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SCMP Reporters



All times are Eastern Time (UTC-5, HKT-13). Infographic above uses AP for its statistics; live blog pulls data from multiple sources.
Democratic challenger Joe Biden has overtaken US President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania and Georgia, putting him in the lead in all four key battleground states.
If Biden wins Pennsylvania he will take the presidency. If he does not take the state but is declared victor in Georgia and retains the still-contested Arizona, he will have the 270 Electoral College votes he needs to make it to the White House. At present some media companies such as the Associated Press and Fox News have called Arizona for Biden, while others such as CNN have held off. Trump is managing to regain ground of his own in that state.
This is the third full day of the South China Morning Post’s live updates from the US presidential race. Read our continuing election coverage here.
As part of SCMP’s commitment to providing our readers with expert coverage of the US election, this live blog is free to all. Please support us on our mission to bring you quality journalism.


As it happened: Biden overtakes Trump in Pennsylvania, Georgia, putting him on cusp of US presidency

Activists dance with sculptures of the White House and Philadelphia City Hall across the street from where votes are being counted in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Photo: Reuters


Campaigners at an election rally in Georgia. A Democrat has not won the Peach State since Bill Clinton in 1992. Photo: AFP

An anti-Trump protester is seen in San Francisco on Thursday. Photo: AP

Democratic Candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden is seen with his wife Dr. Jill Biden at his Election Night event at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, on Tuesday. Pool photo: EPA-EFE

President Donald Trump walks away after speaking at the White House on Thursday. Photo: AP

Supporters of US President Donald Trump protest in front of the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Centre in Phoenix, Arizona, on Thursday. Photo: Reuters

A supporter of Donald Trump holds a sign that has been torn up by a fan of Joe Biden outside the Fulton County Registration and Elections Department in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Joe Biden addresses supporters in Wilmington, Delaware on election night. Photo: AP

Trump vs Biden: what happens if the 2020 US election is contested?

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Joe Biden and US President Donald Trump. Photo: AFP

President Donald Trump walks to speak with reporters after voting at the Palm Beach County Main Library, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2020, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)


If the challenger wins Pennsylvania he will become the 46th president of the United States
Biden leads in all four key battleground states



If the challenger wins Pennsylvania he will become the 46th president of the United States. Biden also leads in all four key battleground states


US Presidential Election 2020

US-China relations

Donald Trump

Joe Biden

United States

Live

Biden: 264 Electoral College votes (with some news organisations having called Arizona for Biden), 253 (without Arizona)
Trump: 214 Electoral College votes
The first to 270 will win.
Nevada: According to local media reports, the registrar of Clark County, the most populous district in Nevada, will disclose new results at 10am Pacific time, which would be 1pm Eastern time, or 2am on Friday, Hong Kong time. As it stands, Biden leads Trump by fewer than 8,000 votes, or 49.3 per cent to 48.7 per cent with 86 per cent of ballots reported.
Arizona: The next results in crucial Maricopa County, the most populous jurisdiction in the state, are “not expected until Thursday night” local time, The New York Times reported, with Donald Trump eating gradually into Biden’s lead in the state which was called early by AP and Fox News. Other media outlets have declined to declare for Biden. As it stands, Biden leads with 50.5 per cent of the vote compared to Trump’s 48.1 per cent, with 86 per cent of votes reported.
Georgia: According to The New York Times, the next update from Georgia’s secretary of state is scheduled for 10.30am Eastern time on Thursday, which is 11.30pm Hong Kong time. Democratic stronghold Fulton County expects to update its remaining ballots, numbering between 10,000 and 11,000, by 11am local time.
North Carolina: North Carolina election officials will not finalise their count until November 12, as about 116,000 outstanding mail-in ballots have yet to be received. No further tallies are expected. As it stands, Trump leads with 50.1 per cent of the vote compared to 48.7 per cent for Biden, with 95 per cent reported.
Pennsylvania: Speaking to CNN in the last hour, state Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, a Democrat, said a victor could be “announced as early as today” but did not specify a time. It is estimated that there are more than 750,000 mail-in ballots left to count. As it stands, Trump leads with 50.1 per cent of the vote compared to 48.1 per cent for Biden, with 89.1 per cent reported.


The state of play

With Joe Biden’s chances for the presidency remaining high on Thursday morning but many ballots still left to tally, Donald Trump continues to demand an end to vote counting before it is finished. His first tweet of the morning: “STOP THE COUNT!” 
If you stop the count, right now, Biden wins with 270 electoral votes--with leads in AZ/NV, plus the states where he's already the projected winner.https://t.co/o3V53MqBsb
  — Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) November 5, 2020
At the same time, in areas where Trump is trailing Biden, Trump’s supporters have also been chanting “count every vote” -- a message echoed by Joe Biden in his own tweet this morning.
Every vote must be counted. pic.twitter.com/kWLGRfeePK
  — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 5, 2020
Not long after his initial tweet, Trump posted another reading: “ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED!”
The president, of course, does not have the authority to stop the counting of votes.
ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED!
  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2020
According to current counts from Associated Press, stopping the vote count now would give Biden a victory in the election, but Trump’s team has also filed lawsuits in multiple closely contested states -- a sign that they likely want to not only stop the vote count, but also challenge the validity of other ballots that already have been counted.
Fox News reports that the Trump campaign wants to sue Nevada over what it claims, without evidence, are 10,000 votes (larger than Biden's current lead) cast by out-of-state residents.
While media outlets call results and the candidates themselves may declare victories, results are certified only through a process known as the canvass, wherein each vote is certified, first by local counties and then by each state’s central election authority. This process can take days or weeks.


