US election live updates: Biden closes in as count drags on

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• Donald Trump has won Florida, Texas, Ohio, Kentucky, Kansas, Louisiana, Indiana, Wyoming, West Virginia, South Carolina, Idaho, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Utah, South Dakota, North Dakota, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa and Montana.
• Joe Biden has sealed Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, Arizona, Hawaii, Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, California, New Hampshire, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Illinois, Delaware and Connecticut, as well as the District of Columbia.
• Five states still need to be called, with millions of votes uncounted.
• Biden is six electoral votes away from reaching the 270 needed to reach the White House, according to AP figures.
• Trump's campaign is preparing legal challenges in two more states and the president has called to "stop the count."

Election results based on Associated Press data. All times in GMT/UTC

16:38 Joe Biden's campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon said the Biden camp is confident that he will win the US presidential election and said lawsuits being filed by President Donald Trump are "meritless."

"Donald Trump continues to push a flailing strategy designed to prevent people's votes from being counted," she said.

"Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States," O'Malley Dillon said, adding that she was hopeful for a resolution by late Thursday, but acknowledged that it might take longer.

"Be calm," she urged.

16:15 The Trump campaign said it will launch additional legal action in Pennsylvania and Nevada. Campaign manager Bill Stepien told reporters on a conference call that Trump was "alive and well" with regard to the presidential race.

The campaign predicted that the Republican incumbent will win the US election by as early as Friday evening.

15:50 A few cities in the US have witnessed pockets of unrest, as tensions rise in the midst of a long vote count and uncertainty about the results.

In the western state of Oregon, Governor Kate Brown called in the National Guard to establish order in the city of Portland, where some demonstrators were spotted vandalizing local businesses.

"While we wait for election results, Oregonians have the right to free expression and peaceful assembly. But political violence, intimidation and property destruction will not be tolerated," Brown wrote on Twitter.

Police in New York city also broke up crowds after protesters scuffled with law enforcement Wednesday evening.

In the state of Arizona, supporters of President Donald Trump, some of whom were armed, gathered at polling stations to demand that all of the votes in the state be counted.

Pro-Trump crowds also gathered in Michigan to demand that election officials stop counting mail-in ballots there.

Supporters of the president in Arizona believe he will ultimately win the state once all votes are tallied, as such, they hope the state counts the ballots thoroughly. But supporters of the president in Michigan, which Biden is projected to win, want the vote counting to be stopped, as they believe there are irregularities in mail-in ballots.

14:50 President Donald Trump says he wants to stop the counting of ballots. In his first statement of the day, as ballot counting is still underway in the states of Michigan, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Arizona, the president took to Twitter to write: "Stop the count!"

So far, the vote count across the country has been conducted without evidence of any irregularities, misconduct or tampering. Trump's campaign, however, has filed legal action in several states to try to stop ballot counting, arguing that there has been a lack of transparency.

Trump's remarks could have an impact on his supporters, who have gathered in small groups outside of election offices in key states to protest the vote counting. But it will not affect the procedure, as election tallying falls under the jurisdiction of the states and the districts where it is taking place.

A follow-up tweet by the president was flagged by Twitter as "misleading." Trump tweeted "any vote that came in after election day will not be counted."

12:40 Despite uncertainty over the outcome of the election, the New York Stock Exchange has been breaking records and tech stocks have been booming. However, cyclical stocks and value stocks have suffered, while America's banks and utilities ended in the red on Wednesday. Experts say that a drawn-out election process could shake up Wall Street and turn investors weary. 

Read more:Biden or Trump, Wall Street takes what it can get from US election 

10:32 Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khameini mocked the US election, referring to widespread allegations of fraud. "What a spectacle! One says this is the most fraudulent election in US history. Who says that? The president who is currently in office. His rival says Trump intends to rig the election! This is how #USElections & US democracy are," Khameini tweeted.

Despite US allegations that Iran sought to use social media to influence voters in the run-up to the poll, Iranian officials have publicly insisted the country favors neither candidate, despite vastly different policies on Iran. Trump has led a campaign of "maximum pressure" against the Islamic Republic, pulling the US out of a deal on Iran's nuclear program and reimposing heavy sanctions. 

