantage in the key swing state, but many ballots still need to be counted.

And it’s official: Republican Susan Collins of Maine has won reelection to the US Senate, the AP announced.

Democrats have almost no path to a Senate majority at this point. They would have to win at least three of the five remaining uncalled races and take the White House to flip the chamber.

Of the five remaining uncalled races, Democrats have a very slim advantage in Michigan, and Republicans are ahead in Alaska and North Carolina.

At least one of the Georgia Senate races is headed to a January runoff, but Democrats would likely have to force the other Georgia Senate race to a runoff to have even a glimmer of a chance of taking the majority.

Here are some of our favorite photographs from election night:

Trump wins lone electoral vote in Maine's 2nd congressional district

Donald Trump has won the lone electoral vote from Maine’s 2nd congressional district, while Joe Biden has carried the state overall.

Although the victory is obviously positive for the president, it matters a bit less because Biden flipped the lone electoral vote in Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district.

Susan Collins announced her Democratic challenger, Sara Gideon, had conceded the race while speaking to supporters in Bangor, Maine.

“I have news for everyone,” the Republican senator told the crowd. “I just received a very gracious call from Sara Gideon conceding the race.”

Collins will serve another six years in the Senate, making her the first senator this cycle to win reelection as her state voted for the opposing party’s presidential nominee.

Collins says Gideon called her to concede in Maine Senate race

Republican incumbent Susan Collins said her Democratic opponent, Sara Gideon, called her to concede in the Maine Senate race.

The AP has not yet made the official call in the race, but a Collins victory would essentially guarantee Republicans will maintain control of the Senate.

Gideon’s loss is a particularly hard one for Democrats, given the party saw Collins’ seat as a relatively easy pick-up opportunity.

House minority leader Kevin McCarthy downplayed concerns about Donald Trump baselessly alleging “fraud” in the presidential election and declaring victory with no results to back that up.

“What the president wants to make sure is that every legal vote is counted,” McCarthy said.

The California Republican went on to express concern about people casting ballots after election day, even though there is absolutely no evidence that is happening.

“The American people have a voice. I know the pollsters were wrong, just like they were wrong four years ago,” McCarthy said.

The House leader also expressed confidence Trump would be reelected, even as results in Michigan and Wisconsin move away from the president.

“I think at the end of the day the president will be reelected for four more years,” McCarthy said.

Trump campaign says it will 'immediately' request recount in Wisconsin

Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is demanding a recount in Wisconsin, as results show Joe Biden leading there by about 20,000 votes.

“There have been reports of irregularities in several Wisconsin counties which raise serious doubts about the validity of the results,” campaign manager Bill Stepien said in a statement. “The President is well within the threshold to request a recount and we will immediately do so.”

There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the presidential race, and Meagan Wolfe, the administrator of the Wisconsin elections commission, applauded the state’s handling of the election in a briefing moments ago.

Although Trump may request a recount, it is unlikely to change the final result in Wisconsin with a margin as high as 20,000. Even Trump’s allies, like former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, have said a recount is unlikely to flip the state.

Updated

As battleground states continue to count their ballots, the president continues to air his baseless grievances over Twitter.

“They are working hard to make up 500,000 vote advantage in Pennsylvania disappear — ASAP. Likewise, Michigan and others!” Donald Trump said in a new tweet.

Just to reiterate, there is absolutely no evidence of fraud or collusion among election officials in the presidential race.

The results are moving away from Trump because states like Wisconsin and Michigan are counting absentee ballots, which are leaning toward Joe Biden, after tabulating in-person votes.

Twitter quickly added a misinformation label on Trump’s tweets, as the social media giant has now done for several of the president’s messages today.

We are still waiting on more results from Pennsylvania, but here’s a spot of bright news for Joe Biden: he appears to have built upon Hillary Clinton’s 2016 advantage in Scranton.

The Democratic nominee was born in Scranton and repeatedly visited the city in the final weeks before election day.

This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam after trying (and failing) to sleep for a few hours.

The AP has not yet called the swing state of Wisconsin, but Joe Biden remains ahead of Donald Trump by about 20,000 votes.

