AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EST

Presidency hinges on tight races in battleground states

WASHINGTON (AP) — The fate of the United States presidency hung in the balance Wednesday morning, as President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden battled for three familiar battleground states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — that could prove crucial in determining who wins the White House.

A late burst of votes in Wisconsin from Milwaukee gave Biden a small lead, but it was too early to call the race. Hundreds of thousands of votes were also outstanding in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

The two candidates, who have proposed dramatically different visions for the nation, split territory across the U.S. after polls closed Tuesday night. With neither candidate securing the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House, Biden urged patience and vowed that every vote would be counted.

But Trump, in an extraordinary move from the White House, called for outstanding ballots not to be counted.

Trump made premature claims of victories in several key states and said he would take the election to the Supreme Court to stop the counting. It was unclear exactly what legal action he might try to pursue.

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2020 Latest: Biden campaign willing to fight Trump in court

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the presidential campaign (all times local):

4 a.m.

Democrat Joe Biden's campaign says it will fight any efforts by President Donald Trump's campaign to go to the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent ballots from being tabulated.

In a statement sent before 4 a.m. Wednesday, Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon called Trump's statement that he will “be going to the U.S. Supreme Court” and that he wants “all voting to stop” “outrageous, unprecedented and incorrect.”

O'Malley Dillon says the Biden campaign has “legal teams standing by ready to deploy to resist that effort.” And she says, “They will prevail.”

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EXPLAINING RACE CALLS: Presidential race too early to call

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press is not calling the presidential race yet because neither candidate has secured the 270 electoral college votes needed to claim victory.

Republican President Donald Trump spoke at the White House early Wednesday and claimed victories in several states that were still too early to call, saying, “Frankly, we did win this election” over Democrat Joe Biden. His assertion of victory does not match the results and information currently available to the AP. Trump said he would take the election to the Supreme Court, but it was unclear on what legal grounds.

Trump or Biden would need 270 electoral votes to win. Several key states are too early to call, including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan.

Here is an alphabetical state-by-state look at how and why The Associated Press has called U.S. states in the 2020 presidential election. More states will be added as they are called.

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Trump seeks to stop voting, but only counting remains

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he'll take the presidential election to the Supreme Court, but it's unclear what he means in a country in which vote tabulations routinely continue beyond Election Day, and states largely set the rules for when the count has to end.

“We’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court — we want all voting to stop,” Trump said early Wednesday.

But the voting is over. It's only counting that is taking place across the nation. No state will count absentee votes that are postmarked after Election Day.

Democratic challenger Joe Biden's campaign called Trump's statement "outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect."

“If the president makes good on his threat to go to court to try to prevent the proper tabulation of votes, we have legal teams standing by ready to deploy to resist that effort," Biden Campaign Manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement. "And they will prevail.”

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EXPLAINER: A long night, or more, before president is known

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans won’t know the winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election until well into Wednesday — if not beyond that.

The main reason? Many states made it easier to request a mail ballot amid the coronavirus pandemic and concerns about crowded polling places. But mail ballots generally require more time to process than ballots cast in person.

DIFFERENT STATES, DIFFERENT APPROACHES

Some states with extensive experience in using mail-in ballots have adjusted for those extra steps.

In Florida, clerks can start counting ballots 22 days before an election. In North Carolina, beginning five weeks before the election, county boards insert approved ballots into a voting machine, allowing for a prompt tabulation on Election Day.

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Democrats losing paths to Senate control as GOP hangs on

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hopes fading for Senate control, Democrats had a disappointing election night as Republicans swatted down an onslaught of challengers and fought to retain their fragile majority. Several races remained undecided into Wednesday and at least one headed to a runoff in January.

It was a jarring outcome for Democrats who had devised an expanded political map, eager to provide a backstop against President Donald Trump and his party’s grip on the Senate. The races attracted an unprecedented outpouring of small-dollar donations from Americans apparently voting with their pocketbooks to propel long-shot campaigns.

The voters' choices will force a rethinking of Democratic Party strategy, messaging and approach from the Trump era.

