Joe Biden has publicly said he anticipates a win in the US presidential election, as the final ballots are counted.
After successfully chasing down Donald Trump’s lead in several states, Biden pushed ahead of the Republican incumbent in the key state of Pennsylvania early on Friday afternoon. If he wins the state, he will have enough Electoral College votes to take the presidency.
Meanwhile, Trump has shown no sign of going down without a fight. He hasn’t spoken publicly since Thursday night, when he delivered a speech full of baseless conspiracy theories about electoral fraud, but has tweeted several times about legal action and retweeted many users questioning the count.
Here’s where we stand right now.
What’s happening in the remaining states?
Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes)
Biden overtook Trump in Pennsylvania on Friday afternoon – a promising sign for the Democrats who are now anticipating victory in the election.
The most recent update from AP states that Biden is currently leading by more than 28,000 votes, out of more than 6.5m ballots cast.
But there are still tens-of-thousands of votes to be counted, meaning it’s too soon to call the race definitively. Biden currently has an edge of around 0.43%, and state law dictates that a recount must be held if the margin between the two candidates is less than 0.5%.
While Biden has said publicly that he’s confident he will win the presidency, it could take days for that result to be issued definitively – though some major news networks could call the result earlier if his margin continues to increase.
Nevada (6 electoral votes)
Biden’s lead in Nevada has also increased to 22,657 vote lead Friday evening – a roughly 1.79 percentage point edge over Trump.
There is still a considerably long way to go before all the votes will be counted in Nevada, with around 87% of votes counted. Many of those still to be processed are ballots postmarked on election day and are likely to be in Biden’s favour.
Officials have said an update on the count will be released on Saturday afternoon.
Arizona (11 electoral votes)
The Associated Press and Fox News both projected a victory for Biden on election night, but no other network has done so since.
Although the gap has narrowed during continued vote-tallying, Biden still leads with 20,573 votes after the latest batch was announced at about 4pm GMT.
Georgia (16 electoral votes)
Biden took the lead over Trump early Friday morning by more than 4,000 votes, with votes still left to be counted.
The state will be headed to a recount, Georgia’s secretary of state said Friday.
North Carolina (15 electoral votes)
Trump leads by more than 75,000 votes, with an estimated 95% of votes counted.
He appears to be in a strong position to win the state.
What are Biden and Trump’s paths to winning?
Trump’s path to victory is now increasingly limited.
Biden can claim victory by winning Pennsylvania alone, or two out of the trio of Georgia, Nevada and Arizona.
To win, Trump needs to claim Pennsylvania and Georgia while overtaking Biden in either Nevada or Arizona.
Most major US television networks currently give Biden a 264 to 214 lead in Electoral College votes – with 270 needed to win.
What has Trump said?
Trump hasn’t spoken publicly since Thursday night, when he delivered a bizarre speech full of misinformation and blatant lies about alleged electoral fraud.
“If you count the legal votes, I easily win,” Trump falsely claimed, adding without evidence that there had been “historical interference from big media, big money and big tech”.
Some major TV networks in the US immediately cut their coverage as Trump raised non-specific issues with postal voting. He referred to “a pipe burst”, “people are using binoculars” and “paper on all of the windows”.
While he hasn’t delivered a speech since, he has – of course – continued tweeting, referring repeatedly to his disappearing lead and the legal action his lawyers have brought against various states for alleged issues with the count.
In one tweet he wrote: “I had such a big lead in all of these states late into election night, only to see the leads miraculously disappear as the days went by. Perhaps these leads will return as our legal proceedings move forward!”
The current president has also retweeted dozens of tweets that question the counting process, criticise the polls, and falsely claim that Trump is ahead in the vote.
What has Biden said?
In a speech late on Friday night, Biden said he has a “mandate for action” as he anticipated victory ahead of the last votes being counted.
Striking a more confident tone than his previous speech, during which he urged patience as counting continued, the Democrat said: “The numbers tell us a clear and convincing story: we’re going to win this race.”
He referred to the 74 million people who had voted for him, adding: “I know watching these vote tallies on TV moves very slow and as slow as it goes it can be numbing.
“But never forget the tallies aren’t just numbers, they represent votes and voters, men and women who exercised their fundamental right to have their voice heard.
“And what’s becoming clear each hour is that a record number of Americans of all races, faiths, religions chose change over more of the same. They’ve given us a mandate for action, on Covid, the economy, climate change, systemic racism.”
He added how the party has “rebuilt the blue wall in the middle of the country that crumbled just a few years ago”.
It was a reference to Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – the latter has yet to be declared for him.