Associated Press
The race between President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden was too early to call in battleground Michigan early Wednesday, with many votes uncounted.
There are over 1 million ballots left to be counted in Michigan, many coming from the Democratic stronghold of Detroit.
Michigan is among a handful of battleground states where Trump prematurely claimed early Wednesday he was “winning” the contest with Biden. Both are locked in a tight race for the 270 electors needed to win the presidency.
Detroit, Michigan’s largest city and a Democratic stronghold, was not expected to finish counting until Wednesday night as it processed a surge of absentee ballots.
More than 5.26 million votes have been cast in Michigan and many of the ballots left to be counted were submitted by mail, a way of voting that favors Biden.
With 79% of the vote counted in the state, Trump is leading by 226,000 votes.
“I expect we’ll have a clear picture, if not a final picture, of the unofficial results from Michigan within the next 24 hours,” Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said around 9 p.m. Tuesday.
Trump smashed the “blue wall” in his first White House bid, narrowly winning Michigan and two other states that had not backed a Republican nominee in decades. The margin of victory in Michigan, about two-tenths of a percentage point, was the closest of any state in 2016.
Michigan was critical this time around, too, and turnout was high. Benson said at least 3.2 million absentee ballots were returned — a record — and she projected an additional 2 million to 2.5 million were cast in person. The total would surpass the high of 5 million votes in the 2008 presidential election.
Biden, determined not to take the state for granted while leading in polls, visited three times in October — once in the final week — speaking at small events with social distancing due to the coronavirus pandemic. Running mate Kamala Harris campaigned in Detroit on Tuesday afternoon.
Trump campaigned in the state six times since September, including four days in the final week, holding big rallies. He again closed his campaign in Grand Rapids on the eve of the election, as he did four years ago.
He focused attention on Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is not up for reelection until 2022. Whitmer took aggressive steps to curb the coronavirus in a state that was a hot spot nationally early on and — after she criticized the federal response — drew criticism from Trump, who in March urged Vice President Mike Pence not to call “the woman in Michigan” and in April tweeted, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” He continued to criticize her after authorities announced they had thwarted an alleged plot to kidnap her.
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Republished with permission from The Associated Press.
