Trump falsely claims victory with votes uncounted, rival Biden confident

[snoop1130]

Trump falsely claims victory with votes uncounted, rival Biden confident

By Trevor Hunnicutt and Jeff Mason

 

A voter fills out his ballot on election day in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, New York, U.S. November 3, 2020. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

 

WILMINGTON, Del./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump falsely claimed victory over Democratic rival Joe Biden on Wednesday with millions of votes still uncounted in a White House race that will not be decided until a handful of states complete vote-counting over the next hours or days.

 

Shortly after Biden said he was confident of winning the contest once the votes are counted, Trump appeared at the White House to declare victory and said his lawyers would be taking his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, without specifying what they would claim.

 

"We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election," Trump said. "This is a major fraud on our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we'll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop."

 

Polls have closed and voting has stopped across the country, but election laws in U.S. states require all votes to be counted, and many states routinely take days to finish counting legal ballots. More votes stood to be counted this year than in the past as people voted early by mail and in person because of the coronavirus pandemic.

 

Earlier in the evening, Trump won the battlegrounds of Florida, Ohio and Texas, dashing Biden's hopes for a decisive early victory, but Biden said he was confident he was on track to winning the White House by taking three key Rust Belt states.

 

Biden, 77, was eyeing the so-called "blue wall" states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that sent Trump, 74, to the White House in 2016 for victories once those states finish counting votes in hours or days to come. Trump was ahead in all three states in partial counts, with Democratic mail-in ballots still to be tallied.

 

"We feel good about where we are," Biden said in his home state of Delaware, shouting over a din of supporters in cars honking their horns in approval. "We believe we're on track to win this election."

 

Winning those three states would be enough to give Biden an Electoral College victory. Fox News projected Biden would win Arizona, another state that voted for Trump in 2016, giving him more options to get to 270 Electoral College votes.

 

Biden leads 220 to 213 over Trump in the fight for 270 Electoral College votes, according to Edison Research.

 

Even without Pennsylvania, Biden victories in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin, along with his projected win in a congressional district in Nebraska, which apportions electoral votes by district, would put him in the White House, as long as he also holds the states that Trump lost in 2016.

 

Biden also leads in Nevada, a state Trump lost in 2016, while Trump leads in Georgia, a state he carried easily in 2016, but votes are still being counted.

 

'WE ARE UP BIG'

 

"We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!" Trump said on Twitter before his White House appearance, which swiftly tagged the tweet as possibly misleading.

 

"It's not my place or Donald Trump's place to declare the winner of this election. It's the voters' place," Biden said on Twitter in response to the president.

 

Trump has repeatedly and without evidence suggested an increase in mail-in voting will lead to an increase in fraud, although election experts say that fraud is rare and mail-in ballots are a long-standing feature of American elections.

 

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Governor Tom Wolf said the state still had to count more than a million mail-in ballots. He called Trump's remarks a partisan attack. According to Edison Research, more than 2.4 million early ballots were cast in the state, of which nearly 1.6 million were by Democrats and about 555,000 by Republicans.

 

Supporters of both candidates called the election a referendum on Trump and his tumultuous first term. The winner will lead a nation strained by a pandemic that has killed more than 231,000 people and left millions more jobless, racial tensions and political polarization that has only worsened during a vitriolic campaign.

 

Trump monitored election returns with members of his family in the living room of the White House residence. Going in and out of the room were first lady Melania Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his daughter Ivanka among others. “He’s calm, chilling,” said a source familiar with the scene.

 

Voters were also to decide which political party controls the U.S. Congress for the next two years, and the Democratic drive to win control of the Senate appeared to fall short. Democrats picked up only one Republican-held seat while six other races remained undecided - Alaska, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina and two in Georgia.

 

LATINO PROBLEM FOR BIDEN

 

Trump's strong performance in Florida, a must-win state for his re-election, was powered by his improved numbers with Latinos. His share of the vote in counties with large Latino populations was larger than it was in the 2016 election.

 

For months there had been complaints from Democratic Latino activists that Biden was ignoring Hispanic voters and lavishing attention instead on Black voters in big Midwestern cities. Opinion polls in key states showed Biden underperforming with Latinos in the weeks leading up to the election.

 

In the Miami area, Latinos are predominantly Cuban Americans, where generations of families have fled communist rule in Cuba. Trump's messaging about Biden being a socialist seemed to work with them and with Venezuelans there despite Biden's denials.

 

Edison's national exit poll showed that while Biden led Trump among nonwhite voters, Trump received a slightly higher proportion of the nonwhite votes than he did in 2016. The poll showed that about 11% of African Americans, 31% of Hispanics and 30% of Asian Americans voted for Trump, up 3 percentage points from 2016 in all three groups.

 

U.S. stock futures jumped early on Wednesday as Trump's showing improved, but were volatile and last up 0.5% at 3:50 a.m. ET (0850 GMT).

 

Voters, many wearing masks and maintaining social-distancing to guard against the spread of the coronavirus, streamed into polling places across the country through the day, experiencing long lines in a few locales and short waits in many other places. There were no signs of disruptions or violence at polling sites, as some officials had feared.

