Has Biden won the election? Democrat takes lead in Pennsylvania and Georgia

As votes continue to be counted, Democratic candidate Joe Biden is inching closer to the 270 Electoral College he needs to claim presidency from Donald Trump.

After a fraught and inconclusive election night, Mr Biden was declared the winner in Wisconsin on Wednesday, a crucial battleground state whose 10 points sealed Mr Trump’s win in 2016. 

Michigan, another critical state, soon followed, giving Mr Biden a further 16 Electoral College votes.

Alaska, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Pennsylvania are all left to be called. 

Arizona was called for Mr Biden by AP and Fox News on Tuesday night but the Trump campaign claims the outstanding votes in the state could swing it back in favour of the president. 

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Mr Biden is currently ahead in Nevada and Arizona and pulled ahead of Mr Trump in Georgia on Friday morning by 1,096 votes, only for secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to say matters were too close to call and announce a recount. 

Mr Trump leads in North Carolina and Alaska but Mr Biden is up by 5,594 votes in Pennsylvania, which could seal the White House for him. 

What does Biden need?

As of Friday afternoon, Mr Biden is still leading Mr Trump by 264 to 214 electoral votes, with the Democrat in need of one more state to claim victory. 

There are several scenarios for Mr Biden to get those additional electoral votes needed to become the next president.

If he wins Pennsylvania and its 20 Electoral College votes, then it will push him well over the top of 270 and make him the next and 46th president.  

If he takes Georgia, the state’s 16 votes will also be enough to defeat Mr Trump outright.

Mr Biden also leads by a small margin in Nevada and a win there (with six Electoral College votes) would also be enough to top 270. 

However, if Mr Biden were to suddenly lose Arizona and its 11 votes, he would require a combination of at least two states to put him over the 270 line. 

A combination of Pennsylvania and Nevada or Georgia and Nevada would easily carry Mr Biden over the line. His path would remain more certain though if he were to maintain his lead in Arizona.

Mr Biden told supporters he was confident of victory late on Wednesday after taking Michigan. In-person votes were counted first, which were expected to favour Republicans. The Democrats are expecting Mr Biden to pull ahead when all the votes have been counted.

Mr Trump’s campaign is alternatively calling for vote counting to be halted or recounts to be conducted, depending on whether states are falling in or out of his favour.

His campaign has filed lawsuits in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania already. 

On Thursday, a judge in Georgia dismissed a lawsuit by the state Republican Party and Mr Trump’s campaign team that asked him to ensure one county was following state laws on processing absentee ballots.

When will we know the final results?

The final result of the presidential election could become clear on Friday or over the weekend as we await the final tallies from those pivotal final states, still counting the influx of mail-in ballots they received as voters opted to post in their votes rather than queue and risk contracting the coronavirus.

“I promised Pennsylvanians that we would count every vote and that’s what we’re going to do,” state governor Tom Wolf said on Wednesday.

North Carolina will continue to count ballots postmarked until 12 November so its final results are not expected until next week.

What are the campaigns saying?

On Thursday, Mr Biden appealed for patience and calm as the vote count continued. 

On election night, he had told his supporters in Delaware: “We feel good about where we are, we really do.”

He added: “I’m here to tell you tonight we believe we’re on track to win this election.

“We knew because of the unprecedented early vote, the mail-in vote, that it’s going to take a while, we’re going to have to be patient until the hard work of counting votes is finished. And it ain’t over till every vote is counted, every ballot is counted.”

The following afternoon, Mr Biden said: “I am not here to declare that we've won. But I am here to report when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners."

The Democratic nominee’s comments came as Mr Trump falsely claimed early on Wednesday morning that he had won the election.

“We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election,” President Trump falsely claimed at a press conference at the White House.

“We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 o’clock in the morning and add them to the list. It’s a very sad moment. We will win this, and as far as I’m concerned we already have won.”

On Friday afternoon, Mr Trump released a statement, saying: “We believe the American people deserve to have full transparency into all vote counting and election certification, and that this is no longer about any single election.

This is about the integrity of our entire election process. From the beginning we have said that all legal ballots must be counted and all illegal ballots should not be counted, yet we have met resistance to this basic principle by Democrats at every turn.

"We will pursue this process through every aspect of the law to guarantee that the American people have confidence in our government. I will never give up fighting for you and our nation.”

After Fox News declared that Mr Biden had won in Arizona, the president reportedly called owner Rupert Murdoch to complain. Reports from CNN claimed other members of the Trump camp including Jared Kushner and Kellyanne Conway also contacted the network but to no avail.