Biden trumps on Donald: Incumbent has the size of Mulanje to climb

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…Biden wins key state of Wisconsin as Trump sues to stop count elsewhere

Joe Biden, presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, is poised to beat the US incumbent president, Donald Trump who was seeking a second term.

The Republican candidate is trailing both the electoral and popular votes.

Biden who once served as Vice President under Barack Obama only needs 22 electoral votes to kick Trump out of the White House.

Trump has a mountain the size of Mulanje to climb to turn things around. He needs 56 electoral votes, a task that is nearly impossible to achieve for the business mogul who has faced accusations of racism and sexism.

As it stands, Biden is on track to becoming the 46th president of the US where, unlike Malawi, a vice president is not barred from standing as a presidential candidate.

Trump demands recount

The Trump campaign said it filed lawsuits Wednesday in Pennsylvania and Michigan, laying the groundwork for contesting the outcome in undecided battleground states that could determine whether President Donald Trump gets another four years in the White House.

Suits in both states are demanding better access for campaign observers to locations where ballots are being processed and counted, the campaign said. The campaign also is seeking to intervene in a Pennsylvania case at the Supreme Court that deals with whether ballots received up to three days after the election can be counted, deputy campaign manager Justin Clark said.

The campaign said it is calling for a temporary halt in the counting in both states until it is given “meaningful” access in numerous locations and allowed to review ballots that already have been opened and processed. Trump is running slightly behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden in Michigan. The president is ahead in Pennsylvania but his margin is shrinking as more mailed ballots are counted.

There have been no reports of fraud or any type of ballot concerns out of Pennsylvania. The state had 3.1 million mail-in ballots that take time to count and an order allows them to be counted up until Friday if they are postmarked by Nov. 3.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a CNN interview the lawsuit was “more a political document than a legal document.”

“There is transparency in this process. The counting has been going on. There are observers observing this counting, and the counting will continue,” he said.

The Trump campaign said it is suing to halt vote count in Pennsylvania, saying “Democrats are scheming to disenfranchise and dilute Republican votes”.

The campaign also took aim at Pennsylvania’s secretary of state – the official in charge of elections – who earlier said that voting in the state had been one of the “smoothest” she had witnessed.

The campaign also said it would ask for a recount in Wisconsin, a state The Associated Press called for Biden on Wednesday afternoon. Campaign manager Bill Stepien cited “irregularities in several Wisconsin counties.”

Anthony Zurcher, BBC North America reporter, says Joe Biden is rebuilding the Democratic electoral “blue wall” in the Midwest “brick by brick”.

Michigan is now in the former vice-president’s victory column.

He observed that Biden is “tantalisingly close to the presidency” with multiple paths to the 270 votes necessary to secure an electoral college victory.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden says it is clear he is winning enough states to take the US presidency.

Additional Reporting by AP

 

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