US election: Joe Biden on ‘clear path to victory by this afternoon', campaign manager claims

Joe Biden’s campaign manager has said their team believes the former vice president is on “a clear path to victory by this afternoon”, as the outcome of US election hangs on a handful of remaining states.

“The vice president will garner more votes than any presidential candidate in history, and we’re still counting,” Jen O’Malley Dillon told a live briefing, in a prediction which became reality shortly afterwards.

It came as the Democrat’s campaign denounced rival Donald Trump’s claims of “fraud” and calls for votes to stop being counted as “a naked effort to take away the democratic rights of American citizens”.

As Mr Biden sat ahead in the popular vote and slightly closer to the 270 electoral college votes needed for victory, Ms O’Malley Dillon added: “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.”

At the time of the statement, Mr Biden held slim, newly-gained leads in both Michigan and Wisconsin, where some 95 per cent of votes had already been counted.

Mr Trump remained ahead in North Carolina, Georgia, Alaska and Pennsylvania, however – particularly in the case of the latter three – many of the votes yet to be counted were postal votes, expected to weigh more in Mr Biden’s favour.

Having controversially claimed victory on Tuesday night, Mr Trump then awoke to claim his lead in “many key states” had “magically disappeared”.

Follow live: 2020 election results, updates and analysis

The president has spent months claiming – without evidence – that mail-in ballots are heavily susceptible to fraud, in what is widely viewed as an attempt to subvert democracy at a time of unprecedented levels of remote voting due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Vindicating fears that he could attempt contest a tight result based on false allegations of fraudulent voting, the president on Tuesday night said he was poised to ask the Supreme Court to intervene.

It was unclear whether he had the legal grounds to do so and no attempt had been made by Wednesday morning – although his remarks indicated a likely long series of legal challenges in individual states if he loses the election.

“Millions of people voted for us tonight. A very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people,” the president said from the White House. “And we won’t stand for it.”

To cheers from his supporters, Mr Trump said: “Frankly, we did win this election.

“We want the law to be used in a proper manner, so we’ll be going to the US Supreme Court,” he added. “We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them finding any ballots at four in the morning and adding them to the list.”

Mr Trump’s comments came after Mr Biden told his own supporters he was “on track” to become the 46th president. 

However, Mr Biden did not declare victory or signal a high court fight, and added: “It's not my place or Donald Trump's place to declare the winner of this election. It's the voters' place.”

As Mr Biden pulled ahead in Michigan and Wisconsin, figures in his campaign appeared confident of an imminent victory – despite success in these states alone not being enough to secure the election.

Ms O’Malley Dillon said: “We are on track to win in Michigan by more than Donald Trump did in 2016. To win in Wisconsin by more than Trump did in 2016. To win in Pennsylvania by more than Trump did in 2016. And we flipped one of his states, Arizona.”