Trump’s morning tweet: ‘Stop the Count’

Russia says outdated legislation and a lack of regulation has revealed flaws in the US electoral system. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova points out “obvious shortcomings in the American electoral system”.
“This is partly due to the archaic nature of the relevant legislation and a lack of regulation in a number of fundamental points,” she said.  She says Russia hopes the US will be able to elect the next president in “full compliance with the American Constitution”, adding that “the most important thing is to avoid the occurrence of mass riots in the country”.


Russia points to ‘flaws’ in US election system

Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager and senior adviser, is the latest member of the president’s inner circle to question Trump’s push to end vote counting.
“They spent three years investigating the president, impeaching the president. We can't wait three hours, three days, three weeks to get a result in our great sturdy democracy as to whom the next president will be? I mean, what is the rush, all of a sudden? I think the rush is, there was no blue wave. There was no early night. There was no democratic progressive realignment,” Conway tells Fox News from Trump campaign headquarters in Virginia. “Why are we in such a rush to finish this election prematurely? Let's be patient. Let's take a deep breath. Let's count every legal vote. I think it's a time to be methodical and not emotional.”
Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, a close Trump ally who helped prepare the president for his first debate against Biden last month, tells ABC hours after Trump demanded that counting after midnight on Election Day should stop that “there's just no basis to make that argument tonight. There just isn’t.”



Former top Trump adviser calls for patience

Joe Biden’s campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, and his campaign’s advisor, Bob Bauer give an election update and provide insight into the campaign’s current numbers.



Biden’s team gives election briefing

An election official in Georgia says there are still about 60,000 votes that need counting and reiterates that all will be tallied accurately and fairly. The official breaks down the outstanding votes county by county, saying the majority are from Clayton and Fulton counties, part of the metro Atlanta area.
So far, Joe Biden has been capturing about 80 per cent of the votes from the mail-in ballots in that area, according to CNN. Donald Trump is leading in the state by a slim margin of 18,000 votes as of 10:50am ET.
The Georgia official says he expects to have a majority of the outstanding votes counted by the end of the day. “This is a long process,” he said, but “an accurate count is much more vital than a fast count.”
According to state law, if the margin of victory is less than 0.5 per cent, a campaign can request a recount.


Biden makes up ground in Georgia

Some more details about the state of play in Georgia, now that Trump’s lead there has shrunk to just over 18,000 votes, according to the latest Associated Press numbers:
Nate Silver, an analyst at FiveThirtyEight, says the remaining 61,000 votes left to be counted are “mostly in blue counties” -- meaning counties where people tend to support the Democratic Party.   Those include many from Atlanta and its suburbs, and the city of Savannah on the Atlantic coast.
  If Biden can overtake Trump in Georgia, it would be a huge pickup for him. Biden said in a speech on Tuesday that his campaign didn’t expect to be “in the game” there, though many polls suggested the race would be close. No Democratic presidential candidate has won Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992.


Uncounted Georgia votes come from Democratic areas

A second day of sometimes duelling demonstrations over the integrity of the US presidential election started early on Thursday in Philadelphia and other cities as ballot counting dragged on in a handful of states that would decide the outcome.
Some groups, mainly Democrats, rallied around the slogan to “count every vote”, believing a complete tally would show former vice-president Joe Biden had beaten Republican President Donald Trump.
Ardent Trump supporters countered with cries to “protect the vote” in support of his campaign’s efforts to have some categories of ballots, including some votes submitted by mail, discarded.
Both factions appeared outside a vote-counting centre in Philadelphia on Thursday morning. A group of Trump supporters holding Trump-Pence flags and signs saying “vote stops on Election Day” gathered across the street from Biden supporters who danced to music behind a barricade. Similar rallies were planned later in the day in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital.




Duelling protests over ballot counting

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro says the state is counting the remaining ballots, mostly mail-in and absentee votes cast more than a week before Election Day. 
Asked about Trump aides’ unfounded accusation about vote fraud in the state, Shapiro said: “There is no legitimacy in those statements. We are counting these legal votes. They are every bit as legal as ballots that were cast on Election Day. We will respect the will of the people in Pennsylvania. That’s the law and that’s what we will do here.”
Trump is leading by 135,000 votes as of 11:43am ET, The New York Times reports. The gap has been narrowing from more than 700,000 votes Wednesday morning.


Pennsylvania attorney general says the state is counting remaining ballots

Joe Biden's lead in Nevada has increased from around 7,600 votes to around 11,700, CNN reports, as the critical state releases a new tranche of ballot counts.
Biden now holds 49.5 per cent of the vote compared with 48.5 for Donald Trump, with 89 per cent of the state reporting. Some additional 200,000 votes are expected to be tabulated today, with many of them coming from Clark county in the south of the state, a Democratic-leaning area that contains Las Vegas.
Winning the state would give the victor six Electoral College votes. Should Biden hold on to his lead in Arizona, that would take him to the 270-vote benchmark.


