Trump campaign says election is not over even as Biden surges ahead in key states: 'POTUS will be re-elected'
President Donald Trump's re-election campaign has announced that "the election is not over" despite former Vice President Joe Biden taking a sudden lead in Pennsylvania on Friday, November 6 morning and cementing his bid for the presidency.
“The false projection of Joe Biden as the winner is based on results in four states that are far from over,” campaign general counsel Matt Morgan wrote in a statement. “Georgia is headed for a recount, where we are confident we will find ballots improperly harvested, and where President Trump will ultimately prevail,” Morgan added, the New York Post reported.
The statement alleged that there were "many irregularities" in Pennsylvania "including having election officials prevent our volunteer legal observes from having meaningful access to vote counting locations” and that the campaign was “deprived of valuable time and denied the transparency we are entitled to under state law." The update came just hours after the Trump campaign won a lawsuit in the state to have an equal amount of poll observers in the ballot counting room.
Over in Nevada — where Biden is currently leading — the campaign claimed there “appear[ed] to be thousands of individuals who improperly cast mail ballots.” They also claimed that in Arizona — which was called for Biden by the Associated Press and Fox News days ago — Trump was “on course to win... despite the irresponsible and erroneous ‘calling’ of the state” by major TV stations. "Biden is relying on these states for his phony claim on the White House, but once the election is final, President Trump will be re-elected,” the statement concluded.
After Trump declared that he had effectively won the election and accused Democrats of committing voter fraud, MEAWW spoke to some experts about the possibility that the president refuses to concede the race.
Micheal Genovese, president of Global Policy Institute at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, said the incumbent had already warned of alleged fraud in some states and would challenge several state results in court. Fearing violence might follow if the president refused to concede, Genovese said: “He signaled this weeks ago and seems intent on pursuing that option. It will further divide an already deeply divided country, and elevate the toxic politics that already characterizes American politics. Should the president lose and refuse to leave, turmoil and some violence might ensue. It could get very ugly.”
Dr Kaeten Mistry, senior lecturer in American History at the Department of American Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, said Trump had been sowing the seeds of doubt over the election’s authenticity for weeks. “In his first speech after polls closed, he declared victory and claimed he'd go to the Supreme Court even though counting was still taking place. Both are false but indicate that he has no plans to concede,” he told MEAWW.
Professor Russell Lucas, associate professor of International Relations and Global Studies at Michigan State University, also called Trump’s claim to be false but said he will be under pressure to not concede. Predicting the legal battles continuing for weeks, Lucas said: “President Trump last night falsely claimed victory in the face of all evidence. His campaign also is demanding a recount of the vote in Wisconsin and filed lawsuits to halt vote counting in Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. So, legal maneuvers may last for a few weeks.”