Read more: Russia, Iran meddling with US elections: 'Hacking of our hearts and minds' 

10:30 In a preliminary report, international election observers said that the US presidential vote was "tarnished by legal uncertainty and unprecedented attempts to undermine public trust."

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said the election campaign was "characterized by deeply entrenched political polarization." The OSCE mission said: "Baseless allegations of systematic deficiencies, notably by the incumbent president, including on election night, harm public trust in democratic institutions."

Its report said President Trump "created an impression of refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power" throughout the campaign.

The report pointed to the numerous lawsuits regarding postal and early voting. Republicans claimed restrictions were necessary to prevent voter fraud, while Democrats said these were attempts to disenfranchise voters.

"Despite numerous public statements by the incumbent President over the integrity of postal voting, the number and scale of alleged and reported cases of fraud associated to absentee ballots remained negligible," the OSCE report found.

09:53 Either candidate will have to put a lot of effort into reunifying the United States, Niels Annen, the Minister of State at the German Foreign Office told DW.

"Whether Mr. Trump or Mr. Biden wins, both will have to spend a lot of time and energy on reuniting the country. And it is uncertain whether that is the goal at all, with one of the two candidates," he said.

Annen added that the US has a "much older democracy" than Germany, but "in the end, it's all about looking ahead. After these four difficult years with the Trump administration, we need a fresh start, and Germany is ready for that."

Asked whether a fresh start would be possible in the face of Trump's behavior, Annen replied, "We need to be able to work with anyone who is democratically elected."

09:30 DW FACT CHECK:

Claim: "Not a single Republican has been able to look at any one of these mail ballots. They could be sent from Mars as far as we're concerned. Or they could be from the Democratic National Committee. Joe Biden could have voted 50 times as far as we know, or 5,000 times! The ballots could be from Camden. Philadelphia unfortunately – and, I say this about my own city – has a reputation for voter fraud." - Rudy Giuliani

Facts: 

Voters who cast a ballot by mail cannot vote 50 or 5,000 times. To vote by mail, a person must be a registered voter and only gets one vote. According to several studies, fraud is rare with mail-in or absentee votes.

Data collectedby Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt found just 31 incidents in elections from 2000 to 2014 – elections where a total of one billion ballots were cast.

"From 2000 to 2014, I found 31 credible incidents," Levitt told DW about his research ahead of the election. "I've kept looking and I'm now up to about 45 credible incidents in more than a billion and a half ballots, so the rate's about the same. It's really, really, really rare. Americans are struck and killed by lightning more often."

But Rudy Giuliani insisted that mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania could be from anywhere or anyone: Mars, the Democratic National Committee or even dead people voting. He did not offer any evidence for this. Independent election observers haven't found cases of this so far, either.

09:17 The US and EU need to develop a "new transatlantic relationship" after the election, irrespective of who wins, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said. 

"We will have to build a new transatlantic relationship, which will be a new partnership," he said, adding that France would work "with the person elected and the new US government, whatever happens."

08:11 DW FACT CHECK: President Donald Trump tweeted a Breitbart article last night, which included videos showing poll workers in Detroit covering windows as people outside tried to watch ballots being counted.

Police did push back crowds that had begun pounding on doors and windows and yelling "Stop the count!."

However, the article did not mention that election officials said the people could not enter the room due to safety concerns over capacity. Each side was allowed to have 134 observers monitor and challenge the counting process. Media and lawyers were also present in the room.

"Election observation is regulated by state law, but some states leave it to the discretion of election officials," the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said in a preliminary report on the election. "Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, election officials in several jurisdictions limited the number of observers permitted."

 According to the Detroit Free Press, lawyers said the problems began when Republican challengers intimidated poll workers by taking off their masks, getting too close to the workers or being verbally aggressive, including telling workers to stop counting after the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit.

The Associated Press called the state of Michigan for former Vice President Joe Biden at 5:56 p.m. EST (10:56 p.m. UTC) on Wednesday.

