PoliticoHow Joe Biden could end 2020 on election night – and why Donald Trump’s path is unlikely
- Biden leads in polls of several fast-counting states Trump won in 2016
- But the states that put Trump over the top last time face delays
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Zach Montellaro and David Siders on politico.com on October 12, 2020.
US President Donald Trump has demanded to know the results of the 2020 election on election night, even though some states warn that it will take days to count their votes. But if there is a winner declared on November 3, it will almost certainly be bad news for the president.
While vote counting could be delayed in many states due to a glut of mail ballots, Biden is challenging Trump in several fast-counting, Republican-leaning swing states the president carried four years ago. Election administrators in those states, especially Florida and North Carolina, are confident they should have most of the vote counted on election night.
Meanwhile, the most important states that tipped the Electoral College to Trump in 2016 – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – allow, at best, extremely limited pre-processing of mail ballots. That means it could take days to actually declare a winner in those states.
The result: several narrow paths to a fast 270 electoral votes for Biden, and basically none for Trump – barring a major surprise in states he lost four years ago. The president likely cannot win another term in the White House without waiting days to find out, though Trump has hinted that he could try to claim he won on election night based on vote counts that won't yet include many mail ballots, which more Democrats are planning to use this year.
Biden is currently leading in swing state polls, putting him on course to win the Electoral College once ballots are fully counted, regardless of what happens on election night. But his leads are smaller, or the race is tied, in the battleground states that have a better chance of being called soon after the polls close. That may not matter in a vacuum, but the situation has led some Democrats, fearful that the president could sow chaos during an extended period of uncertain vote-counting, to push for extra investment in states that could help Biden notch a clear win quickly after the polls close.