 

Biden, the Democratic former vice president, put Trump's handling of the pandemic at the center of his campaign and had held a consistent lead in national opinion polls over the Republican president.

 

But a third of U.S. voters listed the economy as the issue that mattered most to them when deciding their choice for president, while two out of 10 cited COVID-19, according to an Edison Research exit poll on Tuesday.

 

Trump is seeking another term in office after a chaotic four years marked by the coronavirus crisis, an economy battered by pandemic shutdowns, an impeachment drama, inquiries into Russian election interference, U.S. racial tensions and contentious immigration policies.

 

Biden is looking to win the presidency on his third attempt after a five-decade political career including eight years as vice president under Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama.

 

Biden has promised a renewed effort to fight the public health crisis, fix the economy and bridge America's political divide. The country this year was also shaken by months of protests against racism and police brutality.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-11-04

 

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[Jingthing]

No president in history has ever behaved this way. The founders are rolling in their graves.

 

Count the votes!

 

Who knows he might still win legitimately but winning the way he is trying to will tear the country apart even more.

[sammieuk1]

Mooron ????

[Maestro]

 

[Maestro]

At what time did Trump say that he has already won the election and that he is going to ask the Supreme Court to order the vote counting to be stopped? I know it was before midnight Tuesday on the US west cost, but it would be interesting to know the exact time.

[Kelsall]

Trump will win the election.  He will win it fair and square.

[Mavideol]

egocentric narcissist ... he won't change, it's me, me and myself all along, Democracy doesn't matter....he said let's stop vote counting on Michigan & Pennsylvania but keep counting on Arizona, whatever fits me just do it and he had the face to use USSC as a threatening tool

[Mavideol]

1 minute ago, Kelsall said:

Trump will win the election.  He will win it fair and square.

fair and square are 2 words that don't fit Trump... lock him up fits him better

Edited November 4, 2020 by Mavideol

[onthedarkside]

4 minutes ago, Maestro said:

At what time did Trump say that he has already won the election and that he is going to ask the Supreme Court to order the vote counting to be stopped? I know it was before midnight Tuesday on the US west cost, but it would be interesting to know the exact time.

 

https://www.axios.com/trump-falsely-claims-election-victory-7fa213ab-0e3b-4aad-81d7-71abdb88b5d0.html

 

from 2:30 am Wed EST onward, it would appear:
 

Quote

 

Addressing an election party in the East Wing of the White House early Wednesday morning, President Trump falsely and prematurely claimed victory in key swing states and pledged to go to the Supreme Court to stop votes from being counted.

Why it matters: As Axios previously reported, this was not spur of the moment.

• For weeks, Trump has discussed this scenario with advisers and even gamed out what he would say to declare victory on election night, even if networks had not called the battlegrounds for him, reports Axios' Jonathan Swan.

The state of play: Trump falsely claimed it was "clear" that he had won in North Carolina and Georgia, where the races remain too close to call as of his 2:30 am ET speech.

 

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/04/media/tv-networks-trump-speech-election-night/index.html

 

 

Quote

 

New York (CNN Business) News anchors forcefully called out President Donald Trump early Wednesday morning after he prematurely declared himself the victor of the 2020 election, despite millions of outstanding ballots left to be counted in several key states.
 

In brief remarks from the East Room of the White House, Trump attacked the legitimate vote counting efforts, calling it "fraud" with no basis. The President then claimed he "did win" the election, despite the millions of votes that have yet to be counted.

 

All the major networks carried Trump's address at the start, but NBC News and MSNBC cut into it to note that he was peddling falsehoods.

 

 

[harada]

No surprises here, he knows that if he loses and no longer has his presidential immunity before long he will probably be dining with Bernie Madoff on a daily basis. 

[Maestro]

Election 2020 live updates and results: Trump falsely asserts election fraud, claims a victory

 

By Colby Itkowitz, Felicia Sonmez, John Wagner, Derek Hawkins, Paulina Firozi, Meryl Kornfield, David Weigel and Amber Phillips

November 4, 2020 at 10:36 a.m. GMT+1

 

With millions of votes yet to be counted, President Trump falsely asserted election fraud, pledged to mount a legal challenge to official state results and made a premature claim of victory in a bitterly contested race that may take days to resolve. In remarks at the White House early Wednesday, Trump claimed that he’d won several states that are still counting ballots, including Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

His Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, insisted earlier that “we believe we’re on track to win this election” and pleaded for patience, citing Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, where votes were still being tallied. “It ain’t over till every vote is counted,” Biden said.

 

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2020/11/03/trump-biden-election-live-updates/

[mr mr]

my team is so much better than your team. no way our team is the coolest. 

 

 

[Sujo]

Just add it to another in his long list of lies.

[Virt]

If it's down to the votes sent by letter, it looks like Biden will sit on the throne for the next 4 years.

 

Time will tell.

 

We allready know what Trump will do if he lose.

I wonder if Biden will try and use the same argument, if it turns out Trump will collect most of the votes sent by letter.

 

Until then it's time to shop some more popcorns.