Biden’s lead in Nevada grows slightly

Joe Biden’s campaign officials say they believe Biden will win the Electoral College votes of Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada - which would secure the presidency by a large margin - and dismiss lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign over vote counts in various states as “misinformation” tactics.
Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign manager, says that Donald Trump’s lawyers filing those suits are engaged in a “flailing strategy” to avert “what is now inevitable: Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States”.
O’Malley Dillon says the campaign believes that Biden’s leads in Nevada and Arizona will hold up, though the races will likely narrow throughout Thursday.
As for Pennsylvania, where Biden is trailing by about 116,000 votes but continues to draw closer, she predicts Biden will win by “a sizeable number of votes”, with an estimated 600,000 uncounted ballots coming from mail-in voters and Democratic-leaning areas.
Georgia is a “toss-up” she says. But with Trump now leading in the state by less than 15,000 votes, O’Malley Dillon says that the estimated uncounted 60,000 mail-in votes and ballots from Democratic-leaning precincts will also push Biden over the top.

Bob Bauer, a Biden campaign adviser in charge of post-election legal issues, calls the suits by the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan “meritless” and intended to sow public doubt over the vote count.
“For their purposes, these lawsuits don’t have to have merit,” Bauer says. Instead, they are “part of a broader misinformation campaign” and “political theatre”.
“This strategy of disrupting the vote count…is doomed to fail”, he says.
“All of this is intended to create a large cloud, but it’s not a very thick cloud. You can see through it.”


Biden campaign says it will win four undecided states, and calls Trump campaign lawsuits ‘meritless’

A judge in Georgia has dismissed a lawsuit by the state Republican Party and President Donald Trump’s campaign that asked him to ensure a coastal county was following state laws on processing absentee ballots.
Chatham County Superior Court Judge James Bass did not provide an explanation for his decision on Thursday at the close of a roughly one-hour hearing. The county includes the heavily Democratic city of Savannah.
The suit had raised concerns about 53 absentee ballots that poll observers said were not part of an original batch of ballots. County elections officials testified that all 53 ballots had been received on time.


Georgia judge dismisses Trump lawsuit

Pennsylvania’s Democratic-leaning Allegheny county, where Pittsburgh is located, has paused counting, according to CNN. As many as 29,000 votes are caught up in a legal challenge over reissued ballots after a misprint issue.
The ballots won’t be counted until Friday after 5pm EST.
Meanwhile, NBC reports that counting has resumed in Philadelphia. 
There was a brief pause after a court ordered Trump campaign canvassing monitors be granted closer access to the counting operations, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Earlier on Thursday, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ordered that the Trump campaign observers had to be able to stand within six feet of any tables where counting is taking place.



Ballot counting paused in one Pennsylvania county, says CNN

Donald Trump’s campaign releases an all-capitals statement from the president. “IF YOU COUNT THE LEGAL VOTES, I EASILY WIN THE ELECTION! IF YOU COUNT THE ILLEGAL AND LATE VOTES, THEY CAN STEAL THE ELECTION FROM US!”
Campaign manager Bill Stepien had said earlier on Thursday morning that the president was “alive and well”. Trump has not spoken in public since election night.
Trump regularly levels accusations of voter fraud or irregularities.


Emphatic statement from Trump on vote counting

While Joe Biden hopes to build on his narrow lead in Nevada and increases his lead in the national popular vote, Donald Trump and his campaign continue to insist without evidence that the president is only losing because of fraud.
At a news conference in Nevada carried by Fox News, three men identified as Trump campaign officials insist that there must be widespread foul play in the state — but do not provide evidence, or even tell reporters their names when asked to identify themselves. 
Fox News cuts away from the conference before it finishes, and its anchors have advised viewers that any claims of fraud should be supported by evidence.
The anchors identify the campaign officials as Ric Grenell, Trump’s former acting director of national intelligence; Adam Paul Laxalt, a former Nevada attorney general; and Matt Schlapp, a longtime conservative activist.




Trump campaign in Nevada claims fraud but provides no evidence

Health authorities in a suburban county in the St Louis, Missouri area say that a poll worker who worked on Election Day despite a recent positive coronavirus diagnosis has died.
The unnamed polling supervisor in St Charles county worked on Tuesday despite being advised to self isolate for 14 days after their diagnosis on October 30, county officials say. Authorities are yet to confirm the cause of death.
Authorities are tracing the individual’s contacts, which could include nine other staffers who worked in the polling station on Tuesday. County officials say that the close contacts were unlikely to include any of the more than 1,800 voters who cast ballots there.
Missouri hit a record for daily cases of 3,188 on Wednesday, according to a New York Times tally. 


Missouri poll worker who tested positive for coronavirus dies

A judge has tossed a lawsuit brought by US President Donald Trump’s campaign in hopes of halting vote-counting in Michigan.
Michigan Court of Claims Judge Cynthia Stephens made the ruling during a court hearing on Thursday. She said she planned to issue a written ruling on Friday.




Trump campaign loses lawsuit seeking to halt Michigan vote count

Facebook takes down a rapidly growing group in which supporters of US President Donald Trump had posted misinformation, violent rhetoric and organised protests against the baseless claim that Democrats were stealing the election.
The group had ballooned to more than 365,000 members in one day. “In line with the exceptional measures that we are taking during this period of heightened tension, we have removed the Group ‘Stop the Steal’, which was creating real-world events,” says a Facebook spokeswoman in a statement.
“The group was organised around the delegitimisation of the election process, and we saw worrying calls for violence from some members of the group.”


