Election 2020 presidential results

By Meg Wagner, Melissa Macaya, Melissa Mahtani, Veronica Rocha, Amanda Wills and Fernando Alfonso III, CNN

Updated 1317 GMT (2117 HKT) November 7, 2020
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4:00 p.m. ET, November 6, 2020

It's 4 p.m. ET. Here's who is leading in key states that could decide the presidency.

CNN is yet to make a projection in six states. Neither Joe Biden nor President Trump have received the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

The race remains tight as votes continue to be counted in key states that could decide the presidency.

According to CNN's latest projections, Biden has 253 electoral votes to Trump's 213.

4:01 p.m. ET, November 6, 2020

Georgia secretary of state: "There will be likely a recount"

From CNN's Maureen Chowdhury

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks during a press conference on Friday, November 6.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks during a press conference on Friday, November 6. CNN

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that the presidential race in the state "remains too close to call" during a news conference Friday.

"The focus for our office and for the county elections officials, for now, remains on making sure that every legal vote is counted and recorded accurately," he said.

Raffensperger added that out of about the 5 million votes cast, the margin will be within a "few thousand."

"With a margin that small, there will be likely a recount in Georgia," he said.

Gabriel Sterling, Georgia's voting system implementation manager, said the number of outstanding votes remains "about the same as they were this morning. Not too much change."

Sterling said that there were about 4,000 outstanding ballots to be counted across a handful of counties earlier in the day.

Sterling noted that 18,008 ballots from military and other citizens from Georgia who are overseas have been accepted by the state. Approximately 8,410 are “still available to be received” he said, if those ballots were postmarked by Election Day and received by end of business Friday.

“That does not mean that there’s a bucket of 8,410 votes to be counted. That means there are 8,410 votes that could have been postmarked Tuesday and could be received by the elections officials today, so as I said earlier, it’s going to be more than 0 and less than 8,410," Sterling explained.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden currently leads President Trump in total votes counted to date across Georgia by 1,585 votes, Sterling said.

Remember: CNN is yet to project a winner in Georgia. There are 16 electoral votes at stake in the state. Neither Biden nor Trump have received the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. According to CNN's latest projections, Biden has 253 electoral votes to Trump's 213.

Hear the announcement:

3:33 p.m. ET, November 6, 2020

Biden spending day with family and senior advisers as he awaits results

From CNN’s Arlette Saenz and Sarah Mucha

As vote counting has stretched into the afternoon, Joe Biden and his campaign are closely and patiently watching the results as they hope a state will soon put them over the top.

Biden has spent the day at home with family and senior advisers, sources familiar with his plans say, watching results and getting updates from the campaign. 

At the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, top advisers have been seen spotted in the lobby of the hotel and staff has been diligently working throughout the day preparing the site for his expected remarks this evening.

Jeeps and trucks with camping chairs in their beds are positioned in front of the stage where the remarks from Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris are expected to take place.

3:31 p.m. ET, November 6, 2020

Pennsylvania GOP asks Supreme Court to stop Pennsylvania from counting votes received after November 3

From CNN's Ariane de Vogue

J. Scott Applewhite/AP
J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Lawyers for Pennsylvania Republicans are asking the US Supreme Court to order the state to not take any action on any mail-in ballots received after Election Day, November 3.

The Pennsylvania secretary of state has already ordered any ballots that arrive between Wednesday, November 4, and Friday, November 6, be segregated from those that arrived by Election Day, pending ongoing litigation, and the state GOP’s request simply asks the court to enforce that action as well as order that “no action” is taken on the ballots.

“Given the results of the November 3, 2020 general election, the vote in Pennsylvania may well determine the next President of the United States—and it is currently unclear whether all 67 county boards of elections are segregating late-arriving ballots, “ the GOP petition states.

Kathy Boockvar, the secretary of state, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday that there would not be enough ballots to sway the election.

Critics of the President say he is continuing legal challenges to suggest that the courts could impact election results, even though the numbers so far suggest otherwise.

See the filing here.

3:05 p.m. ET, November 6, 2020

GOP leaders press Trump team to detail fraud charges as they cautiously navigate the President

From CNN's Manu Raju and Ted Barrett

President Donald Trump speaks at the White House on November 5 in Washington, DC.
President Donald Trump speaks at the White House on November 5 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

GOP leaders are nervously watching President Trump’s erratic handling of an election that's slipping away from him, delicately urging him and his team to clearly make a specific case about voting impropriety or accept the will of the American public.

As they watch Trump make one unfounded claim after another, Republicans are worried about the lasting ramifications from the President’s meritless barrage of attacks against a cornerstone of US democracy — especially as they gear up for two months of intense battling over two hugely consequential races in Georgia that will determine the next Senate majority.

But top Republicans are also treading cautiously around a mercurial president who holds enormous sway with their party's base, with many unwilling to directly challenge his dubious claims and instead are urging him to make his case in greater detail.

