Trump campaign tries to halt vote count in Pennsylvania, then claims victory

It is considered to be the most crucial “tipping point” state in the entire election and Trump’s campaign has claimed it, despite taking legal action.

Donald Trump’s campaign, and his son Eric, are claiming victory for the President in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania.

“We are declaring a victory in Pennsylvania,” campaign manager Bill Stepien said during a call with reporters a short time ago.

No official sources have called the result.

The stunning declaration came quickly on the back of the Trump campaign announcing it was taking legal action in Pennsylvania.

We have won Pennsylvania!

— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) November 4, 2020

Trump does lead by about 450,000 votes, a margin of 53-46, and that is a big gap for Joe Biden to make up.

“This is the most important election of our lifetime, and President Trump made clear our path forward last night: ensure the integrity of this election for the good of the nation,” Justin Clark, Trump 2020 Deputy Campaign Manager, said in a statement.

“Bad things are happening in Pennsylvania. Democrats are scheming to disenfranchise and dilute Republican votes. President Trump and his team are fighting to put a stop to it.”

He said Pennsylvania’s “unhinged, radical left Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar” had tried her hardest to bake in a backdoor to victory for Biden with late, illegal ballots “in collusion with the partisan state supreme court”.

“The United States Constitution is clear on this issue: the legislature sets the time, place, and manner of elections in America, not state courts or executive officials,” he said.

“As the President has rightly said, the Supreme Court must resolve this crucial contested legal question, so President Trump’s Campaign is moving to intervene in the existing Supreme Court litigation over the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s unlawful extension of the mail-in ballot receipt deadline.”

Last night Philadelphia – Pennsylvania’s largest city – had stopped reporting the results of mail-in ballots for the night in a move that sparked fury among Americans anxiously awaiting the election result.

The decision to stop reporting new results until 9am today local time was significant as it meant the results so far were tilted in Trump’s favour.

Philadelphia has not stopped counting mail ballots and is not behind schedule, despite reports to the contrary. The livestream from the Convention Center shows workers making their way through yellow bins full of ballots. Follow our latest reporting here. https://t.co/7Pp2DHWHKE pic.twitter.com/DqCfVCNLyZ

— The Philadelphia Inquirer (@PhillyInquirer) November 4, 2020

The decision caused widespread confusion after it was initially believed the city was abandoning counting altogether for the night – however, a livestream of the vote count painted a different picture.

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Biden voters are more likely to use mail-in ballots. Picture: Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFP

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Last night only about 76,000 of the city’s 350,000 mail-in ballots had been counted, and with Biden fans more likely to vote by mail, it meant we wouldn’t be seeing an accurate representation of the state’s results until counting resumed.

And in a further blow, election officials said a final result might not be known until Friday.

I volunteer myself and 5 others to fly out to Philadelphia TONIGHT and work for at least 18 hours to keep the vote count going. Your call, we come.

— Thomas Berman (@Thomas_Berman_) November 4, 2020

It’s especially important because out of all the so-called battleground states, Pennsylvania has long been seen as the most crucial of all.

It is considered to be the most likely “tipping point” state, meaning if the election comes down to a single state, Pennsylvania is probably going to be the one – which is why the decision to halt counting caused so much panic.

#Philadelphia is stopping vote counts. @TrumpWarRoom needs to get security on site to guard the closed doors, pronto. And Philly should do a batch count of current ballots in house.

— Stuyvesant Square (@StuySquare) November 4, 2020

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THE ELECTION’S OUTCOME

There may be 50 states in America, but when the votes are counted, just a handful of them – Pennsylvania included – decide who wins the presidential election.

In this election, 15 states fall into the category of a “swing state” or “battleground state” – meaning they could conceivably be won by either Donald Trump or Joe Biden.

As for the rest, we already know who has won them: Mr Trump stood no chance whatsoever in Democratic Party strongholds like New York and California, for example, but he unbeatable in heavily Republican territory, like Alabama or Oklahoma.

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The delay is likely to skew the results so far in Mr Trump’s favour. Picture: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images/AFP

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In 2016, Mr Trump broke the Democrats’ six-election winning streak in Pennsylvania – worth 20 electoral votes, blowing up the idea that it had shifted from purple to solidly blue.

It was pretty close though, with a margin of just 0.71 per cent.

The President has hammered Mr Biden on fracking, which is a big issue in the state, accusing him of wanting to ban it. And a blunder from the Democrat in their final presidential debate, when he said he would “transition away” from the oil industry by 2025, could hurt him in Pennsylvania as well.

That said, Mr Trump has never come close to leading in the polling average there.

Multiple global news outlets and US political figures have looked to Pennsylvania – Mr Biden’s home state – as the key state to watch for the outcome of the election.

Multiple polls are starting to suggest the race has significantly tightened across the state, giving the US President Donald Trump a narrow, but not impossible path to victory.

The ultimate goal is to reach a threshold of 270 electoral votes. Winning the popular vote in any given state will earn a candidate its entire haul of electoral votes, and move them that much closer to victory.

For Mr Biden to win the election, he needs to take 38 electoral votes on top of what Hillary Clinton won in the 2016 election. Ms Clinton lost Pennsylvania in 2016 by just one percentage point.