Facebook removes pro-Trump group over false claims, calls for violence

The Pennsylvania secretary of state, Kathy Boockvar, says that the winner of the state will likely be known by the end of today, telling CNN that “the overwhelming majority” of outstanding ballots will be counted by then.
Boockvar says that some 550,000 ballots are expected to be processed on Thursday, with many coming from the Democratic-leaning metro area of Philadelphia. 
Donald Trump, whose 114,000-vote lead over Joe Biden in Pennsylvania continues to shrink, must win the battleground state to preserve any chance of reaching the 270 Electoral College votes needed to secure the presidency.
If Biden wins Pennsylvania, its 20 electoral votes would put him past the 270-vote threshold.



Pennsylvania close to declaring a winner, state official says

Donald Trump’s hold on the critical state of Pennsylvania is looking increasingly precarious. Though Joe Biden lags behind Trump by around 107,000 votes, he only needs 60 per cent of the remaining 550,000 votes to clinch the battleground state and its election-winning 20 Electoral College votes.
As of Thursday morning, Biden has been taking around 78 per cent of mail-in votes in the state, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Many of the outstanding votes are expected to come from Democrat-leaning areas like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Internally, the Trump camp is increasingly nervous about being dealt a "knockout blow" in Pennsylvania, CNN’s Jim Acosta reports. Earlier today, Acosta cited an adviser to Trump as saying that the president has already begun musing with aides about a comeback run in 2024 should he lose this election.


Pennsylvania seems to be tilting away from Trump

While they await the resolution of the presidential race, Democrats and Republicans are also still jostling to determine which political party will control the US Senate in the new year. 
Before Election Day, when 35 seats were up for election, Republicans controlled the Senate, with 53 of the chamber’s 100 seats. Democrats and the independents who caucus with them held 47 seats. 
As of now, both parties are set for 48 seats, but four races remain undecided: Alaska, North Carolina and two in Georgia, all with Republican incumbents. 
North Carolina’s vote tally, between incumbent Republican Thom Tillis and Democrat Cal Cunningham, is not expected to be updated until next week, when the state finishes receiving and counting mail-in ballots. Tillis leads Cunningham by less than one per cent, or about 90,000 votes, with 93 per cent reporting.
One of Georgia’s races, between the Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler, is already headed to a runoff election in January after neither candidate got 50 per cent of the vote.
Georgia’s other election, Republican incumbent David Perdue and his Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff, may also result in a run-off. Associated Press has Perdue at exactly 50 per cent, but Georgia's official election website says Perdue has 49.98 per cent of the vote.
Although Alaska’s Senate races can be unpredictable, the state is considered a safe Republican seat; with half of the state’s precincts reporting, incumbent Dan Sullivan leads the Democrat Al Gross by 30 percentage points. 


Control of the US Senate still uncertain

The Post’s Finbarr Bermingham explains how Washington’s China trade policy under Joe Biden would differ from that of Donald Trump: “Beyond the talking points, the entire strategy would be like night and day.” 


How Washington’s China trade policy would change under Biden

Joe Biden says he has “no doubt” that he will win the election once all votes are counted. 
“Democracy is sometimes messy,” he says. “I ask everyone to stay calm.”


He also says he and Senator Kamala Harris, his running mate, just received a briefing on the coronavirus pandemic and “the economic crisis facing this nation”.
The one-day US death toll from Covid-19 reached 100,000 for the first time yesterday, according to data compiled by The Washington Post.
If 90% of the ballots are from Clark County, there's no reason not to call Nevada. https://t.co/0CaF4t4mgH
  — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 5, 2020


Biden says he has ‘no doubt’ he will win

Technology stocks are leading a continued rally in US markets as investors pile back into the sector believing that the US election results might mean major tax hikes are less likely. 
Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index have jumped nearly 2 per cent for a fourth straight day, the first time since 1982 that both indices rose at least 1 per cent for four straight sessions. The Dow, which closed up 542 points, has added 7 per cent so far this week; the S&P has risen 7.4 per cent.
The Nasdaq 100 has risen 2.6 per cent on Thursday, extending a rally since Election Day - Tuesday - to a 9 per cent gain so far this week.
“The most dominant trend within the market today was a rotation into secular growth areas and out of virtually everything else,” say UBS analysts led by Solita Marcelli in a note, referring to a return of an appetite for risk among traders.
“The positive market reaction likely reflects some relief that civil unrest has been avoided so far” as well as “investors re-engaging now that the election uncertainty is beginning to resolve.”


US stocks continue their Election Week rally

Democrats are on track to retain control of the House of Representatives, but look to have lost much of the ground they gained when they flipped the chamber in 2018.
With 398 of the 435 races called by Associated Press, Democrats have lost five seats and Republicans have gained six seats, having also defeated Justin Amash, independent of Michigan. Democrats need to pick up at least ten of the remaining 37 seats to hold on to their majority.
Frustrated with the losses, moderate House Democrats are reportedly discussing plans to support a challenger to the current Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, according to news site The Hill. The Speaker is elected by the majority party in January at the beginning of each congressional session.
Given overwhelming bipartisan consensus calling for strong legislation on China, the handful of flipped seats are unlikely to affect the trajectory of congressional pressure on Beijing. A number of recent bills targeting the Chinese government’s actions have passed the chamber by near unanimous majorities.



