Subterms
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, confirms there will be a recount in the state where Joe Biden was leading Donald Trump by just over 1,500 votes
Biden 1,579 votes ahead in Georgia as recount confirmed
Joe Biden inches closer to White House More
On election night, as it started to become clear that the presidency was slipping away from Donald Trump, his son-in-law and senior aide Jared Kushner was looking for a hero.He wanted someone like James Baker, the New York Times reported, the former White House chief of staff, Treasury secretary and secretary of state, who led George W Bush’s legal team during the Florida recount in 2000 in a role that won him praise as a strategic and diplomatic genius.He got Rudy Giuliani.A fortnight ago, Giuliani was angrily defending himself after a clip from the new Borat film showed him apparently fiddling with his crotch as he lay on the bed in a hotel room where he had gone for a drink with a young woman who was posing as a Kazakh television journalist. “I was tucking in my shirt,” he explained later. He denied any wrongdoing and described the footage as “complete fabrication”.Now the president’s personal attorney is accusing his opponents of being “an embarrassment to our reputation throughout the world” and leading Trump’s last stand, helming the legal effort to keep Joe Biden out of the White House.On Wednesday afternoon he tweeted that he was “en route to Philadelphia with legal team” to challenge what he called – without offering any evidence – “massive cheating”. Since then, six of his tweets have been flagged by Twitter as containing misleading information.At a press conference on Thursday, he gave a speech in which he claimed – again without providing evidence – that one person could have voted 100,000 times. Giuliani, with no neck and a pocket square, declared his interest in launching a nebulous “national lawsuit” to challenge the results. “Do you think we’re stupid?” he asked. “Do you think we’re fools?” His attempts to keep Trump in the White House, if they result in failure as most experts seem to think they will, may mark some sort of end point for the 76-year-old Giuliani, once a fearless criminal prosecutor and hero of 9/11 who few people disputed had earned his honorary knighthood and the title of America’s Mayor.Three months after the twin towers fell, he completed his term in New York and embarked on a highly lucrative career on the speaking circuit, commanding as much as $200,000 per engagement, for each of which his contract demanded transportation in the form of a private jet that “MUST BE a Gulfstream IV or bigger”. More
Donald Trump’s repeated claims to have won the US presidential election while votes remain to be counted have focused the spotlight once more on one of the big uncertainties of the 2020 race: when will we know the final result?
It could take days, weeks or even months, depending on what happens.
What usually happens?
US presidential elections are not won by the national popular vote. The winner in each state collects its electoral college votes – and needs a total of 270 to take the White House.
In most elections the result is clear – although not officially confirmed – by the end of the night. Major American media outlets “call” each state for one of the candidates. While not based on the final vote count, that projection is almost invariably accurate.
This means an accurate tally of electoral college votes can be made and a winner declared. In 2016, that happened at 2.30am in Washington when Trump reached the required 270.
Why is that not happening this time?
Mainly because of the Covid-19 pandemic, large numbers of voters – about 68% of the total, compared with 34% in 2016 – cast their ballots early, including by post.
Counting postal votes is slower because voter and witness signatures and addresses must be checked, and ballots smoothed out before being fed into counting machines. Some states start that verification process long before election day, meaning the count itself can get under way as soon as polls close.
There was no early processing in multiple key battleground states this year, however, because Republican-led state legislatures refused urgent requests from local elections officials to pass new laws to allow extra time for ballot processing. Such a refusal in Pennsylvania produced enormous backlogs in cities such as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, which has gone from counting about 6,000 mail-in ballots in 2016 to more than 350,000 this year.
Which states are we talking about?
Five states have yet to be called: Alaska, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Several news organizations, including the Associated Press and Fox News’ decision desk, have called Arizona for Joe Biden. The Trump campaign is arguing, however, that call was made too early.
Alaska will end up in the Republican column with near certainty.
The race is extremely tight in Georgia. Biden pulled ahead of Trump by 1,097 votes on Friday morning, with 99% of votes reported, according to Edison.
The Democratic challenger is ahead in Nevada, with only Democratic-leaning late postal ballots left to tally. But by state law, ballots postmarked on election day can be counted as long as they are received by 5pm on 10 November, which means counting in the state could continue through the weekend.
In North Carolina, while Trump is the clear favourite, the state accepts postal ballots until 12 November – although that is expected to make little difference. State officials have said a full result would not be known until next week.