The president could request a recount of the Wisconsin results, but it would be unlikely to alter the result with that kind of margin, as Scott Walker, the state’s former Republican governor, noted.

The president of the United States of America is again tweeting to complain that votes are being counted.

In a US election, it is the regular custom to continue counting until every legally cast ballot is tallied.

Here’s those possible paths to victory in graphic from, first for Joe Biden:

And this is for Trump

It looks like the Wisconsin result is coming very soon:

Wisconsin is a microcosm for America, and that continues to hold true as results continue to roll in. While officials wait for returns of primarily absentee and same-day registered ballots from remaining cities like Green Bay and Madison, the point remains the same for week: Racism, not just race, drives voters to the polls in the Midwest.

Youth voter turnout in Wisconsin, especially in cities like Milwaukee and Kenosha could be key to a Joe Biden victory, and bring him closer to the 270 electoral college points needed to win the presidency. As he cast his ballot in his north Milwaukee district, state representative David Bowen said credit must be given where it’s due: activists and Black Lives Matter.

“Donald Trump made a conscious decision to make an enemy of an entire movement for Black lives, going as far to use his authority and justice department not only to excuse law enforcement accountability but to target those within the movement,” he told me has he arrived at his north Milwaukee polling station to vote, just 30 minutes before polls closed.

“We’ll see if he receives the repercussions of making that decision,” he added.

As racial justice protests ignited throughout the state following the killing of George Floyd by police in neighboring Minnesota, and then accelerated by the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, America’s most segregated city took sides. We’re seeing the same stark contrast of a deep blue city surrounded by bright red suburbs amplified in 2020, thanks to the president and Republicans capitalizing on racism and fear in the suburbs.

Meanwhile, Bowen said it was activists speaking to and for the city. Many worked to turn their activism into advocacy for the Democrats, who had their work cut out for them after pivoting their national convention from the city to online.

“That would be what we should take away from this election,” he said. “We’re seeing turnout reach records, especially of younger demographics that are the main groups out here protesting in the streets.

“They’re out there making their voices heard and the power of their vote felt on this president that made a target out of them”.

Joe Biden receives more votes than any other presidential candidate in history

Joe Biden raises a fist as he delivers remarks after early results from the 2020 U.S. presidential election in Wilmington, Delaware.
Joe Biden raises a fist as he delivers remarks after early results from the 2020 U.S. presidential election in Wilmington, Delaware. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters

Joe Biden has become the presidential candidate to receive the most votes in a US election in history – with many ballots yet to be counted.

His current tally of 69,759,833 surpasses the 69,498,516 amassed by Barack Obama in 2008, the previous record. The total is already more than 3.9 million higher than the number of votes secured by Hillary Clinton in 2016 when she won the popular vote but lost the presidency to Donald Trump.

Trump’s total so far – 67,160,663 – is also more than he polled in 2016, and more than Obama polled in 2012. It places Trump third on the all-time list.

It is an indication of how high turn-out has been, with more than 100m Americans casting their ballots early.

Despite Biden’s achievement, the election remains too close to call due to the electoral college system. Both campaigns say they believe that their candidate will ultimately end up in the White House.

Updated

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is holding a news conference to talk about his personal election win and the balance of the US Senate – as well as the broader race.

He has said “We don’t know who won the presidential race yet.”

If you’ll forgive me a second for appealing to the more media/politics nerds among you, the Associated Press (AP) has just posted an exhaustive alphabetical list of why it has – or hasn’t – called each state for either Trump or Biden.

Brian Slodysko writes:

The Associated Press is not calling the presidential race yet because neither candidate has secured the 270 electoral college votes needed to claim victory.

Republican President Donald Trump spoke at the White House early Wednesday and claimed victories in several states that were still too early to call, saying, “Frankly, we did win this election” over Democrat Joe Biden. His assertion of victory does not match the results and information currently available to the AP. Trump said he would take the election to the Supreme Court, but it was unclear on what legal grounds.

Trump or Biden would need 270 electoral votes to win. Several key states are too early to call, including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan.

Read it here: Explaining race calls – Presidential race too early to call

As I mentioned earlier, the Guardian uses the data collected and analysed by the Associated Press (AP) as the source for when we will call election results. They have a team of thousands of specialists and correspondents across America, who have trusted relationships with local officials. This will guide their data-led assessment of when it’s time to call a race.

