Democrat Joe Biden was on the cusp of winning the presidency on Friday as he opened up narrow leads over President Donald Trump in the critical battlegrounds of Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Those put Biden in a stronger position to capture the 270 Electoral College votes needed to take the White House. The winner will lead a country facing a historic set of challenges, including a surging pandemic and deep political polarization.
Trump remained in the White House residence Friday morning as his campaign insisted the election wasn’t over. Biden was at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, as the vote count continued.
The focus on Pennsylvania, where Biden led Trump by more than 9,000 votes, and Georgia, where Biden led by more than 1,500, came as Americans entered a third full day after the election without knowing who will lead them for the next four years. The prolonged process added to the anxiety of a nation whose racial and cultural divides were inflamed during the heated campaign.
We get the latest.
With files from the Associated Press.
Guests:
Anita Kumar, White House correspondent and associate editor for POLITICO; she tweets
Justin Levitt, professor of law at Loyola Law School; he is a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where his focus included voting rights; he tweets