Biden took the lead in Pennsylvania on Friday morning. He’s been winning the mail-in ballot counts by huge margins, and could very well take the state. Pennsylvania officials say they expect most votes will be counted by later on Friday.
What else is complicating matters?
Roughly half of all states will accept postal votes that arrive after election day as long as they carry a postmark of no later than 3 November, so postal delays may mean some ballots are not processed until days later: Pennsylvania has said results will not be considered complete until the deadline of Friday.
There has also reportedly been an increase in the number of provisional ballots cast by people who asked for a postal vote but then decided to go to the polling station in person instead. These need careful checking to make sure no one has voted twice.
The really big unknown: a disputed result
In the 2000 race, the Democratic candidate, Al Gore, famously lost Florida by just more than 500 votes out of a total of nearly 6m, costing him the election. After a disputed recount and a supreme court ruling, George W Bush was declared the winner.
More than 300 lawsuits have already been filed over alleged breaches of electoral law in the 2020 election, according to reports, and more can be expected over accusations of postal voting irregularities and changes to voting rules due to the pandemic.
Trump and his campaign have this week already sued to halt vote-counting in Pennsylvania and Georgia (which have not yet been called by Associated Press) and Michigan, which the AP called for Biden. Judges in Georgia and Michigan quickly dismissed the campaign’s lawsuits on Thursday.
Trump’s campaign has also requested a recount in Wisconsin, which AP called for Biden.
There is no evidence the campaign’s legal challenges will have a bearing on the election result under the law. More
The US election saw more than 150 million Americans cast their ballots, some by mail, some waiting in long lines, and then endure a tense wait. There were bound to be quirky moments, some inspiring, some cringeworthy, some simply absurd. Here we pick the good, the bad and the ridiculous.
Good
Lady Gaga may have campaigned with Joe Biden on election day on Tuesday, but Lizzo reached for the stars – and stripes. The music phenom made a powerful post to Instagram, standing majestically in the altogether, only partially draped in Old Glory.
She implored her fans to vote and expressed her optimism that a country rife with inequality and injustice can nevertheless be better. “When I think of this country I don’t think of its laws I think of its people. I think about how we were raised to be patriotic of violence, propaganda & war,” she wrote.
“I think about how this country is owned by the oppressor and how the oppressed are locked in a valley of capitalism. But I also think of the young people who refuse to be spoon fed mistruths. I think of the elders who bucked against hateful prejudices even when it felt impossible. Because of you, I’m still hopeful.”
She added: “I believe in restoration of this beautiful land and respecting the communities of people who owned America before colonizers renamed it. I believe in fairness, equality…I believe in so much…we the people, all the people deserve it.”
Bad
The White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, apparently lived up to her internet-anointed nickname, KayLIE, on Wednesday after posting a tweet that prematurely said Donald Trump had won Pennsylvania, while the swing state had not been declared and was still counting votes into Thursday night.
McEnany’s tweet, which read “VICTORY for President @realDonaldTrump in PENNSYLVANIA”, was subsequently flagged by Twitter with a disclaimer warning that “official sources may not have called the race”.
And during a Fox News interview on Wednesday night, McEnany made a false claim about Pennsylvania votes when asked about Trump’s opposition to counting ballots that arrive within three days of election day. (In Pennsylvania, mail-in ballots that are cast by election day, and received by Friday, get counted.)
“They want to count ballots that come in three days after. We have election days in this country for a reason, because votes are counted on Election Day,” the Washington Post reported her saying.
“But Kayleigh, we always have had provisional ballots and military ballots – things that get counted later,” one of the Fox News hosts, Martha MacCallum, responded.
Ridiculous
In Arizona, a false conspiracy theory emerged that ballots filled out with Sharpie felt-tip marker pens handed out at polling places were disqualified, mysteriously harming only Trump.
The controversy was quickly nicknamed Sharpiegate and its basis is not true, the Arizona Republic explained.
The incorrect idea behind it was that the ink would bleed through the paper and prevent a machine from reading it.
But election officials said that scanning machines could read blue or black ink, as well as marker pens, which in fact were used to prevent ink-related issues, Maricopa county explained.