There are a number of other highly reputable election “decision desks” in US media. They may call races earlier than AP. While we might report this is happening, we will rely on AP’s data to make our own final call. And that’s why we’ve currently got the tally at 238-213 as we wait for the last seven states to be called.

Updated

Also on a legal front with mail-in ballots, the United States Postal Service (USPS) says that it has completed sweeps of mail processing facilities for late ballots that had been demanded by a judge. It had earlier said it could not meet an afternoon deadline to complete the checks, a spokesman for the agency said.

US District Judge Emmet Sullivan on Tuesday had ordered the sweep in response to lawsuits by groups including Vote Forward, the NAACP, and Latino community advocates. Reuters report that USPS data showed as of Sunday about 300,000 ballots that were received for mail processing did not have scans confirming their delivery to election authorities.

Here’s an update on one of the lawsuits coming out of the election. A federal judge in Pennsylvania has this afternoon weighed arguments by Republicans seeking to stop a suburban Philadelphia county from counting mail-in and absentee ballots that voters had been permitted to correct.

Reuters report that US District Judge Timothy Savage in Philadelphia appeared skeptical of arguments by the plaintiffs’ lawyer, which lawyers for Montgomery County election officials and the Democratic National Committee said could disenfranchise voters.

Thomas Breth, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, likened the case to the 2000 election, when the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore settled a dispute over vote-counting in Florida.

Savage, however, questioned Breth on the fairness of blocking voters from correcting mistakes on their ballots.

“So what happens to my vote?” the judge asked.

Breth said it could be “potentially disqualified.”

“But I was never given the opportunity” to fix it, Savage responded. “I am losing my vote.”

Election officials countered that there was no equal protection violation, and accused the plaintiffs of filing a last-minute lawsuit to undermine voters’ right to vote.

“No one is changing their ballot. No one is voting twice,” said Michele Hangley, a lawyer for the election officials.

County officials estimated that only 49 votes were at issue in the lawsuit, while the plaintiffs estimated 1,200.

The Pennsylvania lawsuit had been filed by Kathy Barnette, a conservative political commentator projected to lose her race for a House seat in the state’s 4th Congressional district, and Clay Breece, chairman of the Republican Committee in Berks County.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf says 'we may not know the results even today'

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has been giving a press conference. He said that the electoral system in the state is working. He added:

There are millions of mail-in ballots that are being counted. And that takes longer than the standard in person voting. So we may not know the results even today. But the most important thing is that we have accurate results. Again, even if that takes a little longer than we are used to.

He also said:

Pennsylvania will have a fair election. And that election will be free of outside influences. I will vigorously, and we all will vigorously defend against any attempt to attack that vote in Pennsylvania. Every Pennsylvania can have confidence in the outcome of this election.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar confirmed the state is approaching 50% of mail ballots counted and vowed that every vote will be tallied before results are announced.

There are still millions of ballots left to be counted. There are 10 times the number of mail ballots this year as in 2016. We are going to count every single ballot.

Updated

Matt Mackowiak’s tweet from around 90 minutes ago, which claims that there was an upload of data in Michigan that gave Biden 100% of the new votes added, has been widely shared in Republican circles.

Mackowiak is a former press secretary to US Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

It has now come to the attention of the president, who has added his commentary ‘WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT’ to it.

Twitter have just now added the label that an earlier Trump tweet from half hour ago as misleading. In the tweet, Trump said:

Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the “pollsters” got it completely & historically wrong!

Trump campaign: we will win Arizona by 30,000 votes despite it being called for Biden

Well, that’s cleared up then…

The Trump campaign believe that Arizona has been called too early for Biden.

Here’s a recap on what Joe Biden needs to do to be assured of victory:

Biden had many paths to find his remaining 32 electoral votes. His most likely path lay through the Great Lakes states, where Pennsylvania and Michigan combined would net 36 votes.

Without Pennsylvania, Biden could win by winning Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada, where he held a clear but narrow lead. A Biden victory in either of the two reddest states in the mix – Georgia or North Carolina – would almost certainly foretell wins elsewhere and a Biden victory.