Democrats on track to retain control of the House, but lose some ground

Joe Biden continues to cut into Donald Trump's lead in Georgia, with the gap reduced to just 9,525 votes as counting continues.
The office of Georgia’s Secretary of State estimates that slightly more than 47,000 votes are left to tally, mainly from the metro Atlanta area, a Democratic stronghold. Those mail-in ballots have so far heavily favoured Biden.
There are also an unknown number of military votes, filed from overseas.
Georgia carries 16 Electoral College votes, enough by some accounts to push Biden past the 270-vote mark needed to win the presidency.
Biden’s current total of 264 includes Arizona, whose 11 electoral votes have been called for him by Associated Press but not by some other media outlets.


Biden inches closer to a lead in Georgia, trailing Trump by 9,525

Donald Trump’s second term as US president is far from certain, but is planning to “look as presidential as possible” by acting as if it has already begun, sources have told Politico, with the signing of base-pleasing executive orders and firing of Cabinet members among the possible moves, sources have told Politico. 
“The first thing is going to be: who’s left, who’s been loyal and who’s been competent?” said one Republican close to the White House. “That’s going to be the first criteria. Who’s been loyal and who’s competent.”




Donald Trump to launch second term early, even without winning

The White House has announced that US President Donald Trump will deliver remarks at 6.30pm ET.
The announcement comes as lawyers for the Trump campaign have filed suits related to the vote counts in Pennsylvania and other hotly contested states, and shortly after Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate who seems poised to win the presidency, released his own video message promising that “each ballot must be counted - and that’s what we’re going to see going ahead”.


Trump to speak at 6.30pm EST

Donald Trump’s grasp on the biggest prize remaining on the Electoral College map, Pennsylvania, continues to slip, with his lead over Joe Biden shrinking to 78,314 votes.
According to the office of the Pennsylvania Secretary of State, there are 326,348 mail-in ballots remaining uncounted.
That means Biden needs to secure 62 per cent those votes to pass Trump and win the state’s 20 Electoral College votes, and secure him the presidency.
He has been exceeding that easily throughout Thursday’s count, and according to The New York Times, Biden has so far secured 79.8 per cent of all absentee ballots, consisting mostly of mail-in votes.
For Trump, Pennsylvania is a must-win state; without it he has no path to victory.


Trump’s lead in must-win Pennsylvania shrinks further

In a rare appearance since Election Day, embattled US President Donald Trump is speaking live to the nation. Watch below, and stay on the blog for analysis. Earlier, the Post analysed some of Trump’s previous questionable remarks. 
Note: The live stream link was replaced with this full, unedited recording of the speech at 8.15pm.



Watch live: Donald Trump addresses nation on video

A legal effort in Nevada by President Donald Trump’s campaign and state Republicans to try to stop the count of mail ballots in Las Vegas is over.
A document submitted in an appeal pending before the state Supreme Court says the campaign, Nevada Republican Party, Democrats and lawyers for the state have reached a settlement requiring Clark County election officials to supply “additional observation access” at a ballot processing facility in Las Vegas.


Trump campaign’s Nevada legal bid is over

With only a small handful of states still undecided and Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s odds of clinching the presidency increasing, US President Donald Trump delivers a prime-time speech from the White House, claiming without evidence that he is only losing because of widespread fraud.


Trump's remarks echo his tweets throughout the last two days, questioning the integrity of the vote in states where Biden is already in the lead or gaining. Earlier today, he demanded on Twitter that all vote counting in the country should stop, though the president does not have the power to halt the process.
Trump’s repeated comments that the election is being stolen from him are also leading to fears that he may not concede if the race is ultimately called for Biden.
“We’ve been accustomed to peaceful transitions, but we’re now entering an age where that’s called into question,” says Jeremy Zogby, partner with the polling group John Zogby Strategies.
While media outlets call results and the candidates themselves may declare victories, results are certified only through a process known as the canvass, wherein each vote is certified, first by local counties and then by each state’s central election authority. This process can take days or weeks.
For more on Trump’s claims about voter fraud, see our fact check by the Post’s Owen Churchill.


Trump repeats unfounded fraud accusations, claims victory as counts show shift towards Biden

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas urges both sides in the US election to show restraint until the results are available, adding it is irresponsible to aggravate tensions.
“America is more than a one-man show. Anyone who continues to pour oil on the fire in a situation like this is acting irresponsibly,” Maas tells Germany’s Funke media.
“Now is the time to keep a cool head until an independently determined result is available. Decent losers are more important for the functioning of a democracy than radiant winners.”


German minister says ‘US is more than a one-man show’

AP reports that President Donald Trump’s lead over Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia has slipped to a razor thin 3,536 as of 7pm EST. That leaves the margin at 0.1 per cent between the president and his challenger. 
The spreads have been narrowing throughout the day, with Trump leading by more than 18,000 votes earlier.
As mail-in ballots are counted in the state, most of the votes are from Democratic leaning counties near the metro Atlanta area, including Clayton County. As many as 98 per cent of the votes in the states have been counted.


Trump’s lead in Georgia slips to just 3,536, AP reports

As Donald Trump’s lead in Pennsylvania fell and Joe Biden got closer to potentially claiming the state - something that would give him the presidency, according to several estimates - supporters of both sides faced off in its largest city, Philadelphia.




Video: Tensions between Trump and Biden supporters in Philadelphia

Johns Hopkins University is reporting 102,830 new US coronavirus cases, the country’s first daily infections total over 100,000.
The record tally, published on Thursday, comes as the country is seeing a surge in cases while President Donald Trump falsely claims that the US is “rounding the turn”.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday that new cases are rising in 79 per cent of the US, and average daily cases have increased 20 per cent over the past week.
On Tuesday, the day of the presidential election, the US recorded its second-highest daily infections tally, with over 91,000 cases.
The surge is particularly severe in Wisconsin and other northern states.
The Trump administration has been under fire for its handling of the pandemic, which has infected more than 8.6 million people and resulted in over 230,000 deaths in the US.