“Did you know we use Sharpies in the Vote Centers so the ink doesn’t smudge as ballots are counted onsite? New offset columns on the ballots means bleed through won’t impact your vote!” they tweeted, with a video explainer. More
Speeches from candidates conceding defeat in past US elections have been resurfacing after Donald Trump’s latest address as the 2020 result looms. Speaking from the White House on Thursday, Trump falsely referred to legally cast mail-in ballots as illegitimate, and made unsubstantiated claims that pollsters got results ‘knowingly wrong’ and that the election was being stolen
Trump doubles down on false election result claims as Biden calls for calm
US election live coverage More
Wall Street is supposed to hate uncertainty but as the fight over the presidential contest continues, investors couldn’t be happier.
If, as appears likely, Joe Biden wins, he will become the first president since George HW Bush to enter office without control of both the House and Senate – an outcome that indicates at least two years of legislative gridlock.
It’s a scenario Wall Street appears to love. One that may give Republicans in the Senate little incentive to enact a new, larger coronavirus stimulus package that Democrats have hoped for and the power to block tax increases, big spending programs and tougher regulations.
Stocks jumped again on Thursday, the first time since 1982 that the Dow and S&P 500 rose at least 1% on four straight sessions, giving the stock indices their biggest weekly gains since April, with the Dow up 7.1% week, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq up 7.4% and 9% in the week to date.
Oliver Jones, senior markets economist at Capital Economics, told the Guardian: “There’s definitely some relief that things like tougher tax policy, tougher corporate reforms look to be off the table without Democrats having more control over Congress.
“Essentially, it’s going to look more like a continuation of the status quo, which is the outcome favoured by most firms,” Jones added.
Brad McMillan, chief investment officer at Commonwealth Financial Network, attributed some of the gains to the election’s smooth running and, notwithstanding legal challenges, the likelihood of an imminent outcome.
Looking forward, McMillan told the Guardian, markets were encouraged by prospects that a Biden administration’s more progressive, high spending proposals are less likely to get through a politically split legislature.
“Biden’s economic plan included substantial new corporate taxes and capital gains taxes, all of which would have been very disruptive to the market,” McMillan said. “The risks from a blue wave and a Green New Deal are now off the table.”
Wharton professor of finance Jeremy Siegel also welcomed the result, even as the final outcome of the presidential election remained unresolved. “Truthfully that combination is excellent for the economy and it’s excellent for the markets,” Siegel told CNBC on Wednesday
Market enthusiasm for a split government has historical roots going back decades. In 2018, after voters handed control of the lower chamber to Democrats in the midterm elections, markets soared.
“The better-performing periods are periods where the houses were split in terms of leadership,” financial adviser Mellody Hobson noted at the time.
Since Tuesday, markets have also been buoyed by the prospect of government infrastructure spending that could also pump billions of taxpayer dollars into an overhaul of the nation’s energy and transportation systems.
For big tech, which is facing antitrust investigations under the Trump administration, the political scenario could also be rosy. Ahead of the election, FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) stocks, in particular, showed jitters after months of impressive pandemic gains.
“The Street appears to have gotten the ‘Goldilocks election outcome’ for tech stocks with no ‘blue wave’ expected (Senate staying red) and a likely Biden White House now on the horizon,” said Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities in an investors note on Thursday.
“With the Republicans likely to control the Senate, the chances of major legislative changes to antitrust law now is off the table in the eyes of investors which posed the biggest risks to tech stalwarts with a ripple impact across the sector,” Ives added.
Ives said the likely election outcome was a “green light to buy tech stocks” and predicted that big tech stocks could rally another 10% to 15% into year-end. “We continue to be bullish on owning the secular growth stories for 2021,” he wrote. More
As the US election has dragged on and people remain glued to their screens, a new type of celebrity has emerged: the results analyst. And none has been more popular than CNN’s John King.
King, CNN’s chief national correspondent since 2005, has been a nearly constant presence for viewers, fronting the broadcaster’s “magic wall” tirelessly through the week.
With the coronavirus pandemic leading to vastly more postal votes, which take longer to process than in-person ballots, analysts such as King and MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki have become the must-watch stars of the small screen. The Los Angeles Times has said King’s indefatigable efforts and insight have made him the election’s “MVP”.
