NEW YORK,: Former US Vice President Joe Biden Thursday night urges his fellow Americans, who are anxiously awaiting the outcome of the presidential election,to remain calm as he held on to a lead against President Donald Trump that brought the Democratic challenger close to the presidency\u2013even as votes were still being counted in a handful of key states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump, who has seen his path to 270 electoral votes greatly narrow, said he believed he would ultimately win the election and promised a lengthy legal fight to challenge the results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us,\u201d the president, looking grim, told a news conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you count the votes that came in late, we\u2019re looking at them very strongly, a lot of votes came in late,\u201d he said. No evidence was provided that illegal or late votes were being counted, nor that the election was being stolen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump went on to rail against \u201chistoric election interference from big media, big money and big tech. The pollsters got it knowingly wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the 17-minute speech, some of the Republicans \u2014 Trump\u2019s own party officials \u2014 swiftly took to social media, urging for patience as votes were counted and pleading for the president to stop attacking the integrity of the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul Mitchell, a Republican congressman, said that every vote would be counted, adding that \u201canything less harms the integrity of our elections and is dangerous for our democracy\u201d. Adam Kinzinger, another Republican congressman, tweeted: \u201cSTOP Spreading debunked misinformation\u2026 This is getting insane.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand, Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, emerged in Biden\u2019s home state of Delaware, telling the country that \u201ceach ballot must be counted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn America, the vote is sacred,\u201d Biden said. \u201cDemocracy is sometimes messy. It sometimes requires a little patience, as well. But that patience has been rewarded now for 240 years with a system of governance that\u2019s been the envy of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden noted he and Ms. Harris \u201ccontinue to feel very good\u201d about the ultimate result of the race. \u201cWe have no doubt that when the count is finished, Senator Harris and I will be declared the winners,\u201d Biden said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the country remained on edge, awaiting the declaration of a victory more than 48 hours after the polls had closed and as sporadic protests have broken out in places such as Arizona, Michigan, Portland and New York, Biden said: \u201cI ask everyone to stay calm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three major American TV networks also cut away from the president\u2019s live remarks, with news anchors saying it was \u201cdangerous\u201d to air his \u201cabsolutely untrue\u201d statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The White House was set to be decided by razor-thin margins in five battleground states. Trump was still holding on to a lead in Pennsylvania but Biden was rapidly narrowing the gap as a backlog of postal ballots was counted. A win in Pennsylvania alone, with its 20 votes in the electoral college, would be enough to make Biden president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump had been ahead in Georgia, but the two candidates were nearly tied by midnight, with Biden less than 2,000 votes behind, and an estimated 12,500 ballots left to be counted. The margin has steadily decreased throughout the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Arizona, a Biden lead was being gradually eroded by late-counted Trump votes. The Associated Press (AP) and Fox News called the Democrat the winner in the state on election night, but by Thursday morning no other major TV network had followed suit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With Arizona included in his tally, Biden would only need six more electoral college votes to reach the 270 required for victory, so a win in any other state would be enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Nevada on Thursday morning, Biden bolstered a very slim lead to about 12,000 (about 1% of the vote) but there are about 200,000 votes still to be counted. Trump was leading North Carolina but the outcome depended on mail-in ballots. Jon Ralston, a leading political analyst in Nevada, tweeted: \u201cI see no path left for Trump here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the nationwide popular vote, Biden so far has a record 73.3 m million and about 3.7 million more than Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jen O\u2019Malley Dillon, the Biden campaign manager, said during a press call: \u201cJoe Biden now has won more votes than any presidential candidate in history, and we\u2019re still counting. Over 140 million votes have been counted so far with more than 72 million of those votes going to Vice-President Biden.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dillon added: \u201cBecause he sees the same data we do and knows he\u2019s losing, Donald Trump continues to push a flailing strategy designed to prevent people\u2019s votes from being counted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Millions of Americans got on with their lives on Thursday even as the election, described as the most important in generations, hung in the balance and moved at an excruciating pace. The candidates themselves maintained a low public profile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The president was also active on Twitter, posting: \u201cStop the count!\u201d It was a confusing plea because in Arizona and Nevada the Trump camp would be relying on late-counted votes to win. In these south-western states, the campaign strategy has been to focus on alleged irregularities in the count so far, seeking to undermine faith in its integrity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Raucous crowds of Trump supporters staged protests outside vote-counting centres in Phoenix in Arizona, Philadelphia in Pennsylvania and Detroit in Michigan, riled by unfounded claims from Trump and some of his loyalists of widespread irregularities and the insistence that the reversal of the president\u2019s early leads in the counts meant the election was being \u201cstolen\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The demonstration in Phoenix on Wednesday night saw about 150 Trump supporters gather outside the Maricopa county elections department chanting \u201cCount the votes!\u201d and \u201cWhere are the votes?\u201d as officials inside the building worked to tabulate ballots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some pro-Trump protests continued and escalated Thursday night, with armed demonstrators rallying in Nevada and Arizona, repeating Trump\u2019s fabrications about fraud. Downtown Atlanta, Georgia businesses boarded up in anticipation of potential further unrest after the race is called.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Facebook said it had taken down a group where Trump supporters posted misinformation, violent rhetoric and organized protests. The group had grown to more than 365,000 members in one day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The social media network said: \u201cIn line with the exceptional measures that we are taking during this period of heightened tension, we have removed the Group \u2018Stop the Steal\u2019, which was creating real-world events.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump campaign also launched a flurry of lawsuits in four states with an array of technical challenges. In Michigan, which has already been called by the Associated Press for Biden, the president\u2019s lawyers lost a legal demand for the count to be suspended until a campaign representative could be at each postal ballot counting table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Michigan court of claims judge Cynthia Stephens said: \u201cI have no basis to find that there is a substantial likelihood of success on the merits.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK,: Former US Vice President Joe Biden Thursday night urges his fellow Americans, who are anxiously awaiting the outcome of the presidential election,to remain calm as he held on to a lead against President Donald Trump that brought the Democratic challenger close to the […]<\/p>\n
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