US daily coronavirus cases top 100,000 for first time

A federal judge in Philadelphia rejects Trump campaign’s bid to stop the vote count in the city, while ruling in favour of increasing the number of observers allowed in the room.
US District Judge Paul Diamond determines that President Trump and former vice president Joe Biden are entitled to 60 vote observers each inside the room where counting is taking place. The votes already counted are not affected by the decision.
Amid contentious bickering in court, Judge Diamond chastened the lawyers, asking the campaign representatives to “be responsible adults here and reach an agreement.”
The president and his challenger Biden are fighting over 20 electoral votes in the state of Pennsylvania, where Philadelphia resides. Trump’s lead shrinks dramatically to 64,000 votes as of 7.53pm EST, from 700,000 votes on Wednesday.


US judge denies Trump campaign effort to stop Philadelphia vote count

Polling guru Nate Silver, founder and editor-in-chief of the FiveThirtyEight website, isn’t mincing words as he responds to critics who are accusing him of misleading voters with election predictions that seemed much more favourable to Joe Biden.
“If they’re coming after FiveThirtyEight, then the answer is **** you, we did a good job,” he tells Galen Druke, host of the website’s Politics Podcast.
As did many polls leading up to the election, the outlet’s most recent predictions show the Democratic nominee with a sizable lead over President Donald Trump. But the race is turning out to be much tighter than many people expected.
FiveThirtyEight predicted, for instance, that the former vice-president had a nearly 70 per cent chance of winning Florida, which did not happen.
Silver explains that the site considers Biden “a fairly heavy favourite” nationwide because “he could withstand a 2016-style polling error or a bit larger” and still win.
“People have false impressions about how accurate polls are.”


Prominent pollers FiveThirtyEight defend election predictions

A handful of in-office Republicans are castigating Trump over his White House appearance tonight in which he attributed his losses to widespread fraud without offering any substantive evidence.
“If you have legit concerns about fraud present EVIDENCE and take it to court,” tweets Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois. “STOP spreading debunked misinformation... This is getting insane.”
Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland, echoes: “There is no defence for the president’s comments tonight undermining our democratic process. America is counting the votes, and we must respect the results as we always have before.”
We want every vote counted, yes every legal vote (of course). But, if you have legit concerns about fraud present EVIDENCE and take it to court. STOP Spreading debunked misinformation... This is getting insane.
  — Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) November 6, 2020
In a statement that does not directly mention Trump’s name, Mitt Romney, the Republican senator from Utah who has sparred with the president in the past, says that “the votes will be counted” and any irregularities alleged will be “investigated and ultimately resolved in the courts”.


Republican politicians condemn Trump’s latest ‘fraud’ claims

Several media outlets cut coverage of Trump’s spurious White House address tonight in a bid to curtail the spread of misinformation about vote counts.
The extraordinary move – choosing not to broadcast a presidential candidate’s public address in the midst of a bitterly fought election – goes to show just how far beyond political convention this contest has become.
“Our job is to spread truth – not unfounded conspiracies,” says Nicole Carroll, editor-in-chief of USA Today, which stopped the live stream and pulled the video from its website.
NBC, CBS and ABC also cut away from the briefing early, Michael Grynbaum of The New York Times notes on Twitter. 
In the interest of public record, the South China Morning Post chose to stream the full briefing, which is displayed elsewhere in this live blog, with the allegations in it identified as baseless.
Editor-in-chief @nicole_carroll on pulling the livestream of President Donald Trump's remarks tonight. pic.twitter.com/GPrQudnFjj
  — USA TODAY (@USATODAY) November 6, 2020


US media outlets cut away from Trump’s ‘unfounded’ speech

Biden’s lead over Trump in Arizona continues to shrink, with a newly released tranche of votes putting the former vice-president now ahead by around 46,300 votes, down from around 57,000 earlier Thursday evening.
The new votes, from the highly populated Maricopa County around Phoenix, leave the race at 50.1 per cent to 48.5 per cent, with around 90 per cent reporting.
The western state is worth 11 Electoral College votes. Securing the state for Biden would see him needing just victory in Nevada to reach the requisite 270.


Trump continues to eat into Biden’s Arizona lead

As more votes are reported in Georgia, Trump’s lead continues to shrink and is now down to 2,497, according to the latest Associated Press numbers.


Trump lead in Georgia continues to shrink as vote count continues

Control of the US Senate is looking more uncertain now, with four races still undecided, including two in Georgia that may be heading to run-off elections in January.
David Perdue, an incumbent Republican running against Jon Ossoff, has dipped under 50 per cent in his race, according to Associated Press. If no one claims a majority of votes, the race must go to a run-off.
State law requires all run-off elections for federal office to take place on January 5.

Georgia’s other Senate race, which features three major candidates all competing for votes, is already set for its own run-off, between Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Raphael Warnock.
The race in Alaska, a Republican-leaning state, is still too early to call for Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan and Democrat Al Gross, with only half of the votes reported there so far.
The fourth undecided race, between Republican incumbent Thom Tillis and Democrat Cal Cunningham in North Carolina, will probably be decided next week once the state finishes receiving and counting mail-in ballots.