While Democrats picked up must-win seats in Colorado and Arizona, they suffered a setback in Alabama, and Republicans held their own in one race after another — in South Carolina, Iowa, Texas, Kansas and Montana, dramatically limiting the places where Democrats hoped to make inroads.

"You wasted a lot of money,” said White House ally Sen. Lindsey Graham in Columbia, South Carolina, after defeating Jamie Harrison, despite the Democrat's stunning $100 million haul for his upstart campaign. “This is the worst return on investment in the history of American politics.”

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Record early vote leads to tranquil Election Day at polls

Despite fears of clashes at polling places, chaos sparked by the coronavirus pandemic and confusion due to disinformation and swiftly-changing voting rules, millions across the U.S. cast ballots in a historically contentious election with few problems.

About 103 million votes were cast before Election Day, an early voting push prompted by the pandemic. That took some of the pressure off polling places on Tuesday, which generally saw short or no lines as coronavirus cases were on the rise. Daily confirmed cases were up 43 percent over the past two weeks in the U.S., according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Every Election Day comes with problems as millions of people try to cast ballots simultaneously in 50 states. But experts were relieved they were relatively rare at a time when partisan battles over voting reached a fever pitch.

“We were bracing for the worst, and we've been pleasantly surprised,” said Kristen Clarke of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.

Though the casting of ballots was relatively tranquil, legal storm clouds hang over the counting of those votes. Both parties had fought a massive battle in the courts trying to shape the contours of the election, and that seemed likely to continue beyond Tuesday.

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World waits nervously, impatiently for US vote count

From Ford Model T cars that popped off the assembly line in just 90 minutes to 60-second service for burgers, the United States has had a major hand in making the world a frenetic and impatient place, primed and hungry for instant gratification.

So waking up to the news Wednesday that the winner of the U.S. election might not be known for hours, days or weeks — pundits filled global airwaves with their best guesses — came as a shock to a planet weaned on that most American of exports: speed.

’’We have to have a little patience, almost certainly a lot of patience," said the European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, as the nail-biting contest for the White House increasingly focused on three states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — that could prove crucial in determining whether President Donald Trump or challenger Joe Biden wins.

“In the American system, the last vote counts, and maybe the last vote changes the result," Borrell told Spanish National Television.

But as world leaders generally refrained from commenting on the outcome until it was clear, the particularly fractious and contested nature of the vote was already sparking concerns overseas that the superpower's sharp divisions and internal conflicts exposed by the election might endure long after the winner is declared.

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News organizations rebuke Trump on election results claim

In a stunning scene in the middle of the night, news organizations rebuked President Donald Trump after he falsely said on live television that he had won reelection even as votes were still being counted.

With reporters and supporters gathered at the White House at 2:20 a.m. Eastern, the president said it was “a major fraud on our nation” that he hadn't been declared the winner. "As far as I'm concerned, we already have won this,” he said.

The words were barely out of his mouth before television anchors rushed to refute him.

CBS News' Norah O'Donnell said Trump was “castrating the facts” by “falsely claiming that he has won the election and disenfranchising millions of voters whose ballots have not been counted.”

“Donald Trump is losing right now both in the popular vote and the electoral vote and there are many states left to be called,” ABC News' George Stephanopoulos said.

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US formally exits Paris pact aiming to curb climate change

BERLIN (AP) — The United States on Wednesday formally left the Paris Agreement, a global pact forged five years ago to avert the threat of catastrophic climate change.

The move, long threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump and triggered by his administration a year ago, further isolates the United States in the world but has no immediate impact on international efforts to curb global warming.

Some 189 countries remain committed to the 2015 Paris accord, which aims to keep the increase in average temperatures worldwide “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), ideally no more than 1.5C (2.7 F), compared to pre-industrial levels. A further six countries have signed, but not ratified the pact.

Scientists say that any rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius could have a devastating impact on large parts of the world, raising sea levels, stoking tropical storms and worsening droughts and floods.

The Paris accord requires countries to set their own voluntary targets for reducing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. The only binding requirement is that nations have to accurately report on their efforts.