While President Trump is projected to win Ohio and the big battleground state of Florida, his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, insisted early Wednesday that “we believe we’re on track to win this election.”
Biden cited Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, where many votes — including an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots — were still being tallied in the bitterly contested presidential election that may take days to resolve.
“It ain’t over till every vote is counted,” Biden said. At around the same time, Trump tweeted that “we are up BIG” and baselessly accused Democrats of “trying to STEAL the Election.”
Trump is also projected to win Indiana, Tennessee, Missouri, Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Utah, West Virginia, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota and Wyoming, plus three electoral votes in Nebraska, according to Edison Research.
Biden is projected to win California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Virginia, Washington, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, Colorado, Connecticut, Oregon, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, Delaware and the District of Columbia, plus one electoral vote in Nebraska.
Democrats captured an early advantage in their fight for the Senate majority, with ex-Colorado governor John Hickenlooper unseating GOP Sen. Cory Gardner; but the party’s chances of taking the chamber dwindled as results in other states rolled in.
Republican Tommy Tuberville was projected to unseat Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in Alabama. GOP Sen. Joni Ernst was projected to fend off Democrat Theresa Greenfield in Iowa. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham held off a Democratic challenger, Jaime Harrison, in South Carolina. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won reelection in Kentucky, beating back a serious effort to boost his Democratic opponent.
Democrats appeared to be on their way to retaining their majority in the House.
The U.S. Postal Service disregarded a federal judge’s election-day order to conduct processing-facility sweeps in 12 postal districts after the agency disclosed that more than 300,000 ballots could not be traced.