And what Trump needs:

The simplest way for Trump to find the 54 electoral votes he needs would be to win Pennsylvania and at least three other states. If he does not win Pennsylvania, Trump must make a clean sweep of all five remaining states to get to 270.

Trump complains again about mail-in ballot counting

Republicans on social media have been raising issues about the way in which late count ballots are falling in Joe Biden’s favor. Donald Trump Jr has retweeted this claim:

The president has now weighed in:

CNN’s fact-checker Daniel Dale had this to say almost immediately:

Democrats: 'Results indicate we are on a clear path to victory this afternoon'

In a live address Joe Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon has said Joe Biden is on course to become the next president of the US. She said:

We believe we are in a clear path to victory by this afternoon, we expect that the vice president will have leads in states that put him over 270 electoral votes today. The vice president will garner more votes than any presidential candidate in history, and we’re still counting. He has won over 50% of the popular vote. We are on track to win in Michigan by more than Donald Trump did in 2016. To win in Wisconsin by more than Trump did in 2016. To win in Pennsylvania by more than Trump did in 2016. And we flipped one of his states, Arizona.

She went on to say:

Let’s be extremely clear about something, if Donald Trump got his wish and we stopped counting ballots right now, vice president Joe Biden would be the next president of the United States.

Updated

The Democratic party are about to broadcast what they are calling a ‘Election protection briefing’. Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon and former Counsel to president Barack Obama Bob Bauer will be talking shortly.

Here’s the state of play – excuse the pun – in the states that have not yet been declared for one candidate or the other. We are expecting results from at least Wisconsin and Michigan later today. The others may take a little longer.

Current state of uncalled states
Current state of uncalled states Photograph: The Guardian

See our full live results service here:

Charlie Kirk, the co-founder of Turning Point USA, with his finger on quite the Republican dilemma at the moment.

There’s literally a lawsuit going on in Pennsylvania right now [see 9:34/2:34] where Republicans are seeking to get a load of ballots tossed out while Trump is in the lead, but for Arizona, Kirk is keen to portray to his followers that it is only ‘activist media’ calling the race as over, and that clearly, counting should continue.

Which of course, it should do – in both places – until every vote cast in good faith is counted.

This could end up being a much worse night for polling than 2016, which is pretty remarkable.

That’s Josh Jordan on just how far out the results are turning out to be from the polls in the crucial states.

I’ll give the pollsters a slight “get out of jail free” card on some of those, because they usually caveat their numbers with a margin or error of around 3% or 4%. That means technically they can argue that North Carolina, Georgia, Minnesota and Arizona were still within the ballpark.

But still, I couldn’t help but notice this comment earlier, too.

House minority leader Kevin McCarthy has these words for Nancy Pelosi…

We already knew there were going to be lawsuits, right? One is being heard in Pennsylvania right now.

Here’s that background from yesterday:

A pair of Republicans in Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit on Tuesday claiming that election officials in Montgomery County, a suburban area just outside of Philadelphia, have unlawfully counted mail-in ballots before Election Day and only contacted some of the whose ballots have been found deficient to correct them before polls close.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by Kathy Barnette, a Republican congressional candidate, and Clay Breece, the chairman of the Berks County Republican Party.

Their argument is, they say in a statement, that local officials have been “providing the electors submitting ballots that are found to be deficient an opportunity to re-vote on or before 3 November” rather than tossing the votes out. They maintain that the officials should not have been looking at them ahead of the election in order to try and spot problems.

Lauren Boebert, the candidate who has previously expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, is, as expected, going to be joining her Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives.

The Philadelphia City Commissioners live stream of the count being carried out in the crucial state of Pennsylvania is now into its twenty-third hour of running. It’s oddly therapeutic and reassuring seeing that, well, something is happening, as we wait and wait…

Philadelphia City Commissioners live count stream.

AP running vote tally shows Biden holds a narrow lead in Michigan for first time

There’s movement in the numbers in Michigan. Biden is shown to be ahead for the first time.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that the Democratic nominee overtaking Trump in states where the president had been seen to be leading is going to be at the crux of any grievance.

It happened the other way round in some states that eventually were called for the incumbent. I doubt we will hear many complaints that was unfair from Republican voices.