06:21 A final election result currently hinges on the release of official counts in Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — with analysts keeping a close eye on final tallies in Arizona. Democratic challenger Joe Biden has 264 electoral votes compared with 214 for incumbent Donald Trump, according to projections by the Associated Press. Biden needs to secure just one more state to declare victory. 

Poll workers in Georgia's most populous Fulton county, home to the state capital Atlanta, are counting through the night to declare a winner in the state, which sees the candidates closely tied.  Meanwhile, Nevada isn't set to offer any further results until 9 am PST (1700 UTC) on Thursday, while swing state North Carolina is still accepting ballots through Nov. 12. Arizona, which has already released most of its results, is also counting through its most populous Maricopa county, home to Phoenix.

04:13 Protests broke out across the country with groups demanding that the count either be stopped or completed, according to reporting by The New York Times. Trump supporters in Phoenix, Arizona, taking a cue from earlier protests in Detroit, Michigan, gathered outside a ballot counting center demanding the vote count cease. They repeated Trump's unsubstantiated allegation that Democrats were committing election fraud.

On the other side of the aisle, protesters in New York, Portland, Chicago and Philadelphia took to the street in "Count Every Vote" demonstrations. Police reportedly made several arrests.

02:49 Wilmington, Delaware has been getting a lot of airtime over the last few days, not least as it is the hometown of presidential candidate Joe Biden.

DW headed for the streets of Wilmington on Wednesday to sample the atmosphere among voters with the election result still in the balance.

02:14 Joe Biden has promised to rejoin the Paris Agreement if he wins. The US officially left the international agreement on climate action on Wednesday three years after Trump's announced withdrawal. The Democratic rival tweeted that "in exactly 77 days, a Biden Administration will rejoin it."

01:49 Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has described Donald Trump's lawsuit against the state as "frivolous" while she also confirmed all votes have been counted.

Trump's campaign team has filed a lawsuit in Michigan to halt state officials from counting votes.

Team Trump said the case seeks to stop counting until it has an election inspector at each absentee voter counting board. The campaign also wanted to review ballots which were opened and counted before an inspector from its team was present.

Joe Biden earned almost 120,000 votes more than his rival in Michigan, yet Trump supporters have descended on a polling station in the state's biggest city, Detroit, chanting "Stop the count!" echoing the sentiments of the president.

01:36 OSCE election observers have not seen any irregularities during the US presidential election in Pennsylvania, Ambassador Urszula Gacek, Head of the election Observation Mission to the US, told DW. "We have come across one incident: a postal worker dumping a bag of post including ballots on their way to voters", she says, "but what is important: We have not found evidence of systemic wrongdoing in the processing of postal ballots."

But President Trump’s unfounded allegations that there have been irregularities during the presidential election to help Joe Biden win the election do concern her: "In his statements, [Trump] has undermined the voter’s confidence in the electoral process. That is a fact, we have that on record." Gacek says she is hopeful that her work will help to restore trust in the system.

01:23 The Trump campaign has mounted yet another legal challenge in Pennsylvania, claiming that the state's extension of the voter ID deadline was in violation of state law, according to a tweet by White House Correspondent Carrie Sheffield.

Read more: Trump team mounts legal challenges to vote counting

00:24 Georgia's largest county is hoping to finish counting absentee ballots in the next few hours. Election workers in Fulton County, which includes large parts of the state's capital Atlanta, are counting around 142,000 absentee ballots in an area that has skewed heavily towards Biden.

Richard Barron, Fulton Country Elections Director, said in a press conference that "we're going to finish tonight."

Trump is currently leading in Georgia, but a surge of of absentee ballots for the Democrat could help Biden clinch a further 16 electoral votes.

00:08 President Trump's campaign team has filed a third lawsuit in Georgia as he seeks to pause the count in the state. Trump's lead over Joe Biden in Georgia is at 57,000 with 94% of the votes counted but it is narrowing as the mail-in ballots continue to be counted.

The move follows similar efforts to stem the counting in Pennsylvania, where Trump's lead is dwindling, and Michigan, which has already been projected as a state in favor of Biden

23:40 Michael Morley, professor of law at Florida State University, with a focus on election and constitutional law, roundly rejected Trump's claim of having won the 2020 election in a conversation with DW.

