President Donald Trump said in a statement that he will contest President-Elect Joe Biden’s win, adding that he does not accept the result of last Tuesday’s election.
Saturday morning, the Associated Press projected Biden to win the state of Pennsylvania, which gives him a projected 290 Electoral College votes to become president. Biden is leading Pennsylvania by more than 34,000 votes with a small number of ballots left to be counted.
Moments after Pennsylvania was called, the Associated Press also called Nevada, meaning even if Biden had not won Pennsylvania, he would reach 270 Electoral College votes.
Despite few ballots being left to be counted in Pennsylvania and Biden leading by .5%, Trump says he will fight the result.
“We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don’t want the truth to be exposed. The simple fact is this election is far from over,” the Trump campaign said in a statement. “Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for mandatory recounts, or states where our campaign has valid and legitimate legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor.”
The ballots left to be counted are provisional ballots, with some leftover mail-in ballots. The final certification of the election in Pennsylvania comes on November 23.
The Trump campaign alleged that it received improper access to monitor counting in Philadelphia. Earlier this week, the Trump campaign won a lawsuit that allowed them to stand 6 feet from vote counters instead of 20 feet.
“Beginning Monday, our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated. The American People are entitled to an honest election: that means counting all legal ballots, and not counting any illegal ballots. This is the only way to ensure the public has full confidence in our election," the campaign said.
For days, Trump claimed the election was being stolen, despite no evidence of any widespread miscounting or fraud. For months, Trump sowed doubt in the mail-in vote process. In many states, like Pennsylvania, his supporters listened by voting in person rather than through the mail.
In Pennsylvania, Trump won the Election Day vote by a 2-to-1 margin, but trailed the mail-in vote by a 3-to-1 margin.
“There’s tremendous amount of litigation generally because of how unfair this process was,” Trump said earlier this week. “And I predicted that. I've been talking about mail-in voting for a long time. It's, uh, it's really destroyed our system. It's a corrupt system, and it makes people corrupt, even if they aren't by nature, but they become corrupt.”
Because of Pennsylvania state law, boards of elections were not permitted to count mail-in ballots until Tuesday. Mail-in ballots generally take longer to tabulate, which is why results were tabulated through the week. With mail-in votes taking longer to count in addition to the contrasting voting habits of Biden and Trump supporters, Trump's once monumental lead disappeared.
Trump's lawyer Rudolph Giuliani, who was in disbelief that Trump lost a lead, said the president's legal strategy will initially begin in Pennsylvania.
"Many big, big small(lawsuits)," he said. "This will eventually be a big case because this will go beyond Pennsylvania."