What we know so far…

I suspect that most of you clicking on this live blog have one main question: “When will we know who has won?”

I wish I had a simple answer.

Joe Biden has already amassed the second highest number of counted votes of any candidate ever in a US presidential election, and leads Donald Trump by some 2.3 million ballots. And yet, because of the electoral college system, the election remains too close to call.

Here’s some of what we do know:

  • So far Joe Biden has 238 electoral votes and Donald Trump has 213; a candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
  • Even though there are battlegrounds yet to be called, and Trump is behind in the popular vote, Trump has baselessly claimed victory. He has also claimed without evidence that there has been a “fraud on the American public” and threatened to challenge results at the supreme court.
  • Election officials in Wisconsin are expected to announce results on Wednesday. Michigan also seems confident they will have a result mid-afternoon today. However Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania may need several days to complete counting. Absentee ballots that have not yet been counted are expected to mainly skew towards Biden.
  • Biden has been declared the winner of Arizona and its 11 electoral votes, limiting Trump’s path to victory. With Arizona in his column, Biden could potentially afford to lose Pennsylvania and still win the election if he carries Wisconsin and Michigan.
  • But even then, there may be recounts and legal challenges to any results in crucial states.
  • Trump has won Florida with its 29 electoral college votes, dealing a blow to Biden.
  • Biden addressed supporters shortly after Florida was called for Trump, saying, “I believe we’re on track to win this election.” Speaking in Delaware, he said, “We knew this was going to be long,” but “we feel good about where we are.”
  • A Democratic drive to win control of the Senate appeared to fall short, with Democrats picking up only one Republican-held seat while six other races remained undecided early on Wednesday.
  • Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley have each won re-election to the House, although overall Republicans have made gains against the Democratic majority there.
  • The US is on course to record the highest voter turnout in over a century. More than 101m people voted early: the equivalent of 73% of the total votes cast in 2016, according to the US Elections Project. Experts predict the total turnout could ultimately be as high as 67%.

States called so far

  • Polls have closed in all 50 states and results have been called in 39 states so far.
  • States to have been called so far for Biden include Arizona, Minnesota, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington State.
  • Those called for Trump include Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.

Updated

Twitter has labelled a tweet about the results in Wisconsin from the local Democratic party chair as misleading. AT 7:21ET this morning, Ben Wikler tweeted that:

Green Bay and Kenosha results are in. Biden is now up in Wisconsin by roughly 20,600 votes. That number could wobble a bit, but there’s no realistic path for Trump to pull ahead. Biden has won more votes any prez candidate in WI history. Folks: Joe Biden just won Wisconsin.

That contravenes Twitters stated rule about candidates or officials declaring results before there is what Twitter consider to be a finalised official call.

Incidentally, it may be worth reminding you how we are calling states and races as wins on this live blog and on our live results tracker. We will be using data collected and analysed by the Associated Press (AP) as the source.

AP has a team of thousands of specialists and correspondents across America, who have trusted relationships with local officials. This will guide their data-led assessment of when it’s time to call a race.

There are a number of other highly reputable election “decision desks” in US media. They may call races earlier than AP. While the Guardian may report this is happening, we will rely on AP’s data to make our own final call. That may also explain why you might be seeing different totals on TV outlets to the 238-213 current lead we are showing for Joe Biden in the electoral college.

And to be clear agin, the only measure of victory in a US election is a complete count of all outstanding ballots.

Dan Balz at the Washington Post has written a scathing attack on Donald Trump’s speech last night.

For four years, President Trump has sought to undermine the institutions of a democratic society, but never so blatantly as in the early morning hours of Wednesday. His attempt to falsely claim victory and to subvert the election itself by calling for a halt to vote-counting represents the gravest of threats to the stability of the country.

Millions of votes remain to be counted, votes cast legally under the laws of the states. Until they are all counted, the outcome of the election remains in doubt. Either he or former vice president Joe Biden could win an electoral college majority, but neither has yet done so, no matter what he says. Those are the facts, for which the president shows no respect.

A president who respected the Constitution would let things play out. But Trump has shown once again he cares not about the Constitution or the stability and well-being of the country or anything like that. He cares only about himself and retaining the powers he now holds.