"A candidate can’t simply declare victory … It's election officials who declare who has and has not won an election," he said.

"And of course, election officials don't declare election results until all of the legally valid votes have been counted. And in many jurisdictions, all of the legally valid votes aren't even necessarily in yet."

Therefore, President Trump declaring himself the winner of the election earlier today has no legal effect, Morley explains. The election is conducted by the states, it is "not something that the president is in charge of or has any sort of legal authority over." And the president cannot go to court and "have election officials stop counting the votes. You have to be able to point to some sort of irregularity, some sort of problem." Morley warns that "[j]ust trying to preemptively call election results into question is exactly the sort of thing that eats away at democratic norms."

23:39 Although Biden has made clear that he wouldn't declare victory until all the votes are counted, his team clearly feels confident enough to launch a transition website.

So far the site consists of one page with a short text: "The American people will determine who will serve as the next President of the United States. Votes are still being counted in several states around the country. The crises facing the country are severe — from a pandemic to an economic recession, climate change to racial injustice — and the transition team will continue preparing at full speed so that the Biden‑Harris Administration can hit the ground running on Day One."

23:01 Biden has won Michigan according to AP.

22:50 Dan Baer, former US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), is hopeful that Joe Biden will win the US presidential election. "Many of us had hoped for a clear moral repudiation of Trumpism, which would have entailed a blowout win by Joe Biden," he told DW. "We didn’t get that, but we got the critical victory, and it will mean a new path for America, I believe, once the votes have all been counted. Obviously, we need for all the votes to be counted, but right now it looks very good for Joe Biden." Baer argued, that with the 2020 results, the 2016 election cannot be "explained away."

"One of the things we have to own now is the fact that 2016 wasn’t a fluke. We are unfortunately a divided country with divided views about our past and about how to tackle the biggest challenges in front of us in the future."

On the future of US-German and US-European relationships, he says what is needed is "a future coupling" that "has to look like much more of a cooperative effort rather than a senior leader with junior partners. America needs Germany and others to step up and to be advocates for democracy and human rights around the world; be in favor of good governance around the world, taking on corruption. We are not going to be able to do this alone."

22:48 Donald Trump has taken to Twitter to question the electoral process in the states of Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan. Trump's tweet was partly hidden, like many of his posts on Wednesday, as Twitter suggested it may be "misleading."

Trump claimed to have won in Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina with "a BIG Trump lead," and repeated his false claim about Democrats secretly dumping extra ballots in Michigan.

Georgia has counted 94% of the votes cast with Trump currently holding a 70,000 vote lead over his rival while some major US networks have called Michigan, a battleground state that will help determine who wins the presidential election, in favor of Biden.

The Associated Press has yet to declare winners of the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan.

21:53 Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf has said it is too early to call the state, with Donald Trump currently holding a 320,000 vote advantage with 84% of the ballot already counted.

But with the majority of mail-in votes expected to go the way of Joe Biden, Wolf said: "We have to be patient. We may not know the results today. There are millions of mail-in ballots. They're going to be counted accurately and they will be counted fully."

The Democratic governor also said "our democracy is being tested in this election" in response to the actions of the White House over the last 24 hours, including proclamations of victory despite incomplete counts across the country.

"Pennsylvania will have a fair election," Wolf added. "And that election will be free of outside influences."

21:34 Trump's calls to end counting in various states where he seems to be losing has been picked up by his supporters. NBC Correspondent Steve Patterson has tweeted a video of a "large, animated crush of 'stop the count' protesters" trying to push their way into a ballot counting center in Detroit, Michigan.

"They're being blocked by guards at the door," Patterson said.

21:28 Joe Biden has spoken to supporters in his home state of Delaware and said it is "clear that we are winning enough states" and that he believes he will win the election when the all the votes are counted.

Speaking in Wilmington, Biden said that his campaign won Wisconsin by "virtually the same margin" as Trump did in 2016, is winning Michigan by a bigger margin than Trump did, and that he feels "very good" about Pennsylvania, where he claims to be winning 78% of mail-in votes.

"Even in the face of a pandemic, more Americans voted than any time in history," Biden said, citing the 150 million Americans who voted.

