The race for the White House has narrowed to five battleground states where election officials are working overtime to tally the votes amid growing civil …
The race for the White House has narrowed to five battleground states where election officials are working overtime to tally the votes amid growing civil unrest and unsubstantiated accusations of fraud from President Trump’s campaign. Tension over the outcome is spilling into the streets, with Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden separated by only razor-thin margins in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. The Trump campaign is flooding the battleground states with legal challenges, as Biden’s vote count surges 48 hours after Election Day due to many Democrats having voted by mail. Trump is clinging to leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia — two states he must win to have a shot at a second term — but Biden has been gaining fast as mail ballots are counted. In Arizona and Nevada, the reverse is true, as Trump has been eating into Biden’s narrow margins. Trump appears to be on solid footing in North Carolina, another must-win state for him. Still, Biden is the favorite to win the White House, as the late votes in Pennsylvania and Georgia break his way and doubts remain about whether Trump can claw his way back on top in Arizona or Nevada. Election officials in those states have been briefing the public throughout the day to explain why the count is taking so long and provide transparency into some of the issues they’ve faced in vote counting. The Trump campaign has dispatched its own surrogates to vote-counting hot spots to draw attention to what it describes as irregularities and to announce new legal challenges across the battleground states. The president was not seen in public Thursday, but he drew headlines and backlash for his remarks on Twitter.