Balz also reserves some particular ire for the man standing next to Trump while he gave that speech.

Notably, Vice President Pence would not fully embrace what the president said. Notably, Pence would not directly contradict or challenge the president. His loyalty will not allow him to do what he knows is right, which is to call out the wrong in the man he serves.

Read more here: Washington Post – Trump has attacked democracy’s institutions, but never so blatantly as he did overnight

This is the first race call we’ve had through for a while. Democrat Donald McEachin has been reelected to the House by the people of Virginia.

We were getting ready for a big celebration. We were winning everything. And all of a sudden it was just called off. Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight. And a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people, and we won’t stand for it. We will not stand for it.

Those were president Donald Trump’s words last night. By contrast, Joe Biden said “We feel good about where we are. We really do.”

Here’s a reminder of the very different reactions last night of the two men vying for the White House.

A short but sweet analysis boiled down to tweet from NPR here:

In the piece by Domenico Montanaro itself, these two points leap out:

A win is a win, if Biden is able to pull it off. But the country remains hotly divided and polarized, and given Democrats are unlikely to take back the Senate and their unexpected losses in the House, he would hardly have the ability to get much through Congress.

And 2016 wasn’t a fluke. With the swing of white voters without college degrees firmly to Trump’s camp, the Blue Wall that Democrats have relied on for decades — and that Trump knocked down in 2016 — is far too fragile to rely on. Meanwhile, the diversifying Sun Belt states are changing the map.

Oh, and this one too:

For the seventh time in the past eight presidential elections, a Democrat will likely win the popular vote.

Read more here: NPR – 6 takeaways from election night 2020

There are four states now where the number of votes left to count is getting down to 10% or less: Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan. Of these, Trump holds a decent lead in Georgia and North Carolina.

Wisconsin and Michigan are much, much tighter. In Michigan, Trump leads by just 13,057, and there are around 540,000 votes still to be counted.

In Wisconsin, Biden has the edge by 20,748, with 173,000 votes remaining to be counted.

Nevada, Pennsylvania and Alaska are also uncalled, but will take much longer to come in.

You can keep up with the latest figures here:

Former Trump adviser John Bolton calls president's election comments 'a disgrace'

A rapprochement between Donald Trump and his former senior adviser John Bolton has seemed off the cards for a while, and Bolton won’t have made it any likelier with his comments on British television this morning.

Speaking to Kay Burley on Sky News, the hawkish Bolton, who served as Trump’s National Security Advisor, said:

I feel pretty unhappy this morning. I think the comments president Trump made a few hours ago, where he basically said that he was winning, had won, but now the election would be stolen from him, were some of the most irresponsible comments that a president of the United States has ever made. We don’t know what the outcome will be. It’s entirely possible Trump could win, but he has cast doubt on the integrity of the entire electoral process, purely for his own personal advantage. It’s a disgrace.

Updated

Nate Cohn over at the New York Times has this analysis of where Pennsylvania may be heading:

President Trump leads by nearly 700,000 votes in Pennsylvania as of 5am ET on Wednesday, and Joe Biden’s chances depend on whether he can win a large percentage of the more than 1.4 million absentee ballots that remain to be counted.

So far, Biden has won absentee voters in Pennsylvania, 78 percent to 21 percent, according to the Secretary of State’s office. The results comport with the findings of pre-election surveys and an analysis of absentee ballot requests, which all indicated that Biden held an overwhelming lead among absentee voters.

If Biden won the more than 1.4 million absentee votes by such a large margin, he would net around 800,000 votes — enough to overcome his deficit statewide. Of course, there’s no guarantee that Mr. Biden will win the remaining absentee vote by quite so much.

Paths to victory remain for both Biden and Trump – but Biden has more

Paths to victory remain in the US presidential race for both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, but Biden has more ways to win and appears to be running stronger state-to-state based on the places – cities, mainly – where large absentee votes have yet to be counted.

Biden leads the current electoral tally 238-213. Adding Alaska for Trump – which had not been called but where the result is not in doubt– gives the president 216.

From there, six states remained to be called as Wednesday dawned in the United States: Nevada, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. A final electoral vote, in the second district of Maine, which splits its electoral votes, could fall for either candidate.