Biden said it was time to "lower the temperature, to listen to one another … to unite, to heal," adding that there are no "red states or blue states, just the United States."

21:13 With Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia receiving a lot of attention right now, there are still three other states with official results pending.

Trump is currently leading Biden by two percentage points in the southern state of North Carolina, with an estimated 95% of votes counted. However, AP has not yet called the state and its 15 electoral votes for Trump as there is still a significant number of mail-in ballots left to count.

In North Carolina, any ballots postmarked by November 3 are eligible, and may be counted until November 12.

The western desert state of Nevada said earlier Wednesday it won't release further election results until 9 a.m. PST (1700 GMT/UTC) on Thursday.

The agency said it still has to count mail-in ballots received on Tuesday, mail-in ballots that will be received over the next week, as well as provisional ballots.

Biden currently narrowly leads Trump at 49.2% to 48.6% in the sparsely populated state with 6 electoral votes.

And in the remote state of Alaska, with just 3 electoral votes, Trump currently has a commanding lead over Biden at 63.5% to 32.3%

20:32 Donald Trump's campaign said it will sue to halt the counting of votes in Pennsylvania, accusing electoral officials of prohibiting its "observers" from approaching closer to 25 feet (7.6 meters) to vote counters in Pennsylvania.

The move comes after they mounted a similar challenge in fellow crucial election sate Michigan.

"We are also suing to temporarily halt counting until there is meaningful transparency and Republicans can ensure all counting is done above board and by the law," deputy campaign manager Justin Clark said in a statement.

20:03 In the southern state of Georgia, the race for its 16 electoral votes could tighten as some 250,000 ballots remain uncounted, mostly from the Democrat-leaning Atlanta metro area.

Trump currently leads Biden in Georgia 50.2% to 48.5% with 93% of ballots counted. About 85,000 votes currently separate Trump and Biden, according to the New York Times.

Georgia's Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, told reporters that he wants all votes to be counted by the end of Wednesday, and that "every legal ballot" would be counted.

By law, if the margin between candidates in Georgia is less than or equal to 0.5 percentage points, a candidate may request a recount within two business days after results have been made official.

19:21 Joe Biden has won the state of Wisconsin, with all vote counting completed, according to the AP.

Before the upper Midwest state and its 10 electoral votes were called for Biden, the Trump campaign said it would demand a vote recount, citing unspecified "irregularities." 

Biden just squeaked by Trump in Wisconsin 49.4% to 48.8%. Trump won Wisconsin by a razor-thin margin in 2016.

19:12 The Trump campaign is set to file a lawsuit attempting to halt ballot counting in the tightly contested, blue-collar state of Michigan.

With counting still underway, the latest figures show challenger Joe Biden with a small lead of 49.5% to 48.8%, although the race is still too early to call for the state and its 16 electoral votes.

Read more: Fact check: Could the courts decide fate of US elections?

In a statement, Trump's campaign said it "has not been provided with meaningful access to numerous counting locations to observe the opening of ballots and the counting process, as guaranteed by Michigan law.''

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told reporters that unofficial results were expected "within the next 24 hours" and there were about 100,000 ballots remaining, mainly in large districts like Detroit and Grand Rapids. 

Benson added she was confident that Michigan's voting process could withstand a legal challenge by the Trump campaign. 

"We're very familiar with the process and legality of our process, and I have great confidence in it, and we're ready to defend it," Benson said, according to the Washington Post. 

18:18 Trump's campaign manager, Bill Stepien, said in a statement that the campaign will demand a recount in Wisconsin, alleging "reports of irregularities" in "several counties" that raise "serious doubts about the validity of the results."

Stepien did not specify what "irregularities" the Trump campaign was contesting. 

With most ballots counted, Biden's lead is hovering around 1% in the upper Midwest state with 10 electoral votes. 

"The president is well within the threshold to request a recount and we will immediately do so," Stepien said. 

Biden's campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon, said earlier Wednesday that Biden would win Wisconsin, "recount or no recount."

"We are ahead and we have a very clear sense of the votes that are there," she told an online press briefing. 

