US Election 2020 updates: Biden is poised to win but it isn’t over yet. What we know

Savannah Behrmann, USA Today

We’re two days past Election Day and USA TODAY’S coverage of the US Election 2020 continues as states work to finish counting the ballots.

All eyes on are the battleground states that will ultimately decide the election. Be sure to refresh this page often to get the latest information on how things are going.

Georgia presidential race continues to tighten, Perdue close to a runoff

The presidential race in Georgia continued to tighten Thursday as the state counted its remaining votes. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had slowly closed the gap with President Donald Trump, trailing by about 18,000 votes with 98% of the vote counted.

And a second Senate race was close to a runoff election in Georgia, with incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue leading Democratic nominee Jon Ossoff with about 50.0% of the vote share. Perdue needs to secure at least 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff, and Ossoff and Libertarian candidate Shane Hazel have chipped away at his numbers.

The state’s other Senate election is set for a January runoff between incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told Atlanta radio station WSB there were about 50,000 ballots left to count.  The state would be done with its count by noon EST Thursday, he told WSB-TV.

Who is winning?

Former Vice President Joe Biden is just six electoral votes to reaching 270 in the presidential race after he was named the winner in Wisconsin and Michigan.

The race is now down to Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina, while interesting numbers also emerge from Arizona.

President Donald Trump has 214 electoral votes, and his team has filed lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Georgia to prevent the counting of ballots.

With votes still being counted, Biden has broken the record for most votes received by a candidate, amassing nearly 72 million. As of Wednesday evening, he was leading Trump by more than 4 million.

Where do the final states stand as of 3 a.m. EDT?

Arizona

Biden maintained a lead in Arizona over Trump, but his margin shrunk in a new batch of results posted Wednesday evening and early Thursday morning consisting mainly of early ballots from Maricopa County, which the president carried in 2016.

A new tally is not expected until later this morning after officials updated the numbers at 2:40 am EDT.

The Associated Press has defended their early call that Biden is projected to win Arizona despite calls from the Trump campaign to retract. Arizona’s 11 electoral votes are factored into USA TODAY’s electoral college count.

Trump and his supporters have alleged voting irregularities and other issues. There is no evidence of any vote counting issues in

Georgia

Georgia was on the mind of Americans Wednesday night as Biden gained significantly on Trump in the traditionally red state.

With an estimated 96% of the state reporting their votes, Biden is trailing the president by roughly 23,000 votes. Trump’s lead over Biden has shrunk as more votes get counted. Earlier Wednesday, he had a lead of over 100,000 votes.

Many of the outstanding ballots that needed to be counted were in counties surrounding Atlanta, like Fulton. A Fulton County official said on CNN last night they expected full results there between midnight and 3 a.m. EDT.

Nevada

Biden needs six electoral college votes. Nevada, where Biden is leading, has six electoral college votes. But updates to the state results were not announced Wednesday night.

State officials in Nevada are sticking to their original plan of updating results mid-day EDT Thursday.

North Carolina

North Carolina, a state that’s is crucial to Trump’s reelection, was close as of Wednesday night, with the president leading 50.1% to 48.7%.

Full results in North Carolina are not expected until next week, according to local media outlets, to allow outstanding mail-in and provisional ballots to be counted.

Pennsylvania

The president’s lead in Pennsylvania shrunk as mail-in ballots have broken for Biden by a large margin.

If Biden remains on the current track, and Democratic turnout remains high in cities like Philadelphia, the former Vice President could take the lead in that state Thursday.

The president’s campaign team prematurely and incorrectly stated they had won the state Wednesday, despite hundreds of thousands of ballots being unaccounted for. Social media posts claiming victory were flagged as disinformation.

Pennsylvania still has hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots to count, but the Secretary of State said they expected to be counted by the end of the day Thursday.