NOVEMBER 6, 2020
We’re on the fourth day past Election Day and USA TODAY’S coverage of the 2020 election continues as states work to finish counting the ballots.
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during the final presidential debate at the Curb Event Center at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. – Andrew Nelles, The Tennessean-USA TODAY NETWORK
All eyes on are the battleground states that will ultimately decide the election. Be sure to refresh this page often to get the latest information on how things are going.
USPS finds thousands of ballots in PA and NC, races to deliver them
Sweeps of U.S. Postal Service mail-processing facilities in Pennsylvania and North Carolina on Thursday found 2,243 undelivered ballots, according to a filing in the U.S. District Court of Washington D.C. early Friday.
In each case the ballots were delivered to local elections offices, the USPS said in the filing, which is part of an ongoing lawsuit to ensure the delivery of mail-in ballots cast in the general election. Pennsylvania accepts mail-in ballots for up to three days after the election if they’re postmarked by Election Day.
For this election, North Carolina accepts ballots up to nine days late, as long as they were postmarked on Election Day.
Both are battleground states where votes continue to be counted in the race between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.
Postal service officials will be in court again today with District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan at 11 a.m. EDT. Sullivan has ordered the agency to conduct twice-daily sweeps to ensure all outstanding ballots are found and delivered.
– Dinah Voyles Pulver
Georgia will have a presidential recount, state official says
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said Friday morning the state would have a recount because of the slim election margin.
“Right now, Georgia remains too close to call,” he said. “There will be a recount.”
Under Georgia state law, candidates can request a recount if the margin of victory is less than 0.5%. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden gained a small lead over President Donald Trump early Friday morning. The two candidates are separated by about 1,100 votes.
“We are literally looking at a margin of less than a large high school,” Georgia’s voting system implementation manager Gabriel Sterling said. According to Sterling, the state had about 4,169 votes left to count. A recount could take until the end of the month, he noted. The state pays for recounts in Georgia.
Trump and his allies, without citing evidence, have alleged election fraud, but Sterling rejected the claims.
“We’re not seeing any widespread irregularities,” he said.
A recount in the Senate race between incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue and Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff was unlikely given current vote totals, Sterling said. The two Senate candidates are separated by close to 100,000 votes, or about 2 percentage points. The Senate race is instead poised to head to a runoff election in January.
– Nicholas Wu
Kudlow: ‘I think there will be a peaceful transfer of power’
President Donald Trump and his staff say they are not giving up on the election, despite signs Joe Biden could capture enough states to carry the Electoral College. But they are also saying the president will respect a peaceful transfer of power if it comes to that.
“I think there will be a peaceful transfer of power,” Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow said in an interview on CNBC. “This is the greatest country in the world and we abide by the rule of law as will the president.”
Kudlow also said he has spoken with the president and that he “intends to fight” and prevail, a message also delivered by the president’s reelection campaign.
“This election is not over,” said Matt Morgan, the Trump 2020 campaign general counsel.
The statements come the morning after an angry tirade from Trump in which he falsely accused election officials in contested states of trying to “steal” the election from him. There is no evidence that is happening.
– David Jackson
Biden supporters gather in Delaware
Joe Biden supporters holding signs and American flags are starting to gather outside of the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, as the former vice president appears on the cusp of an Electoral College victory.
The crowd outside the events center exchanged shouts of “it’s gonna be a great day” and “here we go, guys!” as votes mounted in Biden’s favor in Pennsylvania, a state that could give him the electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
Some, like Zach Rossetti, 25, have been there for days. After watching Biden vote in their shared hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Election Day, Rossetti drove to Wilmington to await a result. He’s been spending days at the Chase Center and nights at a hotel — but today feels different.
“I am so certain we’re going to have a result today,” he said.
Beverly Relyea, 62, a Wilmington native, hasn’t been keeping vigil in the parking lot. But she said she knew it was time to come after Biden took the lead in Pennsylvania earlier this morning. “Got my clothes on, put my hat on, and I came,” she said.
For now, the wait continues. Thomas Kunish, 40, there with his five-year-old son, said he is “treating it like a tailgate.” Between interviews, they are tossing a football back and forth outside their truck — which they slept in last night after driving from Pittsburgh.
Even the stuffed dinosaur on top of the roof of their truck is ready: it’s holding a Biden-Harris sign.
– Camille Caldera
Biden takes lead in Pennsylvania
Democratic nominee Joe Biden edged ahead of President Donald Trump in the all-important battleground of Pennsylvania for the first time Friday, adding to a sense of inevitability that the Scranton native would reach the 270 electoral votes he needs to capture the presidency.
Biden leads the president by more than 6,000 votes as of Friday morning, a difference of 0.1%.
Votes were still being counted and Biden had not been declared the winner in the Keystone State. Republicans argued that at least some of the outstanding ballots would go for Trump.
But the momentum and the math increasingly appears to be on Biden’s side.