17:54 Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien promised a "legal operation like that has never been assembled for a Republican candidate for president," adding that lawyers have been sent to the hotly contested states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, according to the Washington Post.

Biden campaign adviser Bob Bauer said the campaign is " prepared for any effort the Republicans make in any court in any of these states" to advance Trump's "absurd" claims of voter fraud.

17:48 The chairman of the European Parliament's delegation for relations with the US, Radislav Sikorski, told DW that if the US election leads to a constitutional crisis, it would be another blemish on America's soft power.

"The votes of Americans are not equal," Sikorski said, pointing to how Trump could lose the popular vote but still have a chance to be elected.

Read more: European Union waits for results of US presidential vote

In terms of the transatlantic relationship Sikorski said that it was better for Europe to have someone the bloc could work with.  

"Of course, we don't take sides but we know that he [Trump] is a uniquely hostile president to the European Union. He backed Brexit and Mr. Farage, he's called us a foe. He's threatened us with sanctions. And we would prefer to have someone in Washington with whom we could jointly have a strategy about how to manage a more assertive China, for example," he added.

17:19  Two German government ministers have signaled deep concern about the instability of the US election.

Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said the US faced a "very explosive situation" and a possible crisis, in response to President Donald Trump having declared that he had won the election.

"The battle over the legitimacy of the result, however it turns out, has begun," Kramp-Karrenbauer said.

German vice chancellor and finance minister, Olaf Scholz, backed her comments and urged for a full count. "It is important for us that everything be counted and in the end we have a clear result," Scholz said.

Read more: Germany worried about potential for crisis in US election

Both said Germany was prepared to face the consequences of the election. Kramp-Karrenbauer said that "this friendship is more than a question of which administration is currently in the White House," dismissing calls in Germany to "decouple ourselves from the United States."

16:55 In a press briefing, Biden's campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon, said that Biden was on a "clear path to victory," with the campaign expecting to win Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The southern state of Georgia is a "toss up," with populous districts in suburban Atlanta still being counted. North Carolina is leaning Trump, O'Malley Dillon said. 

But with ballots still being counted, Trump's campaign has also claimed to have the edge in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada and Georgia. 

O'Malley Dillon criticized Trump for "falsely" claiming to have won the race last night and demanding that votes stop being counted.

"But let's be extremely clear about something, if Donald Trump got his wish and we stopped counting ballots right now, Vice President Joe Biden would be the next president of the United States," she said. 

16:30 It is now over 24 hours since polls first opened in the US election and Americans still don't know who their next president will be, with millions of votes left to be counted.

At this point, the road to the White House for both candidates likely goes through the upper Midwest states of Wisconsin and Michigan, with 10 and 16 electoral votes at stake respectively, and the Mid-Atlantic state of Pennsylvania, carrying 20 electoral votes.

Each of the three states is hotly contested. Biden currently has a razor-thin lead in Wisconsin and Michigan, with the last votes currently being tallied and the race still too close to call.

Trump is currently ahead in Pennsylvania, however, the vote count is taking longer due to the high proportion of mail-in ballots. Ballots postmarked by November 3 can be accepted even if they arrive up to three days after the election.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro told CNN Wednesday, "we are going to get a clearer picture by the end of the day, but we can get ballots up until Friday."

Read more:  Opinion: US election tears at the seams of liberal democracy

16:17 Tom Wolf, the Governor of Pennsylvania has said that a full count may not be available on Wednesday. So far, the state has tallied roughly 50% of mail in ballots.

"Millions of mail-in ballots" are being counted, he told a press conference. "We may not know the results even today, but the most important thing is that we have accurate results, even if that takes a little longer than we're used to," Wolf added.

The Democratic governor urged patience, saying Pennsylvania intends to keep "the promise of democracy" that every vote counts. 

16:00 President Trump's campaign manager, Bill Stepien, said Wednesday that Trump was in a "very, very, very, good position," and predicted a victory for the incumbent if all "legally cast" ballots are counted.

Stepien added that the tight race in Wisconsin would be close enough to be "recount territory." Biden is narrowly leading in Wisconsin, with the final count yet to be announced.  

Catch up on earlier developments here. 

wmr,ab,jsi/rc,aw,rs (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)