Biden Sees Path to 270; Trump Attacks Election Integrity

President Donald Trump is testing how far he can go in using the traps of presidential power to weaken trust in this week's election against Joe Biden, as the Democrat has gained ground in difficult competitions in some key battleground states.

With his path to re-election appearing to be closing, Trump placed forward unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud on Thursday to wrongly claim that his opponent was seeking to seize power. It was an unprecedented attempt on the part of the sitting President of the United States to raise questions about the democratic process, reports AP.

“This is a case when they are trying to steal an election, they are trying to rig an election,” Trump said from the podium of the White House briefing room.

The president 's remarks deepened a sense of tension in the U.S. as Americans reached their third full day after the election without knowing who will serve as president for the next four years. His statements also prompted a rebuke on the part of some Republicans, especially those who were looking to steer the party in a different direction in the post-Trump era.

Neither candidate has achieved the 270 votes required by the Electoral College to win the White House. Yet Biden eclipsed Trump in Wisconsin and Michigan, two key Midwestern swing states, and came closer to overtaking President Pennsylvania and Georgia, where votes were still counted.

It was not clear when a national winner would be decided after a long, bitter campaign dominated by the coronavirus and its effects on the Americans and the national economy. Wednesday, the U.S. set another milestone for daily reported cases as many states had all-time highs. The pandemic killed more than 233,000 people in the United States.

Biden spent Thursday trying to ease tensions and project a more traditional image of presidential leadership. After participating in a coronavirus briefing, he declared that “each ballot must be counted.”

“I ask everyone to stay calm. The process is working,” Biden said. “It is the will of the voters. No one, not anyone else who chooses the president of the United States of America.”

The victories of Biden in the Upper Midwest put him in a good spot, but Trump showed no sign of giving up. It could take a few more days for the vote count to be completed and a definite winner to emerge. With millions of votes yet to be tabulated, Biden had already obtained more than 73 million votes, the most in history.

Trump's misconceptions about the legitimacy of the election challenged Republicans now confronted with the option of whether to break with a president who, though his hold on his office became tenuous, commanded high approval ratings from rank-and - file GOP representatives.

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, joined by Democratic Vice President Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., spoke at the Queen's Theater on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020, in Wilmington, Del.

Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan, a potential 2024 presidential hopeful who has often criticized Trump, said unequivocally: “There is no defense for the President’s comments tonight undermining our Democratic process. America is counting the votes, and we must respect the results as we always have before.”

But others who are rumored to be considering a White House run of their own in four years aligned themselves with the incumbent, including Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who tweeted support for Trump’s claims, writing that “If last 24 hours have made anything clear, it’s that we need new election integrity laws NOW.”

Trump's campaign engaged in a surge of legal action to try to boost the prospects of the Republican president, order a recount in Wisconsin, and file lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia.

Judges in Georgia and Michigan immediately dismissed Trump's campaign lawsuits over there on Thursday.

Trump held a small edge in Georgia, though Biden was gaining on him as votes continued to be counted. The same was true in Pennsylvania, where Trump’s lead had slipped to about 22,000 votes — and the race is destined to get tighter.

One reason is that election officials were not allowed to process mail-in ballots until election day under state law. It's a form of voting that has skewed heavily in Biden's favor after Trump spent months claiming without proof that voting by mail would lead to widespread voter fraud.

Mail ballots from across the state were disproportionately splitting in the direction of Biden. The final vote total might not be clear for days because the use of mail-in ballots, which require more time to process, has increased as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump's campaign said he was optimistic that the president would eventually win in Arizona, where ballots were still counted, even in Maricopa County, the most populated part of the state. The AP declared Biden to be the winner in Arizona and said Thursday that it was tracking the vote count as it proceeded.

“The Associated Press continues to watch and analyze vote count results from Arizona as they come in,” said Sally Buzbee, AP’s executive editor. “We will follow the facts in all cases.”

Trump’s campaign was lodging legal challenges in several states, though he faced long odds. He would have to win multiple suits in multiple states in order to stop vote counts since more than one state was undeclared.

Some of Trump's lawsuits only require improved access for campaign observers to places where ballots are collected and counted. The Georgian judge dismissed the campaign suit less than 12 hours after it was filed. And a Michigan judge rejected Trump's case as to whether enough GOP candidates had access to absentee ballot handling.

Biden attorney Bob Bauer said the suits were legally “meritless.” Their only purpose, he said “is to create an opportunity for them to message falsely about what’s taking place in the electoral process.”