Four pivotal Senate races undecided, at least one set for run-off

A couple of former US trade and China-based officials have been sharing with the South China Morning Post their views on the election and Trump’s handling of a looming defeat.
The former US consul general in Shanghai, Ken Jarrett, says his network in China's biggest city is largely pleased by the thought of a Biden presidency - even if at a dinner with Chinese financiers last night the biggest topic of conversation was the cancelled Ant Financial IPO. 
“It was evident that they were pleased to see that Biden is the likely winner, because there is a certain amount of Trump exhaustion setting in, you know,” Jarrett says. “Whether or not they’re looking at it from China’s national interest is hard to judge, but I would say that this group felt that with a Biden administration, even if the fundamentals don’t go away, there will be more process and structure and less uncertainty for the interaction between the US and China.”
Francisco Sanchez, US undersecretary for trade during the Obama administration, is asked by the Post whether he and former government colleagues are shocked by Trump’s unsubstantiated election claims, or have come to expect it. 
“I think the answer is yes and yes,” Sanchez says. “I think people are shocked and not surprised. I think that it’s not ever good for any leader, whether they be the president of the United States or whether they be a leader in Congress, to make accusations without being able to substantiate those accusations.”


Ex-officials shocked at Trump speech, Chinese financiers ‘back Biden’

Joe Biden continues to eat into Donald Trump’s narrow lead in Georgia, with newly released counts putting the difference between the candidates at just 1,797 votes, with 99 per cent reporting. Incoming mail-in votes are trending strongly towards Biden.
Biden needs 58.72 per cent of the remaining vote in Georgia, and is currently trending at 66.5 per cent per batch.
With its 16 Electoral College votes, Georgia, not traditionally a battleground state, is a must-win for Trump if he is to reach the requisite 270 votes.


Georgia count: Biden cuts Trump’s slim lead further

South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has appeared on Fox News’ Hannity show to pledge US$500,000 to the legal fund of Donald Trump. 
“I am here tonight to stand with Donald J. Trump,” says Graham, who cruised to reelection this week over cashed-up Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison, “because he stood with me.” 
The appearance comes just hours after Trump supporters took to Twitter to point out that Graham had not tweeted his support of the beleaguered president. 
No one is surprised. https://t.co/DZ0GNZMjqG
  — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 5, 2020
Following Graham’s pledge on Hannity, known to be a weeknight staple for Trump, Eric Trump - another of the president’s sons - congratulates him for “having spine”. 
.@LindseyGrahamSC is a good man! Thank you for having spine! Fight this fraud! https://t.co/tLosUcTSZp
  — Eric Trump (@EricTrump) November 6, 2020
Texas Senator Ted Cruz appears on Hannity just after Graham to denounce “partisan and lawless” counts ongoing in Philadelphia.
Both senators - as well as the contentious host - continually claim Republican observers have not been permitted to view the count process in crucial Pennsylvania districts. Graham describes the process as “crooked as a snake”, although many legal observers have said that these claims have been debunked.
Tonight's lying on Fox News is out of control. Hannity, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham & Pam Bondi have all repeated Trump's lie that Philadelphia is blocking his poll watchers from observing the ballot counting. Bondi herself has been watching the ballot count. I watched her walk in.
  — Michael Finnegan (@finneganLAT) November 6, 2020


Lindsey Graham pledges half a million dollars to Trump’s legal fund

Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey and a Trump ally, calls on the president to provide evidence of his claims of widespread election fraud.
In a discussion during ABC News’ election coverage, Christie says statements Trump made during a news conference at the White House only “inflame without informing” and he would be “outraged” if they were true. 
“As a prosecutor, that’s like asking me to indict someone without showing me any evidence,” Christie says. “If you’re going to say those things from behind the podium at the White House, it’s his right to do it, it’s his right to pursue legal action, but show us the evidence.”
Several US media networks cut away from the news conference after Trump made repeated unfounded allegations about the election without providing evidence.
Christie contracted Covid-19 after helping Trump prepare for the first presidential debate at the White House.



Trump should back up his election fraud claims, ally says

After new batches of ballots were released in Bucks and Delaware counties and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Joe Biden trims Donald Trump’s lead in the pivotal state to 26,319.
Biden has been chipping away at the president’s lead in the state all night, and is now within 0.5 per cent of Trump, with tens of thousands of votes outstanding in Democratic strongholds in and around Philadelphia, the biggest city.
New: latest Delaware Co., PA mail ballots stretch Biden's lead there to 25.8% w/ 310k ballots countied. In 2016, Clinton carried it by 22.3% w/ 299k votes cast.
  Biden's lead is going to keep climbing in Delco. It's rapidly becoming more diverse & less GOP.
  — Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 6, 2020


Biden chips away at Trump’s lead in Pennsylvania

Nineteen former US attorneys who served under Republican presidents release a statement condemning Trump’s “premature, baseless and reckless comments” alleging widespread voter fraud, the latest salvo of criticism to come from within the Republican Party.
Trump’s claims and his campaign’s litigious onslaught constitute a threat to the very rule of law in the US, they say.
“For any candidate, let alone the president of the United States, to claim victory, without justification, before each and every vote is counted is imprudent and irresponsible,” the prosecutors say in a statement released this evening.
“The whole world is watching, and our very legitimacy as a nation of laws, not men, depends on getting this right.”


Former attorneys slam ‘baseless and reckless’ Trump allegations

AP tweets a fact check review of some of the claims of voter fraud Donald Trump made during his recent White House address. 
 