GOP sources said Friday that the idea is to give Trump and his team a chance to make their case and allow the disputes to work themselves out in the courts, arguing that if the lawsuits fall flat, then Trump will have little choice but to concede the election without their having to confront him.

“It is incumbent upon the Trump administration to make specific cases of voter irregularity,” said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the Senate Judiciary chairman who also defended Trump’s meritless claims of potential fraud. “They're looking through the voter files now," predicting more details in the next 48 hours.

Republican leaders are approaching him gingerly. Some, like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, are publicly defending his claims, while others, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, are trying to toe a middle ground.

McConnell, a cautious but deliberate leader, carefully crafted a public message about Trump’s allegations that respects the concerns of the President and his ardent supporters but doesn’t back their nebulous charges of election fraud. On Friday, McConnell refused to say anything else besides his delicately worded statement.

Republicans argue that it’s now up to the President to provide the public with details about claims of widespread voting fraud in several crucial states that have put former Vice President Joe Biden on the cusp of the presidency.

 “I think the President should turn this discussion over to his lawyers,” said Senate Rules Chairman Roy Blunt, whose committee oversees elections. “And if they have a case to make, there's a process where they make that and that processes is timely.”

Read CNN's fact check of Trump's remarks and election claims here.

2:54 p.m. ET, November 6, 2020

Why the huge rise in pre-Election Day voting has affected who is leading in key states 

From CNN's Marshall Cohen

A woman deposits her ballot in an official ballot drop box on October 27 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
A woman deposits her ballot in an official ballot drop box on October 27 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mark Makela/Getty Images

Since the beginning of the pandemic, supporters of Democratic nominee Joe Biden have shown a strong preference for mail-in voting. Most of President Trump's supporters said they wanted to vote on Election Day. States count these different types of votes in very different ways.

As a result, in key states where a winner is yet to be called — like Pennsylvania — Biden now has a growing lead over Trump as more ballots are counted.

This isn't a sign of fraud or irregularities. Rather, it's just a reflection of how states count votes. Some states processed early ballots first, while others saved them for last.

This phenomenon, known as the "blue shift," is common in recent US elections and it's a big reason why Trump, despite election law, has argued that whoever appears to have won on Election Night should be crowned the winner.

That's not the way it works, of course. Ballots in North Carolina and Pennsylvania can arrive in the days after Election Day as long as they have a November 3 postmark.

In Pennsylvania, election officials couldn't do anything with early ballots until Election Day. Some counties didn't even pick them up until the day after Election Day.

 Read more here

2:25 p.m. ET, November 6, 2020

Judge orders segregation of some provisional ballots in Pennsylvania

From CNN's Katelyn Polantz and Laura Jarrett

A state judge in Pennsylvania has ordered the separation of provisional ballots, to set aside those voters who cast defective absentee ballots used to make sure their vote counted.

It's unknown at this time how many of Pennsylvania's provisional ballots this might effect.

The judge signaled there may be additional orders later, and the order sets up the potential for more court fights over the cured votes by provisional ballot.

 

2:00 p.m. ET, November 6, 2020

It's 2 p.m. ET. Here's who is leading in 5 key states that could decide the presidency.

Votes are still being counted in several key states, and the race for the White House is still too close to call.

CNN is yet to make a projection in six states. Neither Joe Biden nor President Trump have received the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

If Biden wins Pennsylvania, he's over the 270 electoral vote threshold. According to CNN's latest projections, Biden has 253 electoral votes to Trump's 213.

Here's a look at where things stand in five key states we're watching right now:

1:30 p.m. ET, November 6, 2020

Sources close to the White House say some officials are beginning to quietly back away from Trump

From CNN's Jim Acosta

Sources close to the White House said some senior officials inside the White House and the campaign are beginning to quietly back away from Trump, in acts of self-preservation, as the returns in Pennsylvania and Georgia indicate the President will not win reelection. 

"It's over," one key adviser to the administration said of the race. The adviser went on to say there are concerns about what Trump will do, beyond the question of whether he will concede the race.  

"God. Who knows," the adviser said when asked what Trump might do next, conceding there were multiple officials in the campaign and the White House who were shaking their heads after Trump's litany of false statements Thursday evening in the White House briefing room.  

Some in the campaign, the adviser said, questioned the Trump team's decision to dispatch the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Trump's sons to make unfounded allegations of voter fraud, arguing that likely diminished the president's claims of wrongdoing. The adviser said Trump is well within his rights to contest the election results but is going about it in exactly the wrong way.

A separate adviser to the campaign described Trump as increasingly isolated in his claims of a stolen election. "He is mostly alone here," the adviser said of Trump's claims of voter fraud. 

The sources noted, however, there are still some aides and allies around the president telling him what he wants to hear. That will keep the drama going, the sources added.

One pressure point for Trump is that some in the administration are already beginning to look beyond the 2020 race and toward 2024. One adviser said some inside the administration and the GOP are starting to measure their actions based on ambitions for the next campaign cycle. 

More details: