KI Monitoring Desk
Srinagar: Joe Biden’s journey to the White House became closer Friday after he overtook Trump’s vote tally in Georgia for the first time and is now also leading in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
Neither candidate has reached the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House but Biden eclipsed Trump in Wisconsin and Michigan two crucial Midwestern battleground states overtook the president in Georgia early Friday and was inching closer to doing the same in Pennsylvania where votes were still being counted.
The election results may take more time than expected even as Americans wait with bated breath to find out who will lead their country for the next four years. The US state of Georgia will hold a vote recount due to a razor-thin margin of votes between the two candidates. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said “with a margin that small there will be a recount.” He said that 4,169 votes remain to be counted, and that some 8,000 military absentee ballots are still in the mail and will only be counted if they arrive by the end of the day.
In Georgia, after the latest round of counting results, Biden edged past Trump with a slender lead of 1096 votes, a remarkable development for the former vice president who until Wednesday night was trailing his Republican rival by more than 50,000 votes.
Republican incumbent President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden are locked in a tight contest to secure the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. But neither candidate has reached the magic number needed to win the White House. But Biden eclipsed Trump in Wisconsin and Michigan, two crucial Midwestern battleground states, and holds a lead in Georgia and Pennsylvania early Friday, as per AP tally. Biden overtook Trump in the number of ballots counted in the state, which Trump must win to have a shot at reelection. Biden now holds a nearly 6,000-vote advantage.
At the moment, as per an AP tally, Biden has 264 Electoral College votes and Trump has 214.
Thousands of still uncounted ballots – many in counties where Democrat Joe Biden was in the lead – are what’s making the Georgia contest between President Donald Trump and Biden too early to call. It was unclear when a national winner would be determined after a long bitter campaign dominated by the coronavirus and its effects on Americans and the national economy.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is testing how far he can go in using the trappings of presidential power to undermine confidence in this week’s election against Joe Biden as he gained ground in tight contests in key battleground states. With his pathway to reelection appearing to shrink Trump on Thursday advanced unsupported accusations of voter fraud to falsely argue that his rival was trying to seize power. It amounted to an extraordinary effort by a sitting American president to sow doubt about the democratic process.
The high stakes election was held on November 3 against the backdrop of an unprecedented pandemic that has killed more than 2,30,000 Americans and wiped away millions of jobs. Both candidates spent months pressing dramatically different visions for the nations’ future, and voters responded in huge numbers with more than 100 million people casting votes ahead of Election Day.
Traditionally, the government confirms final preliminary results the night of the election, but a record number of early and absentee votes cast this year has overwhelmed officials and raised questions about the capacity of an elections commission that only months ago fumbled a primary so badly it forced a second round of voting.
Meanwhile, more US Secret Service agents have been sent to Wilmington, Delaware, in anticipation of a potential Joe Biden presidential win after the Democratic Party nominee was leading in the vote count against incumbent President Donald Trump, a media report said on Friday.
