President Donald Trump declared victory in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, despite votes still to be counted in key swing states that could sway the election.
Trump said he would take the election to the Supreme Court of the United States to stop voting
“We want all voting to stop,” Trump said as vote totals in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, among others, were still being counted. “We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 o’clock in the morning.”
Trump spoke for several minutes, claiming the election was already rife with fraud and accusing the media of calling states it shouldn’t have called, most notably Arizona, which could make or break the race in favor of former Vice President Joe Biden.
At the time of his speech, Biden led significantly in Arizona with votes still to be counted.
Trump also praised Florida for leaning his way.
“We didn’t win it, we won it by a lot,” Trump said.
With some votes still to be counted, Trump won, and several outlets including Florida Politics called for Trump, with 51% of the vote to Biden’s 48%.
With vote totals as they were at the time of Trump’s speech, Pennsylvania and Georgia were leaning Trump’s way, but calls had not been made because votes were still yet to be counted in Democrat-rich areas. Likewise in Michigan and Wisconsin, Trump had the lead, but enough votes were withstanding to leave a path for Biden to win.
Regardless of the President’s rhetoric, which pundits expected, it’s clear the path to victory for Biden wound up being more narrow than polls predicted.
But Trump rejected claims the election was still up in the air.
“A very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people,” Trump said, referring to the millions of voters who turned out for Trump.
“We were getting ready for a big celebration. We were winning everything and all of a sudden it was just all gone,” Trump added, seemingly implying media election night calls had stolen his victory plans.
Meanwhile, Biden spoke before Trump espousing his own optimism.
“We’re still in the game in Georgia,” Biden said to a barrage of honking horns at what has been indicative of Biden’s campaign events employing social distancing in the form of car rallies. “We’re feeling good about Wisconsin and Michigan.”
Vote counts, particularly in Pennsylvania, are expected to continue well into Wednesday.