King, who said he managed just two-and-a-half hours’ sleep on election night and four hours on Wednesday, has fronted The Wall at every election since 2008. A giant interactive touchscreen that allows CNN anchors to see up-to-date voting detail by district and to analyse every possible voting permutation, The Wall has come into its own as this year’s vote count drags on.
The 59-year old has fronted The Wall for 12- to 14-hour shifts on-screen, dissecting updates county by county and state by state, and informing viewers of the changing “pathways” for Donald Trump and Joe Biden to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to make it to the White House. More
Joe Biden, the US Democratic presidential challenger, has reached what appears to be a tipping point in the contest for the White House, taking the lead in Pennsylvania and Georgia as the tally of postal ballots continued to skew heavily in the Democrat’s favour.
With a Biden victory looking assured, CNN reported that a “national defence airspace” would be established above the Democratic candidate’s house in Wilmington, Delaware, meaning he would begin to receive the protection of the US military, the first trappings of the presidency.
But a smooth transfer of power still looked far from certain. Donald Trump and a handful of loyalists continued to allege election fraud, without any evidence. Biden was reported to be seeking to rally prominent figures from both parties to endorse the legitimacy of the election, at a nervous moment for US democracy.
After whittling down a substantial lead for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on election night, Biden’s vote count passed the president just before 9am, building up a narrow edge of 6,737. Many of the roughly 130,000 votes yet to be counted in the state are in Democratic areas, and Democrats make up a disproportional share of postal ballots.
Winning Pennsylvania would also win the presidency, no matter what happens in the other states remaining undecided, but Biden also had the advantage there.
In the early hours of Friday morning in the US, Biden had moved to a 1,096-vote advantage in Georgia with thousands of ballots still left to be counted – many in counties where the former vice-president was in the lead.
The Georgia secretary of state reported late on Thursday there were about 10,000 ballots still to be counted in the state, a must-win for Trump in order to keep any chances of re-election alive in the race for the 270 electoral college votes that will determine the presidency.
Biden’s lead over Trump in the nationwide popular vote stretched to over 4m, as he amassed a record 73.7m, but the president’s tally of 69.7m was the second highest in US political history – reflecting the fact that while Trump seemed doomed to defeat, Trumpism will remain very much a force.
As Biden closed in on victory on Thursday night, he urged calm after an inflammatory and falsehood-filled Trump address from the White House where the president once again claimed he had won.
The latest voting figures accelerated increasingly frantic efforts by Trump and his campaign to undermine confidence in the election, threatening a rash of litigation amid unfounded claims of election rigging.
“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.
“If you count the legal votes, I easily win, Trump wrongly claimed. “If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.
“If you count the votes that came in late, we’re looking at them very strongly, a lot of votes came in late,” he said.
Several TV networks cut away during his remarks, with anchors saying they needed to correct his statements. However, two loyalist senators, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Ted Cruz of Texas, appeared on Fox News to echo Trump’s claims, in the absence of evidence that illegal or late votes were being counted, or that the election is being stolen. Graham whose loyalty had been questioned on Twitter by the president’s son, Don Jr, pledged $500,000 towards the president’s legal fees.
Reports from inside the White House said the president had no plans to concede the election even after the votes are fully counted.
From his Delaware headquarters Biden sought to project national leadership, beginning his remarks by talking about the surging coronavirus infection rates, and appealed for patience with the electoral process, after it emerged the US Secret Service was sending extra officers to Delaware to join his security detail.
“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.”
In the south-west, Biden maintains slim advantages in Arizona and Nevada. In Arizona, his lead narrowed to about 47,000 early on Friday and in Nevada he was ahead by about 11,500 votes.
Trump had seen his lead steadily shrink in Georgia, a southern state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since Bill Clinton in 1992, as officials worked through tens of thousands of uncounted votes, many from Democratic strongholds such as Atlanta.
While Biden’s victories in the upper midwest put him in a strong position, Trump showed no sign of giving up. He was back on Twitter at about 2.30am on Friday, insisting the “US Supreme Court should decide!”.
While many high-profile Republicans have not commented on Trump’s latest remarks, several GOP lawmakers denounced his baseless allegations about fraud, with Paul Mitchell, a Michigan congressman, saying that every vote would be counted, adding that “anything less harms the integrity of our elections and is dangerous for our democracy”.
Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois GOP congressman, tweeted: “Stop spreading debunked misinformation … This is getting insane.” More
