Colorado Politics

BREAKING: Joe Biden inches ahead of President Trump in Pennsylvania, Georgia

Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden inched ahead of President Trump early Friday morning in the count to determine who gets Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes and Georgia’s 16 electoral votes.

The Associated Press reported at 6:50 a.m. MDT that Biden is now leading Trump in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

Biden overtook Trump in the number of ballots counted in the state, which Trump must win to have a shot at reelection. Biden now holds a nearly 6,000-vote advantage.

The contest is still too early for The Associated Press to call. Votes in the state are still being counted.

Earlier in Georgia, with the latest update at 6:24 a.m. MDT, Biden has now tallied 2,449,371 votes compared to the president’s 2,448,454, which put the former vice president’s lead at a razor-thin 971 with 99% of the votes counted.

The updated count came from Clayton County, which is a part of the congressional district formerly represented by the late civil rights icon John Lewis, and it reported that Biden gained 1,602 votes compared to 223 for Trump, according to CBS News. There are still more than 14,000 uncounted votes, and about 8,900 overseas and military ballots that have until Saturday to arrive, according to the Washington Post.

On Thursday, a Georgia judge threw out a lawsuit by the state Republican Party and President Trump’s campaign that alleged officials in Chatham County mishandled absentee ballots. The Georgia GOP claimed this would be the first of a dozen suits targeting counties counting the remaining ballots.

Should Georgia be the next state to get called for Biden, The Associated Press and Fox News would declare him the next president with 280 electoral college votes, however other outlets including the New York Times, CNN, NBC News and CBS News would have him at 269 electoral college votes. The difference between the two groups of media outlets is Arizona.

The AP and Fox News called Arizona for Biden, which hadn’t gone blue since President Bill Clinton won it in 1996, on election night and it infuriated the Trump campaign, who has repeatedly rebuked the call and has demanded a retraction. The other outlets haven’t called Arizona for either candidate, and Biden is currently ahead by more than 46,000 votes, but his lead has shrunk over the last 24 hours.

If the candidates wound up tying the electoral college, the fate of the presidency would go to the House, where representatives in each state would form a delegation. Each state delegation would cast a single vote for president in accordance with the U.S. Constitution, and whichever candidate received more votes would become the next president.

Though Democrats control a majority in the House, Republicans control a majority of states, which would bode well for President Trump.

Georgia has not gone blue in a presidential election since 1992 when Clinton won the state. Before that, former President Jimmy Carter was the last Democrat to win in his home state of Georgia, in 1980, but he lost the election.

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