Pennsylvania, with its 20 electoral votes, was part of the so-called “blue wall” that had carried past Democrats to the White House until 2016. Two other states in the wall, Michigan and Wisconsin, were called for Biden on Wednesday.
Trump got out to an early lead in Pennsylvania Tuesday, but Biden has been closing the gap ever since as a crush of mail-in ballots were counted. Polls had always suggested Democrats were more likely to vote by mail because of concerns about the pandemic. In this case, the polls were right.
Also, Trump had cast doubts on the security of mail voting for months before the election, a line of attack that had made some Republican operatives in states like Pennsylvania and Florida nervous that it would affect their own voters.
Over the past 24 hours, Trump’s margin narrowed even as his campaign aides prematurely declared they had won the state. It closed as Trump incorrectly claimed he had won the election. It got smaller as aides alleged widespread fraud, without citing evidence, and threatened lawsuits.
Trump led Biden in the state by several hundred thousand votes immediately after the election, which was the count of people who turned out in person on Election Day.
Trump won the state by about 44,300 votes in 2016 over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, a 0.72% difference.
– John Fritze and Nicholas Wu
FAA restricts airspace over Biden’s home
The Federal Aviation Administration placed restrictions on airspace over Joe Biden’s home, affording the Democratic nominee the same security restriction provided to other political VIPs such as the president and vice president.
While the temporary flight restrictions (TFR) appeared to be activated on Friday, it was not clear when they were announced. The FAA referred questions about the restrictions, which limit flights through the area, to the U.S. Secret Service.
The TFRs, which will be in place over Wilmington, Delaware, for several days, are commonly imposed when the president or vice president is traveling out of Washington for an event, such as to a rally.
Like other candidates, Biden received Secret Service protection earlier this year. His security detail was set to grow in coming days as the Secret Service prepared for the possibility he wins, The Washington Post and CNN reported this week.
– John Fritze
Biden takes the lead from Trump in Georgia
Democratic candidate Joe Biden officially took the lead in Georgia Friday, after a new round of results were released.
As of 4:30 a.m. EST, the former Vice President leads by 917 votes with thousands of ballots remaining to be counted.
Biden caught then passed Trump in the traditionally red state due to an onslaught of mail-in ballots from Democratic-leaning counties. Democratic voters utilized early voting and mail-in ballots across the nation more so than Republicans.
Georgia is critical to Trump’s reelection, but not necessary to Biden’s path to the White House.
The state has not backed a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992, when Bill Clinton won the state by 13,000 votes. Trump beat Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Georgia in 2016 by 211,141 votes, or 50.4% to 45.3%.
Clayton County, which was represented by the late Rep. John Lewis, was one of the counties that put Biden over the top in Georgia.
— Savannah Behrmann
Trump draws closer to Biden in Arizona ballot count
President Donald Trump inched closer to former Vice President Joe Biden in Arizona as results from Thursday’s ballot counting were released, but he fell off the pace needed to win the state’s 11 electoral votes.
The Associated Press called the race for Biden on Wednesday, but the Trump campaign hopes votes still to be counted will change the outcome.
Statewide, Trump chipped away 22,000 votes from Biden’s lead, closing the gap to 46,667 votes as of Thursday night. But unless the next batches of votes show Trump with a higher percentage than what the president managed Thursday, he will fall short.
The Arizona Republic estimates there were 300,000 votes left to count statewide as of Thursday evening, with 218,000 of those votes left to count in Maricopa County.
– Rob O’Dell, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Caitlin McGlade (Arizona Republic)
Could today be the day?
No states were called Thursday in the presidential election, but Friday may well be the day the election ends when most of the remaining battleground states hit the home stretch in counting and even call some races.
Biden begins the day with 264 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 214. That means Biden needs to win one of the four remaining battleground states: Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia. All of them are expected to make significant progress or finish counting outright.
In Georgia, Democratic nominee Joe Biden took the lead Friday morning as vote-counting continues.
In Pennsylvania, major counties such as Philadelphia have been counting through the night, and the president’s lead there is also narrowing.
Biden gained ground due to an onslaught of mail-in ballots from Democratic-leaning counties.
Arizona and Nevada finishing up
Voters can also expect updated results Thursday morning from Arizona, where Trump has been narrowing Biden’s lead, and Nevada, where Biden leads by around 11,500 votes.
An estimated 190,150 ballots remained uncounted in Nevada on Thursday, according to the Reno Gazette Journal, which is part of the USA TODAY Network.
State elections officials announced nearly two-thirds of that total were either returned by mail or dropped off in-person on Election Day. The remaining 66,596 votes were cast by same-day registrants either in-person on Tuesday or during the state’s two-week early voting period.
Some 90% of the outstanding ballots are in Clark County, a southern Nevada stronghold for Democrats where the party built up a daunting 89,000-voter edge over Republicans in early voting turnout.
Courtesy/Source: This article originally appeared on USA TODAY