Trump’s paths

The simplest way for Trump to find the 54 electoral votes he needs would be to win Pennsylvania and at least three other states. If he does not win Pennsylvania, Trump must make a clean sweep of all five remaining states to get to 270.

But a huge Democratic vote share remained to be tallied in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, meaning Trump could have difficulty hanging on to a narrow lead gained elsewhere in the state. Elsewhere, including in Wisconsin and Michigan, Trump appeared to be in even deeper trouble, in Wisconsin because he was losing with most of the vote counted, and in Michigan because the outstanding vote was heavily Democratic.

Biden’s paths

Biden had many paths to find his remaining 32 electoral votes. His most likely path lay through the Great Lakes states, where the combination of just Pennsylvania and Michigan would net 36 votes. Lacking Pennsylvania, Biden could win by holding down Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada, where he held a clear but narrow lead. A Biden victory in either of the two reddest states in the mix – Georgia or North Carolina – would almost certainly foretell wins elsewhere and a Biden victory.

CNN’s John Harwood speaks for more than a few of us in the media with this observation.

Here’s an update on those figures coming through in Wisconsin. It is going to be a nail-biter.

Gabe Gutierrez has been reporting from the state for Today, and he says:

We have spoken with voters over the past couple of days, they say the coronavirus pandemic obviously is a huge issue in Wisconsin, with a dramatic rise in cases here. Also another huge issue: law and order. We spoke with many Trump supporters of the last several days that say that his campaign message of law and order has resonated with him, especially in the Kenosha, Wisconsin area.

Even if we get a call soon that Wisconsin has gone one way or another, that is unlikely to be the end of it.

The Democrats put some campaigning effort into Texas right at the end. Kamala Harris visited, and Mike Bloomberg ploughed a load of advertising cash into a state that hadn’t been blue since it voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976. And the result is …

FiveThirtyEight’s Laura Bronner is bring her understatement A-game to the table about Michigan.

Amber Phillips at the Washington Post has this assessment of what has been a disappointing night for the Democrats’ hopes of taking control of the senate. She writes:

Even though a few key races are outstanding, Senate Republicans are positioned well to keep their Senate majority. Democrats’ likeliest path to take back the Senate majority is to net four Senate seats, or three and win the White House so the vice president can cast the tie-breaking vote. So far, they’ve netted zero.

On election night, Democrats won one in Colorado by unseating Sen. Cory Gardner. But that was immediately offset by losing Sen. Doug Jones in Alabama. Democrats look on track to pick up another seat in Arizona. But that still leaves them at least two seats short.

And with relative ease on election night, Senate Republicans closed Democrats’ path to pick up those seats. Steve Daines held on and won reelection in Montana. Joni Ernst was reelected in Iowa. Those are two toss-up races that Democrats had managed to make competitive with strong candidates and strong fundraising despite the red-lean of these states. But they couldn’t get their Democratic candidates over the top.

Read more here: Washington Post – Democrats did not have the night they hoped for in the battle for the Senate

Jake Sherman, who writes for the Politico website that covers events in DC, has been rather more blunt about it all…

Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s Secretary of State, has posted to reassure voters that all of their ballots will be counted. She says “Hundreds of thousands of ballots in our largest jurisdictions are still being counted, including Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint, Warren & Sterling Heights.”

Michigan has about 10% of its votes left to count – some 539,000. Trump currently has a lead of 12,526.

It’s not just who ends up in the White House or the Senate or the House that was voted on yesterday. There were plenty of state-level decisions made. CNN wraps up some of those, including that:

  • Louisiana voters approved a constitutional amendment limiting abortion protections.
  • Colorado voters rejected a ban on abortion beginning at 22 weeks of pregnancy.
  • Arizona, New Jersey, South Dakota voted to legalize recreational marijuana.

Trump’s path to retaining Wisconsin looks like it is getting more difficult as we head towards the back-end of the count.

Hi, it’s Martin Belam taking over for Tom McCarthy here. I’ll be with you for the next few hours. If you want to quickly get up to speed with where we are on the presidential elections and the race for the Senate and the House, then we have a ‘What we know so far about the 2020 election’ piece which lays it all out.

