By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- President Donald Trump prematurely claimed victory in the U.S. election and threatened action in the Supreme Court to curtail a vote count that is still continuing in a handful of key swing states.
“We will win this, and as far as I’m concerned, we already have won it,” Trump told supporters at an event that - in defiance of tradition - was held at the White House.
Trump has already effectively won some key states such as Texas, Florida and Ohio, insofar as the result is already beyond reasonable doubt after the counting of a majority of votes.
However, the vote count in states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Nevada and Pennsylvania remains in doubt, given the deluge of mail-in ballots that still need to be processed. Consequently, both Trump and his opponent Joe Biden still have clear pathways to victory in the electoral college.
Trump again conflated the issue of votes that haven't yet been counted with his previous unsupported allegations of vote fraud by his opponents.
"We want the voting to stop," Trump said. "This is a fraud on the American public, this is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election and, frankly, we did win this election.”
“The president’s statement tonight about trying to shut down the counting of duly cast ballots was outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect," Biden's campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon said in a statement, adding that it was "a naked effort to take away the democratic rights of American citizens."
All the results announced so far are preliminary projections made with varying but broadly high levels of confidence, as is usual. According to CBS, at least 5 million votes across five key states too close to call are still to be counted.
Under the U.S. Constitution, states have responsibility for setting the rules regarding the counting of votes. These had been established ahead of election day, with the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, for example, ruling that votes mailed by the end of election day should be counted, even if they are delivered as late as Friday.
Earlier, Biden had told his supporters that the situation required patience, but said that "We're happy with where we are" and also expressed confidence in victory.
Analysts writing before the election had noted that the early results would tend to favor Trump, given past examples of absentee, or mail-in, ballots to favor the Democratic candidate.