AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EST
The count goes on — with Biden on the cusp of presidency
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrat Joe Biden stood on the cusp of winning the presidency Friday night, three days after Election Day, as the long, exacting work of counting votes widened his lead over President Donald Trump in critical battleground states.
High turnout, a massive number of mail-in ballots and slim margins between the two candidates all contributed to the delay in naming a winner. But Biden held leads in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia, putting him in an ever-stronger position to capture the 270 Electoral College votes needed to take the White House.
There was intense focus on Pennsylvania, where Biden led Trump by more than 27,000 votes, and Nevada, where the Democrat led by about 22,000. The prolonged wait added to the anxiety of a nation facing historic challenges, including the surging pandemic and deep political polarization.
Biden was at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, as the vote count continued, and aides said he would address the nation late in the evening. Trump stayed in the White House and out of sight, as more results trickled in and expanded Biden’s lead in must-win Pennsylvania. In the West Wing during the day, televisions remained tuned to the news amid trappings of normalcy, as reporters lined up for coronavirus tests and outdoor crews worked on the North Lawn on a mild, muggy fall day.
Trump's campaign was mostly quiet -- a dramatic difference from the day before, when officials held a morning call projecting confidence and then a flurry of press conferences announcing litigation in key states.
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Trump's wild claims test limits of Republican loyalty
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's wild and unsupported claims of voter fraud have emerged as a high-stakes Republican loyalty test that illustrates the tug of war likely to define the future of the GOP whether he wins or loses the presidency.
There is a pervasive sense among current and former GOP officials that the president's behavior is irresponsible if not dangerous, but a divide has emerged between those influential Republicans willing to call him out publicly and those who aren't.
Driving their calculus is an open acknowledgement that Trump's better-than-expected showing on Election Day ensures that he will remain the Republican Party's most powerful voice for years to come even if he loses.
That stark reality did little to silence the likes of Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a second-term Republican who has not ruled out a 2024 White House bid. He described the president's claims as “dangerous” and “embarrassing.”
“If there are legitimate challenges, we have a process, that’s the way it works,” Hogan told The Associated Press. “But to just make accusations of the election being stolen and widespread fraud without providing any evidence, I thought was really bad for our democratic process and it was something I had never seen in my lifetime.”
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2020 Latest: Biden projects confidence he'll win White House
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the presidential campaign (all times local):
10:50 p.m.
Joe Biden projected confidence Friday that he would win the presidential election, citing his lead in votes in key states like Pennsylvania.
The Associated Press has not yet declared a winner in the race between Biden and President Donald Trump because neither candidate has reached the 270 Electoral College votes needed to carry the White House.
Biden noted he has already won the most votes in history for any presidential candidate.
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EXPLAINER: Why ballot-counting in Nevada is dragging on
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — The pace of vote-counting in Nevada is being criticized for taking too long and it's even become fodder for online jokes. But government officials say they are emphasizing accuracy over speed in a year when processing an unprecedented flood of mail-in ballots under extended deadlines is taking more time.
“We told everyone early on that results would take at least 10 days,” Secretary of State spokeswoman Jennifer A. Russell said in an email.
THE GENESIS
The Legislature passed a bill in August to send all active voters mail-in ballots in hopes of curbing, or at least not fueling, the spread of the coronavirus. Those postmarked by Election Day can be counted if they arrive at election offices within seven days, which is Tuesday. And they continue to come in, though the number arriving each day is expected to dwindle.
“It’s been a different year for us," said Deanna Spikula, registrar of voters in Washoe County, the state’s second-largest county that includes Reno. “The volume is definitely something that we’ve never seen before in the state as far as receiving and processing mail-in ballots.”
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EXPLAINER: States still in play and what makes them that way
WASHINGTON (AP) — A handful of states remained in play Friday in the tightly contested U.S. presidential race. The outcome of contests in Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Nevada will determine whether Democrat Joe Biden or President Donald Trump wins.
The solidly Republican state of Alaska has also not been called because it is only 50% counted and will not release absentee numbers until Nov. 10. It is not expected to impact the outcome.
The Associated Press reviews the states that will determine the presidency:
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GEORGIA: Outstanding ballots left to be counted and a razor-thin margin
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Nations long targeted by US chide Trump’s claims of fraud
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Demands to stop the vote count. Baseless accusations of fraud. Claims that the opposition is trying to “steal” the election.