And if you want to hear what Guardian journalists think about the results so far, and what might come next, then we’ve got an online panel discussion later today. My colleagues Jonathan Freedland, Kenya Evelyn, David Smith and Sarah Churchwell will be taking part. It starts at 2pm in New York, which is 7pm in London. You can find out more details and book tickets here.

For people wondering why some outlets show fewer electoral votes for Biden than we show, the discrepancy appears to arise – depending on where else you are looking – from Arizona, which the Associated Press, which we use, has called for Biden but which some outlets have not called.

The secretary of state in Nevada says they won’t be posting a further count until Thursday morning, but the newshounds are going to be digging hard to get numbers before that:

Biden holds a narrow lead in the state, where voters have a week to “cure” their signatures if needed – meaning to confirm their vote if they forgot to sign or if their signature seems not to match voter files.

The race might not come down to Nevada, if Biden can find a couple victories elsewhere. But at this rate, Thursday morning could potentially not find Nevada in last place for reporting.

In the middle of a pandemic, the United States comes up with its highest turnout in presidential election since 1900, percentage-wise.

But women did not have the right to vote then and less than 20% of the population actually participated in that election. Here we are closer to 50% of the entire population – not just registered voters. Astounding.

Hillary Clinton garnered 2.87m more votes than Donald Trump in 2016. This time around, Joe Biden has expanded his lead in the popular tally to 2.2m votes – and it appears to have quite a ways to grow yet.

How that lead will overlay the electoral college is another matter, but Biden looks to be doing better than Clinton in that regard as well, with a clear path to victory as the vote comes in.

It’s not over until all the votes are counted, but Trump at this point would have to pull off some impressive vote shares in urban and exurban areas of Michigan and Pennsylvania to keep those states in his column.

Bywater neighbors watch the election results from Vaughan’s Lounge in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Bywater neighbors watch the election results from Vaughan’s Lounge in New Orleans, Louisiana. Photograph: Emily Kask/AFP/Getty Images
People colour in an electoral map during a US presidential election watch party at the US embassy in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia.
People colour in an electoral map during a US presidential election watch party at the US embassy in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. Photograph: Byambasuren Byamba-Ochir/AFP/Getty Images
People watch election results in Times Square in New York.
People watch election results in Times Square in New York. Photograph: Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images

Summary

We have buttoned up our previous election blog, but to get a sense of how the night unfolded (if you did not stay up) you can find it here.

As for where things stand, the presidential race is too close to call, with results in Wisconsin expected in the coming hours but other states – Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan – potentially taking days to complete their counts.

The Biden campaign has rebuked Trump for his “outrageous” false claim that he had won the election, an asserted also repudiated by state Republican party leaders across the country.

Biden said he’s “on track to win this election” and “we’re feeling good about where we are.” He called for patience as the remaining votes are counted.

Election day overall was largely free of the kind of civil unrest that was feared, but the Trump campaign was calling on supporters to “defend” the election and uncertain days lay ahead.

The Republicans looked to pick up a handful of seats in the House of Representatives, with Democrats holding the majority. Control of the senate was up in the air, but the Democratic path appeared narrow.

Updated

Don’t wait up on Nevada, says Jon Ralston, who knows whereof he speaks:

Hello and welcome to our continuing coverage of the US presidential election. As you will have gathered, it’s a close one. Multiple states are still counting ballots and it could be days before we know the result.

We’re waiting on a possible call in the presidential race in Wisconsin, where Biden held a narrow lead with a small number of absentee ballots left to count.

The race currently stands at 238 electoral votes for Biden to 213 for Trump, with six battleground states outstanding. If Biden can hang on to a narrow lead in Nevada, and seal the deal in Wisconsin, a win in Georgia (16 electoral votes), Michigan (16) or Pennsylvania (20) – brings him victory. North Carolina, with 15 electoral votes, is also still out.

To explore how the numbers work, check out our interactive “build your own election” tool:

Democrats encountered frustration elsewhere on Tuesday, conceding some ground they had gained in the House of Representatives, although retaining a firm majority in that body. Control of the senate was up in the air, though the path to a Democratic majority appeared narrow.

Updated

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