This comedy show is not over yet.

[Sujo]

Actually biden is officially ahead. So according to trumps reasoning biden should claim victory.

[Chomper Higgot]

Of course he did.

[Maestro]

I think I got it. A Swiss online news site says that Trump started his speech at 08:30 CET, which is 02:30 EST (Washington DC) and 22:30 in Alaska.

[Maestro]

18 minutes ago, onthedarkside said:

from 2:30 am Wed EST onward, it would appear:

 

Yes, that matches what the Swiss paper has.

 

(I don't care who wins, just wanted to get the timeline right in the context of the legal interpretation of one of the candidates regarding the legalities of the election process)

[Justgrazing]

41 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

President Donald Trump falsely claimed victory over Democratic rival Joe Biden on Wednesday with millions of votes still uncounted in a White House race that will not be decided until a handful of states complete vote-counting over the next hours or days.

 

It would have been more of a surprise if he hadn't pulled this stroke as he's been making enough noise about it for weeks .. but hey it's just just another act in the real life box set of " Trump does America " .. literally .. 

 

[Lacessit]

34 minutes ago, Kelsall said:

Trump will win the election.  He will win it fair and square.

Maybe you are right, but claiming he will win it fair and square is a long stretch, with the Republicans trying to trash all kinds of votes. Strange the Democrats aren't trying to eliminate a single vote.

In your blind allegiance, perhaps you don't realize if Trump wins, America is headed for civil war.

[onthedarkside]

Something some people seem to be missing here is that, depending on the state, mailed in absentee ballots can be perfectly valid legally if they're postmarked by the close of polls Tuesday or a similar time, even if they're not actually received into the local election office until later.

 

Here's Texas' law on the subject, by way of example. I believe different states may have their own particular rules on such things:

 

Quote

 

Last day to Receive Ballot by Mail

Tuesday, November 3, 2020 (Election Day) at 7:00 p.m. if carrier envelope is not postmarked, OR Wednesday, November 4, 2020 (next business day after Election Day) at 5:00 p.m. if carrier envelope is postmarked by 7:00 p.m. at the location of the election on Election Day (unless overseas or military voter deadlines apply)4

 

 

 

https://www.votetexas.gov/voting/when.html#early-voting

 

And, that deadline is extended even further if the mailed in ballots are coming from service members or expats overseas.

 

Quote

 

When is the deadline for returning the ballot?

• Regular deadline: receipt by 7:00 p.m. Election Day
• Deadline for voters voting from overseas location: receipt by 5th day after Election Day
• Deadline for members of the armed forces of the United States, or the spouse or a dependent of a member of the armed forces, members of the merchant marines of the United States, or the spouse or a dependent of a member of the merchant marine: receipt by 6th day after Election Day.

 

 

https://www.votetexas.gov/military-overseas-voters/index.html

 

There will potentially be lots of legal votes to be counted that may not even have arrived by the close of polls.

[Golden Triangle]

Whoever wins is not really the issue, it just means that the supporters of the losing candidate can use that as an excuse to go on another rioting and  looting spree. ???????????????? 

[holy cow cm]

1 hour ago, Jingthing said:

No president in history has ever behaved this way. The founders are rolling in their graves.

 

Count the votes!

 

Who knows he might still win legitimately but winning the way he is trying to will tear the country apart even more.

Agreed. Before being last time I voted for him for a change and he totally proved me wrong in the first year. If he wins this time the USA is F-d. And I voted, but not for him!

[holy cow cm]

40 minutes ago, Golden Triangle said:

Whoever wins is not really the issue, it just means that the supporters of the losing candidate can use that as an excuse to go on another rioting and  looting spree. ???????????????? 

BS 

[Golden Triangle]

27 minutes ago, holy cow cm said:

BS 

Chill man, I'm a Brit we've enough problems at home to worry about, without having to think who the heck is gonna be ruling the free world in the next few days.

 

And if a series of ???????????????? didn't indicate a bit of sarcasm to you then I'm sorry (for you)

 

????

 

 

[Sheryl]

A post which showed snip of election reporting with no source linked and edited in a misleading way has been removed.

[John Drake]

Biden and Trump are both liars. They're both corrupt. They're both going to put the country in unrecoverable debt. They're both letting the corrupt families have too much power. Trump was fake tough with China. Biden is owned by China. I didn't vote. I wanted Elizabeth Warren.

[herfiehandbag]

At the time that I post, Biden leads in the electoral college votes by 224 -213 ( according to the BBC).

 

So I suppose that if they stop counting now, as Mr Trump demands, Mr Biden wins?

[Jingthing]

18 minutes ago, herfiehandbag said:

At the time that I post, Biden leads in the electoral college votes by 224 -213 ( according to the BBC).

 

So I suppose that if they stop counting now, as Mr Trump demands, Mr Biden wins?

Things are looking much better for Biden now. 

In Wisconsin, Michigan,  and even Georgia. 

Either one may win but at this point Biden is in a better position. 

In other words Biden might not need to win Pennsylvania. 

[evadgib]

Has Trump won yet?