Across the world, many were scratching their heads Friday – especially in countries that have long been advised by Washington on how to run elections -- wondering if those assertions could truly be coming from the president of the United States, the nation considered one of the world’s most emblematic democracies.
“Who’s the banana republic now?” Colombian daily newspaper Publimetro chided on the front page with a photo of a man in a U.S. flag print mask.
The irony of seeing U.S. Donald Trump cut off by major media networks Thursday as he launched unsubstantiated claims lambasting the U.S. electoral system was not lost on many. The U.S. has long been a vocal critic of strongman tactics around the world. Now, some of those same targets are turning around the finger.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro laughed as the vote dragged on past Tuesday, briefly breaking into the hymn of his nation’s annual beauty contest on state TV, singing, “On a night like to night, any of them could win.”
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Perdue, Ossoff head to Georgia US Senate runoff
ATLANTA (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff will face off in a Jan. 5 runoff in Georgia for Perdue’s Senate seat, one of two high-profile contests in the state that could determine which party controls the upper chamber.
Libertarian candidate Shane Hazel was able to get enough votes so that neither Perdue nor Ossoff was able to clear the 50% threshold needed for an outright win.
Thousands of absentee ballots and in-person votes cast early needed to be counted after Election Night passed, forcing a long and tense wait before the race could be called.
The contest will be one of two in Georgia in January that are likely to settle which party would control the Senate.
Democrat Raphael Warnock and Sen. Kelly Loeffler, the Republican appointed last year after Sen. Johnny Isakson retired, will also compete in a runoff on the same day.
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Hiring held last month but signs of caution as virus worsens
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defying fears of another slowdown, U.S. businesses kept hiring at a solid pace in October, yet there are signs they remain cautious about the economy's future as the pandemic worsens.
The Labor Department said Friday that employers added 638,000 jobs and the unemployment rate tumbled a full percentage point to 6.9%, extending what has been a faster recovery than many economists expected in the spring.
But the pace of hiring isn’t robust enough to rapidly soak up the millions of Americans who were thrown out of work by the pandemic recession.
The job gains were little changed from September's 672,000 and less than half August's 1.5 million. Yet the increase was stronger than it appears: It was held down by the loss of about 150,000 temporary Census jobs. Excluding governments at all levels, private businesses added a healthy 906,000 jobs. Hiring has held at that level for three months.
Overall, the latest jobs report suggests the tentative recovery remains intact, for now, and that the economy is continuing to adapt to the pandemic.
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Be prepared: Biden transition team at work amid limbo
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Joe Biden's transition team isn't waiting for a verdict in the presidential race before getting to work.
As officials continue to count ballots in several undecided states, longtime Biden aide Ted Kaufman is leading efforts to ensure the former vice president can begin building out a government in anticipation of a victory.
Kaufman is a former senator from Delaware who was appointed to fill the seat vacated when Biden was elected vice president. He also worked on Barack Obama’s transition team in 2008, and helped write legislation formalizing the presidential transition process.
Biden first asked Kaufman to start work on a just-in-case transition in April, shortly after the former vice president locked up the presidential nomination at the conclusion of a once-crowded Democratic primary. Now, each day after the election that goes by without a declared winner is one day fewer to formally begin preparing to take over the White House.
The transition can be a frenzied process even under normal circumstances.
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Increasingly normal: Guns seen outside vote-counting centers
The most turbulent and norm-breaking presidential election of a lifetime has led to an extraordinary spectacle in the United States over the past three days: armed protesters gathering nightly outside offices where local workers are counting the votes that will decide who wins the White House.
Some carry shotguns. Some have handguns. Often, they carry black, military-style semiautomatic rifles.
The protesters with weapons are a small minority of the demonstrators. There have been no reports of anyone getting shot, and the laws in Arizona, Nevada and Michigan — where guns have been seen outside vote-tabulation centers in recent days — allow people to openly carry firearms in public.
But in a nation increasingly inured to weapons at rallies -- most often carried by right-wing demonstrators, though also sometimes by left-wing protesters — experts warn that the guns create a dangerous situation that could be seen as intimidation or tip easily into violence.
“The more we see, the more people see it as a normal reaction — even though it’s not. There’s nothing normal about it," said Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a professor at American University who studies extremism. “The potential for violence becomes normalized."