An #APFactCheck reviews claims made by President Trump at the White House on Thursday about vote counting.
  READ MORE: https://t.co/qAx5ETQBAM pic.twitter.com/QyOstJD6Mx
  — AP Fact Check (@APFactCheck) November 6, 2020
 
For more on Trump’s claims about voter fraud, see our fact check by the Post’s Owen Churchill.


Fact check of four of Trump’s unfounded fraud allegations

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell defends the right of US President Donald Trump to go to court over election results in some states, saying it is “the American way”. 
In a televised press conference in Kentucky, McConnell, a Republican, says pursuing litigation is a way to resolve uncertainty in the United States and one can anticipate both Democrats and Republicans being “lawyered up” in tight races.
“Having close, disputed elections is not unusual. It happens all the time,” McConnell says. “I don’t think the president should be criticised suggesting he may have some lawyers, because the other guys are certainly already doing that. In a close election, you can anticipate in some of these states you’re going to end up in court. It’s the American way”.
McConnell also defends the much criticised Electoral College, saying it helps to resolve tight elections, such as this year’s race.
“Imagine if you did not have the Electoral College and you had a close election in the popular vote count, when would the litigation ever stop?,” McConnell says. “What the Electoral College guarantees is you have finality in 50 separate places. You get to a final outcome.”




Mitch McConnell defends Trump going to court over ballots

Rich Fitzgerald, chairman of Allegheny County’s board of elections in Pennsylvania, says that 29,000 mail-in ballots would not be handled or processed until after 5 p.m. EST on Friday, by Federal Court order. 
Those ballots are from voters who received incorrect ballots and were re-issued correct ones, according to local cable station WTAE. Another 6,800 ballots have “other issues” like damage or missing dates and will be looked at starting Friday at 9am, by state order. 
The county also has what Fitzgerald estimated to be between 10 to 15 thousand provisional ballots from polling places outstanding on Thursday afternoon. Democrat-leaning Allegheny County includes the city of Pittsburgh.
Biden is steadily eating away at Trump’s lead in Pennsylvania, and currently trails the president by around 22,500 votes, CNN reports. The rate at which incoming votes are going in Biden’s favour will give him victory in the state if that momentum continues. 
Winning the battleground state would take Biden past the 270 Electoral College votes needed to take the White House.


Pennsylvania announces delay in handling of 29,000 mail-in votes

Police are investigating a suspected plot to attack the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia where votes are being counted, according to local media.
6abc Action News reports that a man has been taken into custody and a weapon has been recovered but says it cannot confirm if the individual is connected to the incident. 
The ongoing count in Philadelphia is key to the battleground state of Pennsylvania. The city is a Democratic stronghold, with each batch of votes counted there pushing Joe Biden closer to overtaking Donald Trump in the Keystone State, where he was born. 
If Biden carries Pennsylvania, it will take him above the magic number of 270 electoral college votes needed to become the next US president.



Suspected plot to attack vote count centre in Philadelphia

Earlier this year, Hong Kong found itself in the firing line of some of US President Donald Trump’s policies, with the president initiating the removal of the city’s special trading status in response to the imposition of China’s national security law. 
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Yuet-ngor was among those slapped with US sanctions, while goods made in Hong Kong to be shipped to the US must now be labelled as “made in China”. 
But should Joe Biden win the presidency, experts warn that Hong Kong should not expect drastically different treatment. 
“Biden will still have to deal with some of Trump’s legacies,” Wilson Chan Wai-shun, secretary general of the Global Studies Institute (Hong Kong) think tank told the Post’s Chris Lau. 
Read the rest of the story here.



Hong Kong should not expect different treatment under Joe Biden

US President Donald Trump and his Republican Party supporters denounce figures coming in that show his Democratic challenger Joe Biden leading or gaining ground.
Biden urges the country to be patient while all valid votes are counted.




Video: Trump calls election a ‘fraud’, Biden awaits full count

Associated Press and Fox News have called the race in Arizona in favour of former US vice-president Joe Biden, but other news organisations have been reluctant to do so, believing the contest is too tight to declare yet.
Setting Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes aside, the decision by AP and Fox matters because they say Biden only needs six more electoral votes to win the election.
That means that wins in either Nevada or Georgia could put him over the top.
Other news organisations, including CNN and The New York Times, have Biden still 17 electoral votes short of the 270 needed for victory, meaning he would need to take both Nevada and Georgia to win.
If Biden wins Pennsylvania – and he is rapidly closing in on Trump’s lead as votes continue to be counted – then he would win the election, according to all US network vote counts.

As more mail-in ballots have been counted, Biden’s margin in Arizona has shrunk to about 47,000 votes. The state has long been associated with Republicans, such as former US senators Barry Goldwater and John McCain, but the growing Latino population has helped open the door for Democrats in recent years.
One reason for the disparity comes down to how AP and Fox tabulate whether the differential is too much for a candidate to make up after polls close. In 2016, the news organisations pulled out of a coalition with other US broadcast networks which relied on exit polling, and adopted a new methodology.
“Associated Press continues to watch and analyse vote count results from Arizona as they come in,” Sally Buzbee, AP’s executive editor, said on Friday. “We will follow the facts in all cases.”  AP was the first to call Trump’s win in 2016.
On Friday, The New York Times posted its own explainer as to why it had not yet called the race in Arizona, which Trump officials believe is still winnable.
