Despite President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden both scoring major electoral college wins on Election Night, the 2020 race for the White House is far from decided.
FiveThirtyEight currently lists the electoral college vote count at 225-213 in Biden’s favor. Meanwhile, six battleground states — Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — are still counting ballots and are considered too close to call. (RELATED: We Spent Election Night Inside Trump’s White House Extravaganza — Here’s What It Was Like)
WILMINGTON, DELAWARE – NOVEMBER 04: Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks at a drive-in election night event as Dr. Jill Biden looks on at the Chase Center in the early morning hours of November 04, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden spoke shortly after midnight with the presidential race against Donald Trump still too close to call. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
As it currently stands, both candidates have clear paths to victory, and as expected, all scenarios ultimately come down to the two remaining Southern states and the Rust Belt trio that secured Trump’s 2016 win.
In order to reach 270 electoral college votes, Trump must win Georgia, North Carolina and two of the three remaining Rust Belt states. Biden, in turn, needs to only win two of those five to earn a ticket back to the White House.
Michigan, Georgia, and Wisconsin all stopped counting ballots early Wednesday morning and were just starting to resume the process at press time. (Calling All Patriots: Who Do You Think Will Win The Election And How Confident Are You Of Your Prediction?)
WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 04: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks on election night in the East Room of the White House as First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Karen Pence look on in the early morning hours of November 04, 2020 in Washington, DC. Trump spoke shortly after 2am with the presidential race against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden still too close to call. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Both campaigns expressed confidence in their chances of winning Michigan and Wisconsin once counting resumed.
An official from the Biden campaign stated Wednesday morning that the count is “moving to a conclusion in our favor” and predicted that both states would be called for Biden by day’s end.
NEW: From a @joeBiden official: “This is moving to a conclusion — and moving to a conclusion in our favor.”
Team Biden say they expect both WI and MI to be called in their favor today.— Natasha Korecki (@natashakorecki) November 4, 2020
A senior Trump official told the Daily Caller after the president’s speech at the White House that they feel “really good” about his chances of winning Michigan and Wisconsin, but added that Pennsylvania is more up in the air.
Final results from Georgia and North Carolina are not expected until Friday. In Georgia, a burst pipe caused significant delays in counting mail-in ballots and election officials are squabbling over when results will actually be delivered. North Carolina, however, has counted 100 percent of in-person and mail-in ballots received so far, yet the state’s window for counting mail-in ballots was previously extended until Friday, as long as they were postmarked by Nov. 2. North Carolina expects to tabulate roughly 117,000 more mail-in ballots. Ballot counting in Pennsylvania resumed Wednesday morning after a break and final results in the state could take days.
That’s it for election results updates until 9:00 am on Nov. 5. Here’s what has been counted so far:
All in person early votes
All in person Election Day votes
All mail ballots through Nov. 21/2
— Nevada Elections (@NVElect) November 4, 2020
Nevada additionally announced Wednesday morning that the state’s full results should be counted by Thursday.